Two things about ultra-processed food
1) It's not a scientific category. UPF refer to category 4 foods, under the NOVA classification system, which was proposed by some food researchers at the University of Sao Paulo almost 20 years ago, and it's wild that nobody has come up with anything better. Category 1 is raw stuff (olives), Category 2 is minimally processed (olive oil), Cat 3 is stuff you can easily make at home (say, basic olive oil cake), and Cat 4 is stuff made by food industry (a smoothie w/ whey protein ... or Lay's potato chips).
The evidence is weak to non-existent that UPFs are universally and intrinsically bad for you. Whole bread with one preservative, or thickened greek yogurt is "ultra-processed." A lot of UPFs are just fine.
2) There is one dominant reason why UPFs are bad for you. They get you to eat more calories. That's like 90% of the problem. Foods w/ higher caloric density are over-consumed bc eaters don't feel full. It's the "holy shit I can't believe I ate all those potato chips without thinking" effect. People tend to not mindlessly over-eat raw olives.
Nutrition is complicated, and there's a lot we don't know, but practically everything we know with a high degree of certainty points toward one conclusion: People in chronic caloric surplus gain weight. Eat fewer calories.
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Steven Pinker
@sapinker
I've always thought that the campaign against "ultra-processed" foods was mindless. What the heck does that even mean: the more things you do to food, the less healthy it is? New RCTs and analyses confirm that the stigma is meaningless (it's calories, fiber, & other causes, not
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