Ultra-processed food linked to 32 harmful effects to health, review finds

[maryjaneholland]

Ultra-processed food (UPF) is directly linked to 32 harmful effects to health, including a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, adverse mental health and early death, according to the world’s largest review of its kind.

Ultra-processed food linked to 32 harmful effects to health, review finds

World’s largest review finds direct associations with higher risks of cancer, heart disease and early death

www.theguardian.com

The Guardian Health Article written by Andrew Gregory - Health Editor

Therefore, the EU declaring all non-food UPF ingredients to be quote "safe and non-toxic" needs to be fully reviewed and not accepted as factually accurate any longer IMHO

 

[Eddy Edson]

The paper: https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310

 

[JITR]

I read the body has little or no defence against foods combining sugars/carbs with fat. They become addictive. Many branded food products with UPF ingredients exploit this weakness. Avoid or enjoy?

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Therefore, the EU declaring all non-food UPF ingredients to be quote "safe and non-toxic" needs to be fully reviewed and not accepted as factually accurate any longer IMHO

Have you seen some of the some of the studies posted by @Eddy Edson about Ultra Processed Foods vs Hyper Palatable Foods @maryjaneholland ? I think you might find those really interesting.

The highly engineered foods that are designed to trigger the pleasure-centres in the brain, seem different to, say, a can of chopped tomatoes with an acidity regulator in them (which I think count as UPF by some definitions).

I’m really glad there’s a lot of work going into both UPF and HPF, as instinctively they seem to be major factors in the changes in the ‘food landscape’ that have coincided with the increase in levels of overweight and obesity worldwide.

 

[Docb]

Can I make my usual plea for a bit of balance in this sort of thing?

The amount of processing that goes on in a bull to turn blades of grass into succulent, nutrient steaks is far more ultra than anything the chemists in their lab can dream up.

Also, could it be that people are fundamentally gullible and the increase in levels of overweight and obesity are more due to the ease with which people with settled incomes can be persuaded to eat too much, ultra processed or not?

Just saying and ducks below parapet.

 

[Kernow-Debra]

I read the Guardian piece this morning.
Very alarming and also interesting that none of the research was funded by the food industry!

The food industry has a lot to answer for and seems to be totally unchecked.
I have found my new diet/ lifestyle has whilst done wonders for my Type 2 and overall health, has done serious damage to my bank balance!

I fear so many people now have only the cheap UPF option to feed their families, which is a catastrophic health issue waiting to happen.

 

[Kernow-Debra]

Can I make my usual plea for a bit of balance in this sort of thing?

The amount of processing that goes on in a bull to turn blades of grass into succulent, nutrient steaks is far more ultra than anything the chemists in their lab can dream up.

Also, could it be that people are fundamentally gullible and the increase in levels of overweight and obesity are more due to the ease with which people with settled incomes can be persuaded to eat too much, ultra processed or not?

Just saying and ducks below parapet.

For the sake of some balance, I agree with people on settled incomes, but what about the people on low incomes?
Fresh whole food and preparation of it with huge utility bills undoubtably costs considerably more.

The microwave and Air fryer are cheap to run and great for UPF cheap food.

I’ll duck below the parapet too now !
Not saying the microwave and Air fryer are bad things per se

 

[Docb]

No problem @Kernow-Debra but I am surprised that your changes in lifestyle and diet have done serious damage to your bank balance. I don't think it has to.

Also, the air fryer in any one of its many guises, is perfect if you ignore all the grifters trying to sell you something special for air frying, and are used as small ovens to cook conventional food. Add a pressure cooker, a single hot plate and microwave for reheating stuff, and you can get a complete cooking set up in a fraction of the space taken up by a "conventional" cooking arrangement. Might be tricky to service a dinner party for eight but when cooking for one or two you can cook anything.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Have you seen some of the some of the studies posted by @Eddy Edson about Ultra Processed Foods vs Hyper Palatable Foods @maryjaneholland ? I think you might find those really interesting.

The highly engineered foods that are designed to trigger the pleasure-centres in the brain, seem different to, say, a can of chopped tomatoes with an acidity regulator in them (which I think count as UPF by some definitions).

I’m really glad there’s a lot of work going into both UPF and HPF, as instinctively they seem to be major factors in the changes in the ‘food landscape’ that have coincided with the increase in levels of overweight and obesity worldwide

Kevin Hall's major HPF/UPF/energy density trial (see eg https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/threads/hyper-palatable-food.105531/#post-1249501 ) was supposed to be wrapping up about now but was recently extended for 12 months. Dunno why! I was looking forward to the results.

