Every time i turn on the stove my kitchen catches on fire. I can't point out whats wrong with my stove, so obviously I keep the stove in my kitchen since I can't say it's causing the fire with a specific malfunction.

It reminds me of tobacco again. All these smokers, coughing up lungs, dying of lung/throat cancers, gee I wonder if it’s correlated? I knew when I was a kid and everyone in my family smoked it was unhealthy, it’s just obvious, how it was denied and people believed it for so long baffles me

The addition of ingredients is the processing. The different levels of processing refer to what types and quantities of ingredients are added. It's like complaining that people are labelling food as poisoned when they should really be concerned about whether it contains poison.

Likewise the categorization of processing is useful for exactly the same reason the category of poisoned is useful. I'd rather not consume poisoned food of any variety even if I'm uncertain which poison has been added to it.

Processing is important. It's well known that that the grinding of flour has significant digestion effects, especially in diabetics. It takes a lot longer to digest a bulgur wheat salad than a slice of bread made with finely ground flour. This time difference makes a massive difference in insulin response.

P.S. That being said, I still hate the term ultra-processed. "Junk food" implies the non-specificity better. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45979589

Just like other parts of science, that organization can be discussed and tested. It’s the opposite of “we asked the King what foods we can be most proud of”.

Linnaeus did this, and allowed himself to be wrong, and I argue his organization alone was necessary to talk about theory.

Ok, maybe you're right, but can you categorize those and show that link?

Yes, the UPF classification used here likely flags some false positives and perhaps misses others, but if the methodology is otherwise sound and the link is there, even if fuzzy, I don't think it's as easy as you claim either. And even if if fuzzy, it's still useful as I would be healthier avoiding UPF (assuming accurate study), even if I would also avoid some perfectly healthy foods.