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FOOD
How processed
is your food?
Why UPFs are ruining our health.
These are all
designed by very
smart scientists
to be highly
delicious, easy to
eat and as close
to addictive as
possible.
Those with any interest at
all in nutrition and have
been conscious over the
past five years or so are no
doubt aware of a torrent of literature
blaming a lot of health woes on
ultraprocessed foods (UPFs).
In an opinion piece by American
MD F. Perry Wilson, he states that,
"For the most part, such people
would have a pretty good sense of
whether they were ultra-processed
or not. For example, the classic
[American] Oscar Mayer wiener
(hotdog sausage) is ultra-processed
as it contains multiple additives like
sodium lactate, dextrose, glucose, as
well as 'mechanically separated meat.'
"In contrast, a handful of almonds
is not ultra-processed. In fact, on
the standard NOVA processing scale
- which goes from a score of 1 for
unprocessed or minimally processed
foods to 4 (ultra-processed) - a
handful of almonds is a 1. However,
most almond milks are technically
ultra-processed foods, whereas most
regular milk isn't. In other words,
ultra-processed doesn't always mean
less healthy. But for the most part,
ultra-processed foods are worse
for us than their less-processed
alternatives.
New tool available
"Up until now, deciding what foods
are ultraprocessed was somewhat
subjective. However, there's a
new tool available that takes the
guesswork out of this process. It will
be crucial for researchers, but also
for consumers trying to eat lessprocessed
foods. That's because in
general, ultra-processed foods are
really bad for you, but maybe not
entirely for the reason we think.
"Giulia Menichetti and colleagues,
writing in Nature Food, have
developed a machine-learning model
that can ingest any ingredient list -
like the kind that appears on virtually
every packaged item you buy in the
grocery store - and spit out a food
processing (FPro) score that tells us
exactly how processed this specific
food is.
"The main reason ultra-processed
foods are so bad for us is that they
are simply easier to eat. Their
additives include chemicals to
keep the food fresh longer - so it
stays soft if it's supposed to be soft,
and crunchy if it's supposed to be
crunchy. They add salts, spices, and
oils that are tasty. Grains will have
been stripped of fibre so that they
are easier to chew and have what is
considered to be a better 'mouthfeel'.
These are all designed by very smart
scientists to be highly delicious,
easy to eat and as close to addictive
as possible.
Real food
"So, while we can use FPro scores
to choose the better options for us
within a food category - the lessprocessed
cheesecake over the
more-processed cheesecake - but
the problem is that the healthier one,
the one with the lower score, may
not taste as good. We need to learn
to be okay with that. This is how we
break the cycle of ultra-processed
foods. We have to learn to enjoy food
that doesn't smack us straight in the
tastebuds the moment it goes in our
mouths, that doesn't give a dopamine
rush just from the smell alone. We
have to learn to love real food again."
To find out more, CLICK HERE.