Consuming large amounts of ultra-processed food (UPF) increases the risk of an early death, according to a international study that has reignited calls for a crackdown on UPF.
Each 10% extra intake of UPF, such as bread, cakes and ready meals, increases someone’s risk of dying before they reach 75 by 3%, according to research in countries including the US and England.
UPF is so damaging to health that it is implicated in as many as one in seven of all premature deaths that occur in some countries, according to a paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
They are associated with 124,107 early deaths in the US a year and 17,781 deaths every year in England, the review of dietary and mortality data from eight countries found.
Each 10% extra intake of UPF, such as bread, cakes and ready meals, increases someone’s risk of dying before they reach 75 by 3%, according to research in countries including the US and England.
Was a bit surprised to see bread there, as it’s been a staple of many cultures’ cuisines for millennia. Did a quick search, and got some clarity in this list - “mass-produced packaged bread” is UPF, not the stuff you make from scratch or perhaps pick up from the local bakery.
A relief, actually, as I just took a loaf of sourdough out of the oven and was waiting for it to be cool enough to slice into. This article took the shine off the experience for a moment there 😅
Yeah the typical American stuff is like 10% sugar, packed with additives like emulsifiers and preservatives, and anything that makes the production processes cheaper and faster, made from bleached flour and has most of the fibre stripped out.
If your bread is made from flour, water, salt and yeast its processed food not UPF.
The supermarket bread that looks and feels like a squeaky toy. Best to avoid that one.
Enjoy that sourdough!! I have always wanted to get into baking bread. I will eventually get there someday. The semolina my local bakery makes is 😗🤌 i love bread
I’m sure the actual paper defines this better, but without a definition of what puts something in this category, it’s not useful.
Even for bread, is it all bread? Is it added gluten? Is it a specific preservative? Is it only bread with bleached flour?
Even so, mass produced and packaged is not the actual contributor…
Same with prepared food… Costco makes prepared food that is equivalent to what you’d make at home. It’s that still bad? If not, what other prepared food is fine?
The food industry is going to go through the same rebuke that the tobacco industry went through only bigger.
Should go through, but it won’t.
Tobacco? Should have gone through, but it didn’t.
What’s going to be the upf equivalent of vapes?
Wraps.
Yeah, but it’s delicious and makes me feel good and I don’t want to be 90 anyway. Wait, smokers say that. Shit.
Is there a link to the actual study? The American Journal link seems to be a different one, and that one has a massive list of types of items classified as UPF (check Appendix A, Table 1), so it’s hard to identify what the causal factor(s) are.
Here’s a link to the journal website with a search for ultra-processed food.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/search?qs=ultra-processed+food
The NOVA classifications are difficult to work with, and I think the trend of certain nutrition scientists (and the media that reports on those scientists’ work) have completely over-weighted the value of the “ultra processed” category.
The typical whole grain, multigrain bread sold at the store qualifies as ultra-processed, in large part because whole grain flour is harder to shape into loaves than white flour, and manufacturers add things like gluten to the dough. Gluten, of course, already “naturally” exists in any wheat bread, so it’s not exactly a harmful ingredient. But that additive tips the loaf of bread into ultra processed (or UPF or NOVA category 4), same as Doritos.
But whole grain bread isn’t as bad for you as Doritos or Coca Cola. So why do these studies treat them as the same? And whole grain factory bread is almost certainly better for you than the local bakery’s white bread (merely processed food or NOVA category 3), made from industrially produced white flour, with the germ and bran removed during milling. Or industrially produced potato chips, which are usually considered simply processed foods in category 3 when not flavored with anything other than salt, which certainly aren’t more nutritious or healthier than that whole wheat bread or pasta.
If specific ingredients are a problem, we should study those ingredients. If specific combinations or characteristics are a problem, we should study those combinations. Don’t throw out the baby (healthy ultra processed foods) with the bathwater (unhealthy ultra processed foods).
And I’m not even going to get into how the system is fundamentally unsuited for evaluating fermented, aged, or pickled foods, especially dairy.
Absolutely correct. This classification system points the finger at things that everyone (read: everyone who had a semblance of nutritional education) knows are bad for you, but then lumps in things like bread and cheese with them! So of course people who don’t know much better hear this, they’ll think “well if bread and cheese are just as bad for you as Cheetos, of course I’m getting the Cheetos, they’re delicious”.
I feel like this is an area of “science” that’s just a mish mash of various corporate lobbying.
If specific ingredients are a problem, we should study those ingredients. If specific combinations or characteristics are a problem, we should study those combinations. Don’t throw out the baby (healthy ultra processed foods) with the bathwater (unhealthy ultra processed foods).
