Part of the problem here is that the ultraprocessed foods the dietician chose were foods that were... pretty much normal foods that you could make at home - foods that have been made at home in various countries for hundreds (or even thousands) of years.

The other part of the problem is that they're painting all processed foods with the same brush. Aside from some extra sodium, the canned beans and canned soup are not really all that much different from the versions you'd prepare at home (meaning processed to make them edible). They are not comparable in any way to a diet of nutritionally vacant Oreos and Twinkies. The Trader Joe's ready to eat Tamales would essentially at least be nutritionally comparable to what you'd make at home.

Hall chooses frozen microwavable dinners that he feels meets his nutritional goals as closely as possible. Yes, a frozen dinner is obviously an ultra processed food - but a frozen meal that's made from actual food (meat, vegetables, and yes even some grains if you can tolerate them) is not in any way nutritionally comparable to a bowl of Lucky Charms or a candy bar.

Again, this goes back to the definition of what actually constitutes UPFs. IMO, NOVA should have never described UPFs as factory processed, packaged in plastic and some of the other arbitrary descriptors that have nothing at all to do with their nutritional value. Even some of the ingredients not normally found in home-made foods (preservatives, salt) were used in processed foods with no ill effects for most people for many decades before they were suddenly labeled as indicators of UPFs to be avoided.

Problematic UPFs have two factors inducing you to eat more: the addiction angle, and also the nutrient deficiency so that your body is screaming for those nutrients wherever it can get them - if the bowl of Froot Loops you had for breakfast has a maximum of 10% of some essential nutrients, and your body/brain connection recognizes Froot Loops as a source of those nutrients that it so desperately needs, then you're going to want 9 more bowls of it to get adequate amounts of those nutrients.

Personally, I think the whole terminology for UPF should be thrown out - it's more a matter of what's addictive, while also being very deficient nutritionally, rather than the processing itself.