In la-la land where anything derived from plants is automatically good for you, even when it clearly ticks every single box that identifies it as a UPF.

Things like oat milk, almond milk, and soy milk can actually be made at home It's not nearly the same as the commercially available ones because the homemade stuff won't have thickeners and flavorings and sugars in it unless you decide to add them to make a more milk-like product to pour on your corn flakes.

But that's part of the problem with real UPFs - they're so full of additives to make them like what they're supposed to replace that it's not remotely the same as what the homemade product would be like.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bes...ive-days-2024-8




As we've pointed out on here before, there's addictive UPF's that are the same as what you'd make an eat at home - some of them, like cookies or cake can be just as addictive whether made at home (and therefore not considered to be a UPF) or factory made (and therefore considered to be a UPF). The main difference would be the ability to just grab another package of cookies to eat, as opposed to going through the multi-step, and sometimes multi-hour process of needing to measure, mix, and bake another batch before you could even begin to satisfy that craving. When you need to do all that just to get another "fix", it takes so long that you can get to the point where you feel like it's not worth it to spend hours just to have a couple dozen cookies or another cake. (Especially if you need to go to the store and buy all those ingredients again before you can start another batch)

Then there's foods that meet several of the processing definitions of UPF's (factory processing, plastic packaging, label, mass produced) which do NOT have addictive qualities to them, such as a styrofoam tray with 3 or 4 fresh zucchinis, wrapped in plastic, with a label denoting the packaging plant, and another label with the weight, price per pound, and total price of the package, plain meat from a meat processing plant with similar labeling, plain yogurt in a plastic carton, or canned unsweetened applesauce. Those all tick enough of the boxes to make them fit the UPF profile - but none of them sparks the kind of addictive response and cravings that a package of pringles or a Big Mac can spark - and even if they do, there's such a long process involved in getting more of the homemade version of a can of pringles or Big Mac that it hardly seems worth the time and effort involved, especially compared to just grabbing 2 or 3 containers of pringles from the store next time so you can eat them more often, or swinging through the McD's drive in to pick up another Big Mac.

Since he was eating chips, fast food, and cake, he was eating foods that are designed to be inherently addictive on their own. He may have been consuming oodles more fat, salt, and sugar than usual, but that was because he was intentionally choosing UPFs that were high in sugar salt and fat - when clearly he could have been choosing highly nutritious foods (meats, vegs, fruits) that are processed and packaged in such a way that they could be considered UPF, but it's only an arbitrary term that has nothing to do with their nutritional quality.



Once again, I think the term UPF is doing us a serious disservice. Not everyone has access to a butcher shop that cuts all their own meat. We have a butcher counter in a local grocery store here that used to cut or weigh everything to your specification - and wrapped everything in butcher paper, writing the price on the butcher paper. They switched to plastic bags and a label printer for the pricing quite a few years back at the custom butcher counter, and added in a separate counter with the same meats pre-wrapped in their butcher shop and packaged on styrofoam trays with plastic wrapping, cut and pricing labels, which brings this a step closer to what would make that meat a UPF, but it's still the same cuts of meat and handled the same way. The packaging involved is not changing the fact that it's still basic cuts of meat.

Not everyone has access to a store that has fresh un-packaged produce either - a lot of produce keeps better if it's wrapped in some way. For that matter, a bag of apples or peaches is no less healthy than the apples and peaches from the display where you pick each individual piece of fruit you want to buy.


We need to dump the definition of UPF and start over, more clearly defining what it is that makes a food problematic and addictive. (Of course that would start with admitting that it's not salt and animal fats that are the primary problems, so I guess I can just dream on.)

I say "UPF-4, with all the chemicals." They are trying to confuse us. It's not an accident. Like the points you make about the foods are the same no matter how they are wrapped.

When I found out food companies were paying people to promote Fat Acceptance, I became suspicious of any plant-based health claims. Then I found out that all that nutrition information does not take bio-availability into account, and made sure important sources were still in my diet, like citrus juices in my smoothies for the C.



And now I'm confused again, because I don't need fiber, or PUFAs, and folate is a B vitamin abundant in meat. If these people are meat-eaters, they aren't doing it right.

I think years of messing around with health research for profit has been disastrous. This plant-based thing is now entirely about marketing. Not about health.

I was under the same impression about folate and "meat" but I didn’t eat much seafood or liver so was low on folate. Here's where to get it: https://optimisingnutrition.com/fol...ods-per-serving

I occasionally get cravings for chicken liver, which is a real powerhouse of folate: 578 mcg (145% DV) in 3 oz for a mere 167 calories. I hardly ever see beef liver for sale any more (although I prefer chicken livers to beef liver anyway).

I usually end up buying 1 lb packages of chicken livers these days, because the local store that weighs meats to order doesn't always have chicken livers any more. I end up cooking them all at once because they're previously frozen and thawed when I buy them, and then eat all of them over the next few days.

That seems to pump up my folate levels enough that whatever folate is in the other foods I eat (meats, poultry, fish/seafood, cheese, yogurt, veggies, berries) is enough to keep the liver cravings away for a few months.

That Systemic Review is a good example of bad science. Their definition of a meat-eater is anyone who is not a vegetarian or Vegan.

To do it correctly they should have compared the vegetarians/vegans with carnivores/ketoers. They included all the junk food eaters, fast food eaters, high-carb/low-meat eaters, etc. as meat eaters.