We’ve been doing that for years, and the result on public health has been fad diets and “superfoods”. Focusing on ultra processed foods specifically calls out the obvious problem - we were significantly healthier before these foods were invented, and are less healthy after. The categories for processed-ness are necessarily arbitrary, since we have to decide what constitutes “processed”, and so sometimes relatively healthier food ends up appearing “worse” than less healthy food. But the end result is the headline above, which can be pointed to the hundred billion times it must be pointed to, in order to convince people that they should not eat a diet consisting of Doritos, mountain dew, slim jims, and ice cream.
Some bread is treated with stuff one would ordinarily not want to eat.
So why not focus on the foods containing that stuff, rather than the superficial resemblance of all foods that kinda look like the foods that contain that stuff?
Let’s say you have a problem with potassium bromate, a dough additive linked to cancer that remains legal in U.S. bread but is banned in places like Canada, the UK, the EU.
So let’s have that conversation about bromate! Let’s not lump all industrially produced breads into that category, even in countries where bromate has been banned.
Another cancerous item is sodium benzoate. I use it to make photos. It reacts with UV light in gelatin to cause the gelatin to harden up. That same effect is what give you cancer. Its the free radicals generated during UV exposure.
I switched from white bread to 100% whole grain about a decade ago after learning just how much better it was supposed to be. I wonder if it’s actually still pretty awful after reading this
No, it’s not. This refers to pre-packaged bread, e. g. white bread, toast etc. - the stuff you find in a supermarket shelf, full of preservatives and other additives.
There’s bread and there’s bread and there’s bread. All are highly processed, given the milling, kneading, fermentation, and baking required for bread, but there’s a huge gap between wonder bread and Russian black bread. I’d be very surprised if the latter is worse for you than bananas, a starch we eat with very little processing
I knew bad food was bad but this numbers are kind of jarring.
It’s a shame that bread and donuts are de facto considered ultra processed foods now. Done right, they totally aren’t.
Even done fast they could be better.
The Aerated Baking Company had bread close to as fast and cheap as the modern Chorleywood process, but it isn’t ultra-glutenous. They were also an early feminist icon.
It’s astonishing to me that scientists are using such unscientific terms like “ultra processed food”. What is it about these foods that is unhealthy?
It’s like saying “sports are dangerous” while including football and golf in your definition.
Scientists only use terms like ultra processed food after defining them in their scientific papers. The problem here is that the media find it difficult to write a short article for the general audience if they have to define things scientifically.
What specifically is bad about UPF foods is still being researched. A few leading ideas are:
- Very little fibre
- Starches are all immediately accessible to digestion and so blood glucose spikes much more than for the non-UPF equivalent
- UPF foods are soft and dry (so weigh less) making it very easy to eat a lot very fast, so you eat too many calories.
- Relatively high in salt and sugar
- Use of emulsifiers. These may change your gut microbiota and also make your gut more leaky causing inflammation
- Use of preservatives and artificial colours
- Frequently have a lot of oil
Low fibre, emulsifiers and preservatives, while lacking variety of phytochemicals found in fresh food is known to change your gut health. People on UPF diets tend to eat more and have higher blood glucose spikes leading to heart disease and diabetes.
Altogether this is a recipe for a shorter, less healthy life
Those are shit definitions that come from pop-science not real science. They’re so broad as to be functionally useless.
The NOVA classification system is “real” science, but in my opinion the arbitrary and vague definitions make it so that it’s not very good or very robust science.
“Very little fiber”, “Frequently have a lot of oil”, and “Relatively high in salt and sugar” aren’t a classification, they’re vibes.
“Use of Emulsifiers” is worthless. Eggs, garlic, and butter are emulsifiers.
NOVA is not about finding stuff out, it’s about creating a science-y sounding framework to replace the food pyramid.
Is UPF food with ultra high fibre bad? Is UPF with ultra high vitamin A bad?
Is UPF food with ultra high fibre bad?
I don’t know.
My thoughts are that your total daily intake is more important than considering any single food item. As such, having some UPF in your diet is ok. The problem becomes epidemiologically measurable when, like the UK and US, 60% of calories consumed by some demographics are from UPF food.
And there are almost certainly multiple different things ‘wrong’ with UPF and so if you fix one problem, you may still be at risk from another. For example in your question, there are a lot of studies showing the importance of fibre in the diet, including those that add bran to whatever the person normally eats. So UPF with lots of fibre, all things equal, is likely less bad than UPF without.
Is UPF with ultra high vitamin A bad?
Fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) are interesting in that they don’t show benefits above RDA, and in high doses cause a long list of nasty symptoms. In particular, vitamin A in excess is correlated with increased risk of multiple major diseases and even death.
There is no single definition of ultra-processed foods, but in general they contain ingredients not used in home cooking.
Many are chemicals, colourings and sweeteners, used to improve the food’s appearance, taste or texture.
Fizzy drinks, sweets and chicken nuggets are all examples. However, they can also include less obvious foods, including some breads, breakfast cereals and yoghurts.
A product containing more than five ingredients is likely to be ultra-processed, according to public health expert Prof Maira Bes-Rastrollo of the University of Navarra in Spain.
