Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report.
UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both.
UPFs, which are widely available worldwide, are food products that have been industrially manufactured, often using emulsifiers or artificial colouring and flavours. The category includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits.
There are similarities in the production processes of UPFs and cigarettes, and in manufacturers’ efforts to optimise the “doses” of products and how quickly they act on reward pathways in the body, according to the paper from researchers at Harvard, the University of Michigan and Duke University.
One of the authors, Prof Ashley Gearhardt of the University of Michigan, a clinical psychologist specialising in addiction, said her patients made the same links: “They would say, ‘I feel addicted to this stuff, I crave it – I used to smoke cigarettes [and] now I have the same habit but it’s with soda and doughnuts. I know it’s killing me; I want to quit, but I can’t.’”
How the fuck do you expect to get kids to eat salad when the salad dressing is locked behind a counter with the cigarettes?
The problem is that “ultra-processed foods” is too broad to be meaningful. Also the fact that, you know, some amount of personal choice is essential to a free society.
When I was an italian kid, I have never had problems eating salads with no ultra-processed dressing.
I’m sure that’s because of choices that your parents made and nothing to do with living in an area with high population density and easy access to fresh food.
Mmm olive oil
it is not ultra-processed, it is just processed.
Eh. That’s the thing with UPF, it doesn’t really have a definition. There’s a whole lot of transformation that’s happened to make olive oil - quite possibly more than whatever American-style dressing.
Spoken like someone who doesn’t understand neuroscience.
Please, explain to me how Cheerios are addictive and need to be banned.
That’s kind of loaded. Banned is a strong word but, Cheetos specifically were not only engineered to be addictive, but Frito-Lay isn’t even shy about admitting that.most of the snacks you find in the middle aisles are. Soda included.
They said Cheerios, not Cheetos. Tbf tho some of the flavored Cheerios are kind of addictive.
No, Cheerios. The heart-healthy cereal that people give to infants. That’s an “ultra-processed food”, because the phrase is bullshit.
Learn about how the human body processes carbohydrates. Then learn about what a truly “normal” amount of carbohydrates for a human to consume on a daily, weekly, annual basis is. Finally, compare that amount of “normal” carbs to the amount in a single bowl of Cheerios. Subtract the dietary fiber involved if you need precision. But the basic comparison is so obviously skewed that the dietary fiber part of the calculation is barely more than a rounding error.
Cheerios don’t need “banning” for any of the reasons we prohibit or control the sale of truly hazardous or life-threatening materials. Nobody said that is what is needed. Overconsumption of carb-heavy foods like Cheerios are bad for our health on a time scale measured in years or decades. Drinking drano is bad for your health on a time scale measured in seconds. Don’t get it twisted. Nobody’s treating eating cheerios like drinking drano. Insinuating such a thing is happening is simply incorrect and not a valid argument.
Humans need to eat more green things and eat less carbs. We need companies that serve human needs to truly serve the real human needs, not lie about the exploitable bugs in human cognition, pretend they’re “needs”, and try to say there’s nothing wrong with encouraging people to over-consume to the point of morbid obesity just to pump the shareholders’ stocks a few cents higher.
That’s the basic message. Humanity is more important than profit margins.
Yeah, and no one is saying that either.
We all agree people need to eat healthier. Targeting “ultra-processed foods” is a stupid way to accomplish that. It would backfire completely, and cause more problems than it would solve.
Then let’s hear your genius, sure-fire, guaranteed-to-work idea that’s been built on high-quality research and rigorous data collection methodology.
You clearly don’t know how ridiculously stupid the entire food labeling regulations process is. All because CEOs refuse to do reasonable, rational things that are better for human beings than their stock price.
The problem here isn’t the regulations. The problem is the failure to recognize that every regulation is written in somebody’s blood. So, how many people is the “right” number of people who need to die of preventable causes before we conclusively say “maximizing addictive properties in food” is no longer a business practice we’re willing to accept as a nation? Do 100 people need to die? Thousands? Do you need to see millions of dead bodies piled up end-over-end like cord wood before you recognize that, gosh golly gee, maybe we should listen to scientific opinions over corporatist scumbag opinions?
There are places that don’t have easy access to fresh food. You want people to die of preventable causes? Let’s ban the bread they make their fucking sandwiches with, because other people are shortsighted and privileged enough to think that the only reason anyone doesn’t choose whole-grain, small-batch, artisinal bread is because white bread is “ultra-processed”, so it must be addictive.
By the same token, banning Cheerios would be a great way to make sure a bunch of kids are malnourished.
Apply a little reading comprehension to this extremely scientific article and see how they’re dancing around the fact that “ultra-processed” isn’t synonymous with “unhealthy”. Phrases like “includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits” are clearly manipulative language meant to gloss over the fact that the category includes those things but is not limited to them.
Anyway, here are some better ideas: a four day work week and expanding work-from-home so that people actually have time to make healthy choices. Or how about better funding for school lunches, with an emphasis on variety so that kids can be exposed to more foods, giving them the tools to make healthier choices later in life.
There are so many ways we could try to improve this situation, and blanket bans is by a wide margin the most idiotic.
Why do they need to eat salad? Or do you think that’s the only healthy food?
If you want to follow a Mediterranean diet, yes, salad is a very healthy food that you should eat weekly
It was an example of how fucking stupid this idea is.
Why would you even buy a readymade dressing? Salad dressing is dead simple to make.
Sure if you’re just making Italian or Russian dressing. If you want thousand island or caesar, you need more than a basic pantry. Also the time and energy/motivation, which a lot of people don’t have.
That’s why I have my own olive trees, chicken farm, lemon orchard, anchovy fishery, and a dairy farm in Parma
I don’t know why anyone would buy readymade olive oil, eggs, lemon juice, anchovies, or Parmesan, they’re dead simple to make
The first two dressings you listed are much healthier than the latter two. If I’m eating a salad, I don’t need to put a caloric dressing on it.
No, you don’t need to. But it makes it a lot more palatable.
Edit: also, there’s very little caloric or nutritional difference between russian and thousand island
Only to people who eat way too much sugar.