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.’”
Concoctions involving naturally occurring carbonated spring water were/are definitely a thing. That’s actually where the commercial idea came from in the first place.
Have been around as long as sugar, which is longer than industrialisation.
Not sure about spam, but isn’t that just canned ham? People definitely do home canning. And, it sounds like Spam is considered a central part of traditional Hawaiian food at this point. Why do you hate Native Hawaiians??? /s
And none of them were really what we would call “soda”. Heck the closest to that would be modern root beer. But considering the lack of other “medicinal” herbs, they definitely don’t count.
A lot of candies, not all of them. Certain candies have emulsifiers and other ingredients that didn’t exist historically, so you couldn’t get that texture or such. And a lot of modern chewing gum is plastic, so I think I don’t have to explain why that’s not possible in the kitchen.
I actually read a book all about Spam once that they had in my school library, because I thought it was funny they had such a book. The name purportedly comes from the parts used: shoulder of pork and ham. It was therefore considered fancier than just ham.
But to make it, you’re not just canning the meats. You also need those preservatives for one thing - they’re part of the taste. I’m not sure celery powder would work as a substitute like it does for ham and bacon though.
Obviously nobody was making, but the dividing line is getting a lot less clear already. Why is a distillate of some cursed local herb fine, but fresh-squeezed cochineal dye not?
I actually have emusifiers in my kitchen, and I didn’t have to buy them anywhere weird. At this moment I have no idea if it’s more or less involved to make them than celery salt, which you mention, and which itself has to be industrial-era.
You probably can find a candy that would meet this bar, but at some point it’s less of a category and more of a meaningless list of a few very specific foods that are major diet constituents for very few people. I should say that the inconsistent, mishmash category of UPFs that exists does show evidence of being harmful, and there is a lot of work trying to pin down which part exactly. And which has given confusing results to date, I think this is the last thing I read on it before it was paywalled.
Just stopping to point out that’s not food, you aren’t supposed to swallow it. It’s about equally as close to candy as to a teething ring.
That question is called moving the goal posts. We were talking about soda, not something else.
That you bought an ingredient produced via industrial processes doesn’t negate that the ingredient was made with industrial processes. It’s not really a “traditional home cooked meal” if you’re still using something that requires extensive machinery or chemical processes to create - even if you didn’t create them in your kitchen.
Your argument on using the additives in your kitchen as a point that it’s not ultra processed anymore is equivalent to me buying chemistry supply and making some paracetamol and saying it’s not a pharmaceutical drug but more akin to a herbal remedy because I made it myself.
And yet it’s sold in the candy section and has calories via sugar. Weird that this is the one you were able to easily identify as ultra processed.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s conchineal in some sodas to make them red. It was honestly just the first food dye I thought of.
The issue with a soda is the ingredients, right? Otherwise it’s just mixing.
A coffee maker or airfryer is extensive machinery. And even cooking something over a primitive campfire would be a chemical process, so neither of these are really an obvious, airtight definition.
If you require a machine to be used to make ultraprocessed food to be extensive, than that’s called a No True Scotsman fallacy, or just circular reasoning.
Exactly. Where the process happens shouldn’t matter. I’m not making this conundrum up, right? Food researchers are struggling with it too.
You’re quoting “traditional homemade” a lot, so I’ll point out that the traditional part is itself relative. Unless it’s mammoth over a campfire it’s not going to go back forever. What is normal cooking like mama used to do, and what is scary frankenfood bioscience is perception.
You don’t remember much from what you read about Spam did you.
Spam was developed for the US Army during WW2 as a CHEAP way to get a lot of calories to soldiers at the front lines. It’s never been considered fancier than ham because Spam gets made from off cuts , scraps, and cheap cuts of the pig. It’s merely a cured unsmoked fatty pork paste with some spices added and then poured into a sealed can and pressure cooked.
The preservative you are so worried about is simply nitrated salt, commonly called Pink salt because it’s dyed pink to give you a fast visual warning that this ain’t table salt and should NOT be used for that EVER. Your local butcher shop will probably sell you some, (they might even just give you the couple of tablespoons you would need to cure the 5lbs of pork you just bought from them). Or you can just as easily order a pound of Pink salt from amazon like I do. Warning: a pound of it is a lot of curing salt, but I make 20lbs or more of bacon every year at home.
After you have the meat, all you need do is make you brine, (water, spices of your choice, and a table spoon or two of the Pink salt - how much depends on the size of your batch), and the patience to wait 4 or 5 days it takes for the magic happen. Then if you don’t want to pressure cook it while canning, you can slow cook your pork in the oven, then grind it into a fine paste adding whatever seasonings and spices you choose for more flavor, put it in freezer bags, (I use vacuum sealed bags), and freeze. You now have your own home made Spam…It’s not hard to do, just a bit time consuming while you wait.
Is it better than commercially made Spam? Most probably because you can make it taste the way YOU like it. And not how Hormel thinks it should taste. Recipes are just a goggle away and simple as all get out.
lips and assholes.
I’m going to just stop you right there.
I don’t understand how someone can go on a fucking tirade so ignorantly wrong these days when SEARCH ENGINES AND WIKIPEDIA EXIST. It takes less than a giving damn minute to fucking check yourself damn it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(food)
Spam literally existed before WW2.
PS: what you make is still not spam, nor will have the consistency of spam, although it will be similarish. I’ve cured my own meats too, except without the phosphates or nitrates, because I had dialysis.
uh, 24 months before WWII, and Hormel likely would have gone broke without WWII contracts.