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Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by cynicalpeace on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @11:45AM (#42247225)
Seems pretty obvious to me. Humans didn't have factories until a couple hundred years ago.

This means we are not adapted to factory made food.

This entire debate is hilariously overcomplicated by smarty pants "show me the study" or "aren't cooked carrots processed?" types.

40-60% of nutritional studies cannot be replicated. It's called the "replication crisis". Google it.

Rules of thumb are greatly underrated on HN. Here's one: if it couldn't be made outside of a factory, don't eat it.

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by makeitdouble on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @11:53AM (#42247333)
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by xooxies on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @11:58AM (#42247396)
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by makeitdouble on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @12:15PM (#42247593)
Avoiding manufactured food is absurd to a level I didn't think needed explanation.

Even from a logistics POV we're 8 billion on this planet, concentrated in cities. Everyone following that philosophy would bring a food chain collapse.

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by cynicalpeace on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @12:42PM (#42247880)
Good thing you don't need to follow what everyone else does :)
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by snapcaster on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @02:49PM (#42249277)
If we were on less censored forums would just ask you to "post body". Since that's not considered a valid argument here instead i'll just gesture to the countless innovations that have been developed by humans that turn out to have massive negative health consequences. What gives you the confidence that our current food manufacturing techniques won't turn out to be one of those things? Would you have made this argument about cigarettes in the 20s?
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by makeitdouble on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @05:32PM (#42250829)
People are forgetting we had famines a few centuries ago in the west, and still have famines in many places. Sure, they are also usually associated with governing issues and other complicating factors, but still. The number of peoole being alive is my answer to whether food manufacturing is a net negative or not.

While the pendulum has swung way past the equilibrium for us, rejecting whole categories of food that tend to be nutrious, easily preserved is just not realistic.

To me there are dozens of other levers we can pull to deal with health improvement. As pointed out in the other threads, not all OECD countries are facing what the US are facing.

PS: do I get all my points accepted as truth if I can prove a BMI that satisfies you ? Would 22 do it ?

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by snapcaster on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @08:16AM (#42255834)
Not necessarily since BMI doesn't take into account muscle mass. But, 22 does mean that we can't just discard your opinion out of hand
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by cynicalpeace on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @11:58AM (#42247382)
Good thing I didn't make that argument :)
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by makeitdouble on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @12:21PM (#42247647)
I'm not sure what argument you were making then.

Assuming your point isn't that you used the "factory" terminology instead of calling it "unnatural", so it's not an appeal to nature.

I'd actually be pleased to dig on the deeper part you were pointing to.

PS: the "we are not adapted" to part of your post is the crux of it in my eyes: we're not adapted to a lot of things but that doesn't make it good or bad or problematic. We're not adapted to receiving MRIs, wearing glasses or looking at imaginary landscapes in VR, and that's totally fine in my book .

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by cynicalpeace on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @12:39PM (#42247860)
If I wanted to say unnatural I would have said unnatural. I said factory.

Factories come with a mountain of lubricants, plastics, metals, agents, colorings, flavorings, etc that are poisonous. They are poisonous because we were not evolved to consume them. That's just 1 of many reasons factory made foods are bad.

> we're not adapted to a lot of things but that doesn't make it good or bad or problematic

These things would be good for you in spite of the fact that you're not adapted to it.

There are far more many things that you are not adapted to that would kill you. Your list is hilariously arguable (VR might actually be bad for you lol). My list would consist of basic inarguable things like, fish can breathe underwater naked, humans cannot, and my list would be inexhaustibly long.

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by mihaic on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @02:24PM (#42249003)
Always using the appeal to nature is a fallacy, but a more refined heuristic is to simply consider that the burden of proof for a processed meal is much greater than that for an unprocessed one.

I remember a movie from the 1950s, where a character was arguing that "margarine is just like butter", and the response was that "butter needs no explanation".

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by antihero on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @08:43PM (#42252115)
When industrial food producers decided their priorities are making stuff extremely cheap that appeals to our more addictive side so they can make as much money as possible, without any regard for our health, this is quite obviously going to create a problem.
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by yurishimo on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @11:55AM (#42247356)
There’s a woman on YouTube that I watch sometimes who recreates popular sweets/snacks/desserts but using fresh ingredients and home friendly (usually) cooking techniques. What always blows me away is just how long is takes to make something like a Little Debbie Oatmeal cream pie from scratch.

If we as a species could no longer rely on industrialization to create junk foods and instead had to make them from scratch, we’d spend 100x as long making them as we do shoving them down our throats and therefore savor the few that we do make and likely eat less.

The subconscious power of availability and plenty on the human psyche is enormously underestimated.

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by snapcaster on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @11:47AM (#42247248)
"if it couldn't be made outside of a factory, don't eat it." i follow this as well it's a great rule. I have no idea on the internet, but in real life nobody who's ever been the smarty pants saying "aren't cooked carrots processed?" has health or a body i'm envious of
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by Eumenes on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @03:14PM (#42249559)
> This entire debate is hilariously overcomplicated by smarty pants "show me the study" or "aren't cooked carrots processed?" types.

Whenever the topic of Ozempic comes up on HN there is an instant flurry of comments suggesting that people don't have control over what they eat whatsoever and pharmaceutical intervention is the only way to solve obesity. Those are the same people suggesting there is nothing wrong with processed food.

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by blurri on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @05:09PM (#42250608)
And yet science doesn't have an clear answer here. Just conjecture and theories like the ones you stated.
Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by Aloisius on Wednesday November 27, 2024 @12:03AM (#42253081)
> Here's one: if it couldn't be made outside of a factory, don't eat it.

I'm not sure I understand. Every food made in a factory was first made outside one.

Re:Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you by cynicalpeace on Saturday November 30, 2024 @07:59PM (#42285278)
Margarine? Fruit loops? Canola oil? Snickers?

I dare you to make actual snickers with the same ingredients outside a factory. Refining the sugar alone is a huge industrial process.

Even the US's entire grain supply is sprayed with folic acid. So pretty much all wheat and rice that you find at the grocery store is also disqualified.