 

[Gwynn]

What if food producers started out making good wholesome food but then had the problem of shelf life to extend as the supermarkets emerged and then the problem of creating higher profits for the shareholders whilst driving prices down (really?). What if they lost their way and then tried to make the cheapest food for consumers whilst maintaining their political support regardless of what the food really became. What if they really now believe that what they are producing is good, if not excellent?

What if more and more people understand less and less about nutrition, food and cooking and the obvious answer then becomes well supplied, easy to obtain, easy to feed, UPFs. Could it be an education problem in the schools and at home? Who has time to cook now-a-days?

Maybe supermarkets were not such a good idea? Maybe they were inevitable.

But then, how do you feed a constantly growing population especially as more and more may be strggling to feed their families?

I think I'll hide with the ducks under the parapet.

 

[nonethewiser]

Well can't deny that I eat UPF, same with other processed food as tea coffee milk yogurt meat products come under that category, so one way or another think we all consume processed food to certain degree.

IMO it's about balance, of course some members of society can only eat what they can afford to get by on.

 

[harbottle]

Can I make my usual plea for a bit of balance in this sort of thing?

The amount of processing that goes on in a bull to turn blades of grass into succulent, nutrient steaks is far more ultra than anything the chemists in their lab can dream up.

Also, could it be that people are fundamentally gullible and the increase in levels of overweight and obesity are more due to the ease with which people with settled incomes can be persuaded to eat too much, ultra processed or not?

Just saying and ducks below parapet.

That comparison is completely missing the point, IMHO.

This is about 'Ultra' processed foods, not food that has been through some natural process (Which is what happens in a bull eating grass, and also happens with some food that is 'processed', including stuff that is cooked or fermented). It means using chemicals that aren't normally naturally found in or used when preparing food - things like emulsifiers, sweeteners, colourings, etc. Bull's stomachs don't add emulsifiers to the grass to turn it into meat... (And adding this sort of stuff to plant/animal based food changes how it interacts with the human body.)

 

[JITR]

... of course some members of society can only eat what they can afford to get by on.

Dr David Unwin, whose Norwood Surgery has guided 130+ people into T2D remission eating wholesome food, was asked about that at a recent Public Health Collaboration conference (recording YouTube). He said, we asked them about that. Their answer was savings on junk food paid for what they were eating now.

 

[nonethewiser]

Dr David Unwin, whose Norwood Surgery has guided 130+ people into T2D remission eating wholesome food, was asked about that at a recent Public Health Collaboration conference (recording YouTube). He said, we asked them about that. Their answer was savings on junk food paid for what they were eating now.

Well done that man, is he more towards a plant based approach?

Not sure if you mean wholefoods rather than wholesome, either way things like fruit veg meat isn't cheap, did shopping this morning & both cabbage & turnip were 80p, cucumber 90p bananas same price, similar veggies & fruit same or more expensive.

Bought mince for tea tonight that was near enough £5, same with 4 chicken breasts & that was on other, you can buy large frozen pizza for under £1 so can see why people opt for junk when money is tight.

Making spag bol tonight, usually add beef oxo & splash of Worcester sauce, looking at ingredients they would be classed as upf as they have fair few ingredients, even tomato puree had 4 so its surprising how many staples could be classed as upf.

 

[JITR]

Well done that man, is he [David Unwin] more towards a plant based approach?

The next question was, What do you eat? He said, Last night, I had a pack of lamb mince. As my wife was out, I ate it ou of the frying pan!

In general his advice is to eat high density nutritious foods - simple as that. Sounds like he has taken a leaf out of Zoe Harcombe's diet books. Not surprising as they are both involved with Public Health Collaboration.

Referring to the topic of this thread, one of her rules is don't buy food with traffic light signals on the packaging.

FYI Harcombe Diet article (scroll down to 7 added links to handy summaries and guides:
https://diabetes-type2-remission.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-harcombe-diet-how-to-eat-your.html

 

[nonethewiser]

The next question was, What do you eat? He said, Last night, I had a pack of lamb mince. As my wife was out, I ate it ou of the frying pan!

Nowt wrong with that blokes appetite, blimey whole pack to himself.

