Worse, everyone (even americans) tend to agree that "ordinary" Filipino food is less healthy (and less tasty) than basically anyone elses. Compare your experience at jolibees to at McDonald's. I claim that almost everyone (even people who hate both) will prefer the food at McDonalds, and that the average item from McDonalds is healthier than from Joliebees

Filipinos trying to bring up their good food and "somehow were still having bad health outcomes" is pinoy pride going wrong. And who can forget about THIS delicacy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagpag

That's what's so ridiculous about this "unprocessed" vs "processed" label. Lumpia is just flour + water for the wrappers, and then fillers (beef+rasins is pretty common, but maybe you're a veggie-lumpia person). Ultimately, its just flat + fresh dough wrapping fresh foods. Nothing processed about it at all.

I bet you that frying your food and filling it up with oils and salts probably has more to do with your health than how "processed" those foods are.

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If you've been to the Philippines, you can watch people literally rip the plantain (a bananna-like fruit) from a tree, wrap it, and deep fry it for you. Its about as fresh and "unprocessed" as it gets. Literally, these people just sit on the side of the road selling this stuff. Its kind of awesome. (Or they'll climb a tree and cut a fresh Buko / Coconut for you. Etc. etc.)

That doesn't make it any healthier. Now it makes it really, really tasty and a really good experience. But no way in hell am I going to call that healthy eating.

That's not to say we shouldn't cook our food (and in some cases cooking can make food more nutritious by destroying anti-nutrients like phytic acid), but we should be aware of how the cooking time, temperature, and method affect nutrient content. Boiled vegetables are generally going to be less nutritious than steamed vegetables, for example.

And of course, frying tends to use industrially produced oils which are highly processed. Oily foods like avocados that you find in nature are going to have some fiber and other nutrients; the process of removing all that to produce pure oil is a form of processing.

You're not familiar with this new "unprocessed" vs "processed" vs "ultraprocessed" designation then.

https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/...

Oils are a "Group 2", low-processed food. Page 5:

> Group 2 items are rarely consumed in the absence of group 1 foods. Examples are salt mined or from seawater; sugar and molasses obtained from cane or beet;honey extracted from combs and syrup from maple trees; vegetable oils crushed from olives or seeds; butter and lard obtained from milk and pork; and starches extracted from corn and other plants

Group 2 foods are apparently NOT processed. For some reason, I didn't make this designation, I just make fun of it on the internet.

Group 3 foods are "processed", and Group 4 foods are "ultraprocessed". This designation is completely and utterly meaningless in regards to health.

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That's why something like LOL Lumpia + Stir Fry dinners is at worst... "Group 2", unprocessed by this designation (Both Oil and Flour are just Group2 designations, the most processed items in Lumpia). But if you eat a low-fat cereal + yogurt + applesauce, you're eating ultraprocessed stuff.

I bet you that "Group 4 Ultraprocessed" Low-fat fortified cereal + yogurt + applesauce meals are healthier than "Group 2 Unprocessed" Lumpia + Stir Fry dinners with fresh Lechon + Rice.

The distinction is accurate: These are unprocessed oils, and there is a big difference between them and the processed oil that fast food is fried in, and that industrial cooking uses.

The same plaintains fried in ultraprocessed vs. unprocessed Oils is going to be worse for you. See for example "The Dental Diet" for its effects on your teeth, but there are other nutritional reasons as well. (Anecdotally, I think lack of nutrients in the fat makes you hungrier; it makes it "addictive". If you cooked in real fats, you feel sated with very few fried plaintains.)

The way I think of this is: "Food is not a linear combination of macronutrients". All fats aren't equivalent; some fats are very good for you. Again Pollan's books are very good on this subject.

I'm not very familiar with the ingredients in Filipino cooking, but since it was an American colony in 1898, I would guess the habits are strongly influenced by industrial cooking (spam being popular, etc.) It's a mix of local ingredients and cheap ingredients bought from Western corporations.

You can see it in a Chinese-American family pretty clearly: the grandparents eat fatty cuts of meat (but small portions), fish heads, etc. and live until 100 years old. The parents are mixed -- they eat some traditional foods (fish and vegetables), but cook with American vegetable oil instead of soybean oil, and got addicted to McDonald's in the 80's. They have more health problems in their 60's and 70's a result (hypertension, heart disease), and they're not going to live until 100. Even without obesity, they still have these problems. Their kids are fatter than both generations, and as a result less healthy, at least without a change in diet in adulthood, etc.

I suspect it's clearer in the Chinese case because there was less western influence (fewer occupying armies and less trade). Whenever Western processed food companies take hold in a foreign market, the health of the population suffers. This is well known. And I would guess it happened earlier and to a greater degree in the Phillipines than in other countries.

I'm not claiming to be an expert here, but it seems suspicious, and some Googling reveals that people are studying that issue. That is, because of history you may not remember what is "traditional", but I can more or less see what was traditional (non-Western) from my grandparents born in 1916.

Five Guys uses pure peanut oil for their fast-food frying. Does that make their burgers / fries any healthier than alternatives?

Or is the innate carbohydrates + oil combination a high-calorie, fundamentally unhealthy thing to consume, no matter how "Fresh" the potatoes are or how "unprocessed" the oils are?