Butter, sesame/vegetable oil and white rice are all processed foods. An unprocessed version would consist of brown rice, eggs, and the chopped veggies. Which would be an improvement on 95% of the typical meals Americans consume.
I do get your point though. There's an aspect of Goodhart's law here. When we come up with some sort of diet management heuristic, over time our personal habits and eventually the market will find exploits. We'll look for the most unhealthy/tasty food that complies with the ostensible rules of the diet.
The article is clearly using NOVA's definition of unprocessed vs ultraprocessed. Under NOVA's definition of unprocessed: butter, vegetable oil are "Group 2" (ingredients) while white rice is "Group 1" (unprocessed / minimally processed).
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As such, fresh Stir Fry from a restaurant with white rice, oil, and butter is Group2.
Group3 and Group4 are the "problematic" (allegedly) groups of high-processing.
Anyway, it's perfectly healthy to eat meat; vegetarianism isn't healthier. What's healthier is being deliberate and thinking about the food you consume.
(For reference, I became vegetarian because I ha concerns about factory farming's environmental impact and slowly just started to dislike the idea of having to sacrifice another animal for my benefit when it became clear to me that not doing so isn't actually that difficult.)
> But the reality is that 99% of processing is directed at making foods hyper-palatable, calorically dense, and easy to digest. Because that's what consumers crave.
Yes, people want unhealthy foods.
You can buy a perfectly organic, fully unprocessed meal from Panda Express. Its called rice stir-fry, and as long as you hold back the soy sauce its "unprocessed".
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A friend of mine went vegetarian for better health. He ended up eating potato chips and gaining weight. Yes, there's a general "vegetables are usually better for you than meat", but, there's no guarantee that following such vague advice helps anyone.
You need to think harder, and eat smarter than that if you want a better diet. This "unprocessed vs ultraprocessed" designation is too vague, too unhelpful. It will just cause people to eat Panda Express all day every day.