The philosopher Aristotle taught that moderation was essential to the virtuous life. This is a lesson that we all grasp intuitively. A couple of drinks with your friends on a Friday night is perfectly fine; finishing 12 beers on a Tuesday night alone is alcoholism. I could go on, but you get the idea: avoid extremes and chances are you can get through this life just fine.
Unfortunately, many nutrition researchers seem to have bypassed the undergraduate philosophy, because they can’t help but think in extremes. Consider this recent story from The Conversation: Ultra-processed foods: it is not only their low nutritional value that is of concern:
Many of us are well aware that ultra-processed foods are bad for our health. But it has not been clear whether this is simply because these foods have low nutritional value. Now, two new studies have shown that poor nutrition may not be enough to explain its health risks. This suggests that other factors may be necessary to fully explain its health risks.
It’s not clear who “many of us” are, but I’m not among them and neither should you be. Foods that people consider “ultra-processed” are perfectly safe to eat and often quite nutritious. Claims to the contrary are based more on food snobbery than science.
What are “ultra-processed” foods?
It is an ill-defined synonym for “bad”, widely used by academics and journalists who do not take responsibility for its imprecise language. Even a cursory examination of “ultra-processed” foods confirms how useless the term isFood: Pasteurized vitamin-enriched milk or juice, cereals with added nutrients, canned tuna, and even deli meats are “highly processed,” though they’re obviously not harmful when eaten in moderation.
Whole milk, for example, is loaded with nutrients that young children need; pediatricians recommend routinely It is for children ages 1 and up. In contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics warn parents that raw “unprocessed” (unpasteurized) milk can make children very sick.
A myth based on bad science
It just doesn’t make sense to classify so many diverse foods and beverages based on the amount of processing they undergo. What evidence does The Conversation have to challenge this common sense conclusion? The author pointed to two studies:
the first studythat analyzed more than 20,000 [sic] Italian adults found that participants who ate the most ultra-processed foods had a higher risk of dying prematurely from any cause. the second studywhich analyzed more than 50,000 US male health professionals, found that a high consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with an increased risk of colon cancer.
We don’t have time to go through both documents in detail, but let’s look briefly at the first. The dietary data in the study was self-reported by all 20,000 participants, making numbers useless. People do not accurately report what and how much they eat in these surveys. epidemiologists know this; Some i even asked colleagues to give up this useless study design, yet more such observational reports are making headlines every week. More specifically, the questionnaire used in this paper:
“…was not originally developed to assess the degree of food processing, so many foods (eg, ready meals, energy bars, weight loss products) were not included.”
This means that participants were unable to accurately report “cooking methods, ingredients, where to eat, and brands of packaged foods.” In other words, the authors couldn’t even examine the variables that would allow them to assess the health impacts of consuming processed foods. The question then arises, why did the researchers use an inappropriate tool for the study they conducted? beats me. Whatever the answer, the data in this document is not reliable.
Back to the conversation:
Many studies have found that poor diets can increase inflammation in the body and that this is linked to increased risk of chronic diseases. Since signs of inflammation were seen in the Italian study participants who ate the most ultra-processed foods, this could suggest that inflammation may contribute to ultra-processed foods increasing disease risk.
This is true up to a point. Eating too much can cause weight gain and inflammation, which increases your risk of a variety of nasty diseases. See Dr. Chuck Dinerstein’s excellent article explaining fat Learn more. But consuming too much “raw” or “unprocessed” sugar will make obese and diabetic as easily as drinking too many sodas. Once again, processing is not the problem. “There is no direct linear relationship between processing and the nutritional value of food”, Dr. Dinerstein has explained elsewhere.
Gastronomic snobbery everywhere
Today’s victim culture bothers me. Although if there is one attitude anyone should find offensive, it is the kind of food snobbery routinely exhibited by nutrition experts, and conversation partners:
Simply reducing your intake of ultra-processed foods can be challenging. Ultra-processed foods are designed to be very tasty, and coupled with persuasive marketing, this can make resisting them an enormous challenge for some people.
You see, silly fool, you are not a rational adult capable of making healthy decisions. You are a victim, and a fool at that, whose self-control has been countered by the intense flavor profile of Doritos. Color me skeptical.
The evidence does not support the rhetoric of the Conversation here. When you give obese patients drugs to reduce their interest in “hyper-wordy” foods, it works, but they do not lose weight. Studies have also shown time and again that simple behavioral changes (weighing food, planning meals, etc.) help people lose weight and keep it off. many americans I have done despite easy access to cheap and delicious calories on every corner.
That’s a long way of saying that the “ultra-processed” meme must die. It is a condescending and simplistic response to a complex public health problem. The sooner we give up, the better off we are.
