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Originally Posted by WereBear
Because this system is not meant to inform. It is designed to confuse. Then they can point to the bits of truth in their argument, like the bits of fish in fish fingers, and claim they are explaining and we are the ones who are confused.
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I think that Monteiro did the whole issue a disservice when he terms nutritionally deficient grocery products "ultra processed foods", especially since his concern was that people were buying less
sugar, flour, and oil so they were doing less home cooking - those 3 ingredients are already highly processed.
So the very terminology he chose to describe junk food has confused the issue, and given the junk food apologists all the ammunition they need to make it sound like their products are just as nutritionally sound as unadulterated meat, fish, eggs, veggies, and fruit.
We've mentioned repeatedly that it makes no sense if we can make a batch of cookies from the same ingredients used for store-bought cookies - but the home-baked cookies are not considered ultra-processed, while the store bought cookies are considered to be ultra-processed.
Now the whole issue is conflated around whether factory processing is really that much worse than home processing.
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Processing is something we do every day - chopping, boiling and freezing are all processes, and those things aren’t harmful. And when food is processed at scale by manufacturers, it helps to ensure the food is safe, preserved for longer and that waste is reduced.
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The problem is that the article goes way too far in trying to label something like fish fingers as a healthy food.
And then there was this:
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And this raises the questions: how helpful is a label that puts chocolate bars in the same league as tofu? Could some UPFs affect us differently to others?
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Not that I consider tofu to be truly healthy, but as a processed food, it doesn't come anywhere near to the amount of processing required to produce chocolate bars.
The history of food processing is a big part of the confusion that the term Ultra-Processed Food provokes:
Sausages have been a diet staple in many parts of the world for thousands of years, but now since they're mostly factory produced, suddenly they're a modern ultra-processed food to be avoided. (At least part of this is due to the fat and sodium content, but the very fact it's made from meat is considered to a mark against it now too)
Tofu (bean curd) has been a staple in far Eastern diets for thousands of years, but unless you make it at home, it's considered to be a UPF. (but apparently it gets a pass to be considered a healthy UPF, since it's vegan)
The only significant differences between the sausages and tofu of today and the ones that were produced thousands of years ago is that now they're usually made in factories, packaged in plastic, and with a brand name label (complete with nutrition) attached to the packages.