Like lamb mince but wouldn't eat it on its own, much prefer meals to be balanced with veggies included, maybe he doesn't practice what he preaches to his patients lol

Doubt that many on breadline could afford lamb mince but then not everyone is on a Drs salary.

 

[maryjaneholland]

For balance, I'm not qualified nutritionist/dietician/academic, but here's the most relevant part of the European Food Safety Authority website regarding food additives classified as "E" numbers, and we first met when as a child I had an extreme food allergy reaction to liquorice allsorts packed full of "E" numbers identifying artificial colours, flavours, preservatives, sweeteners, emulsifiers and thickeners, and when researched, it transpired the worst culprit for sensitive kids was "sunset yellow" food colouring which made some children hyperactive and breakout in red skin rashes like hives/eczema/dermatitis back in the 1990's a long long time ago far far away in the distant past...

Food additives

Food additives are substances added intentionally to foodstuffs to perform certain technological functions, for example to colour, or to help preserve foods.

www.efsa.europa.eu

 

[Robin]

it transpired the worst culprit for sensitive kids was "sunset yellow" food colouring which made some children hyperactive and breakout in red skin rashes like hives/eczema/dermatitis back in the 1990's a long long time ago far far away in the distant past...

I had to watch food colourings carefully, as E102 and E110 (tartrazine and Sunset Yellow) made my son hyperactive and exacerbated my daughter's eczema. Haven’t seen them in anything for years, but they are still alive and kicking in Australia. My (now adult) kids have just come back from a holiday there, where daughter was shocked to discover that the bottle of Fanta she’d just consumed continued Sunset Yellow.

 

[maryjaneholland]

@Robin sorry to hear about your daughter's experience of inadvertently consuming the dreaded "Sunset Yellow" and your description of the unpalatable discredited and potentially dangerous synthetic food additives being relegated to countries and markets with less stringent or diverging food safety standards to Western Europe sounds comparable to the way tobacco companies have shifted away from selling tobacco to pushing vaping nicotine in Western countries with anti-smoking legislation, but continue to market tobacco primarily in countries with no strict public health legislation discouraging tobacco use like many African countries.

Also, I originally stated my opinion about non-food additives such as synthetic gums/thickeners/emulsifiers/colours/preservatives/sweeteners which are produced in laboratories and don't exist in nature, and I understand that some vitamins like Vitamin E and Vitamin C are also food additives, but the race to the bottom for the food industry to make bigger profits using cheaper ingredients means in practice constant reformulations in food labs, so left unchecked this could mean in future even more highly refined blends of finer particles of fats sugars and non-food additives which when consumed regularly may cause spikes in blood glucose levels and may make our brains chemically crave those engineered formulations, even when we know they are unhealthy, as the food industry clearly does not care about the health of consumers, and supermarkets don't care about the wellbeing of their customers where loyalty cards may as well mean discounts on the UPF junkfoods they already know create strong cravings and repeat customers.

Best solutions I know of and use are supporting local independent food stores such as grocers, market stalls, cash & carry retailers, or alternatively buying in bulk from online retailers as the tiny snack packs and single items in supermarkets of say dried fruit, nuts, seeds, wholefoods, international foods like coconut milk and health foods supermarkets label as "free from" so organic, fairtrade, gluten-free, vegan usually in sad neglected corner are all available from food distributors as cases or bulk boxes for cheaper single item price, I admit we are spoilt in popular urban area like Manchester where the Curry Mile near my home boasts global cuisines and exotic food staples from authentic Asian cash & carry stores run by families along same stretch of twenty minute walk close to Universities, but I'm basically saying shop around and look it up online, maybe Diabetes UK could help to produce healthy whole foods resources to assist everyone in moving away from supermarket diets which are actually slowly killing us in the absence of any government regulation? Food for thought...

 

[Jinty2001]

No problem @Kernow-Debra but I am surprised that your changes in lifestyle and diet have done serious damage to your bank balance. I don't think it has to.

Also, the air fryer in any one of its many guises, is perfect if you ignore all the grifters trying to sell you something special for air frying, and are used as small ovens to cook conventional food. Add a pressure cooker, a single hot plate and microwave for reheating stuff, and you can get a complete cooking set up in a fraction of the space taken up by a "conventional" cooking arrangement. Might be tricky to service a dinner party for eight but when cooking for one or two you can cook anything.

An air fryer is just an electric ring and fan.