Ultra-processed foods are often high in salt, sugar and saturated fats. In the UK, look out for a “traffic light” label on the packaging.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_food
Thank you for the details - as you point out this is a functionally useless definition.
It reeks of “You know what I mean - that bad stuff”. And that’s not a good scientific definition.
A product containing more than five ingredients is likely to be ultra-processed
Curry is “ultra-processed” - you heard it hear first.
Like I said - “Sports are dangerous” is a very bad way to try to categorize risky activity. Golf and football are very different as are Curry and Twizzlers.
In this reply you you talked about “some breads”, the OP Post only talks about bread - and that for sure had only ingredients in using at home.
Same for French fries: potato, salt, fat .
I’m with the poor downvoted fellow, I don’t understand where the risk comes from when it’s described this vague.
Are home made burgers better? Is it the freezing process and I should lower my meal prep? Is it additives?
A product containing more than five ingredients is likely to be ultra-processed
Ugh. No. That amounts to saying “anything that contains five spice is ultra-processed”. Why do you hate Chinese cuisine.
The “not used in home cooking” rule of thumb is way better though you can certainly make absolutely filthy dishes at home. Home cooking also uses “chemicals, colouring and sweeteners”, and also home cooks care about appearance, taste, and texture.
What I’d actually be interested in is comparing EU vs. US standards UPC. EU products use colourings such as red beet extract, beta-carotene, stabilisers, gelling agents etc. like guar gum or arrowroot, when they use fully synthetic stuff then it’s generally something actually found in nature. Companies add ascorbic acid as antioxidant, grandma added a splash of lemon juice, same difference really.
A EU strawberry yoghurt which says “natural aroma” is shoddy, yes, you’re getting fewer strawberries and more strawberry aroma produced by fungi, but I’m rather sceptical when it comes to claims that it’s less healthy.
You say that like its a bad thing.
So we’re just doing “early death” as a cause of death now?
That hot dog bun and the cupcake with a head next to it are concerning
What about smoking, can you make a study on that too? /s
Actually it’s important to do these studies so that you have real proof, but man was the outcome not unexpected.
What is considered an ultra-processed food? Like… Cheese is processed (all cheese; it isn’t just found, it’s made by processing milk). Is it ultra processed? What about a hot dog?
It seems cheese just missed the mark for ultra status according to this specification I found on webMD.
a quick summarisation is that there are 4 groups:
- Unprocessed or minimally processed foods (berries, nuts etc).
- Processed culinary ingredients (oils, butter, sugars etc).
- Processed foods (cheese, bread. Stuff with 2+ ingredients).
- Ultra-processed food and drink products (preservatives, additives, all the bad -ives).
So I’m guessing a hot dog would be ultra processed due to preservatives and additives often found in the ‘meat’.
That was an interesting rabbit hole to go down. Feels as though what is considered ultra-processed by the experts, is what us laymen tend to refer to as processed foods. I suppose technically their terminology is correct (the best kind of correct ofc), but it just feels like an exaggeration due to everyday usage of the term being what it is.
Edit: formatting.
How is milk processed? It’s pasteurized, which means it’s heated to kill bacteria. Nothing is added to the milk … so no, it is NOT considered a ‘pprocessed’ food.
Firstly, pasteurisation is most definitely a process.
Secondly, it’s very unlikely you are buying milk which has only been pasteurised, it has very likely at least also been homogenised, after being mixed from various different sources in order to produce a mill standardised fat & milk solids. The vast majority of the time rather than just being blended, it has been centrifugally separated into fractions that are then recombined in order to create a standard product.
None of this is really bad, btw, but it is 100% processing.
Don’t forget to add in the vitamin D. Otherwise I won’t absorb enough calcium.
Unfortunately I don’t actually drink milk anymore. Maybe I get a gallon every few months.
It is highly processed.
It is grass that has gone through a cow.
Grass is highly processed.
It’s carbon dioxide, dihydrogen monoxide and photons that have gone through photosynthesis.
I’m just going to eat hydrogen from now on
Trophicmaxxing
I’m not sure about milk, but high temp heating is not something that occurs naturally. I am pretty sure heating kills both good and bad stuff so it chemically alters milks, even if minimally. If it is altered chemically or it’s nutrient profile changes or it goes through a process that doesn’t occur regularly, naturally in nature, I consider it processed.
Some form of processing is necessary to prevent disease, i am not against processed stuff to prevent disease.
Eating raw wheat seed, our body can’t absorb anything, eating powered wheat we still can’t absorb much nutrient. The moment we add water and heat and make bread, we break the cell walls, and now we can absorb most of the nutrients. It also raising the glycemic index of wheat.
I don’t consider fermented (decomposition) stuff like yogurt as processed since it can occur naturally, I just see it as a different food, like a seed is a food that can naturally become a plant that is also a food.
