The food we eat affects us in many ways. A recent study from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School found a link between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and an increase in the risk of depression. Ali Rogin speaks with Olivia Okereke, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who worked on the study, to learn more.
What is an ultra-processed food? There needs to be some definition that is unambiguously applicable, otherwise this kind of study is worthless.
Seriously. Cutting the meat off the bone is processing. Letting something dry is processing. The simple act of tossing something in the fridge is processing. We need some official designations here, and precisely what each processing method does and how it affects us once ingested.
Here’s a description of the NOVA classification system. At the bottom it says Group 4 foods (UPF) contain one or more of these ingredients:
"Bulking agent
Anti-bulking agent"
🤔
Emulsifiers? Egg yolks are emulsifiers, but I guess the chicken is on the hook for the processing.
I recommend you read the details in the link rather than thinking adding eggs makes something ultra-processed. And which bulking agents and anti-bulking agents do you think wouldn’t qualify?
That’s any food that comes in a box or a bag.
So if you can’t afford to shop at the farmers market every other day and buy locally raised and slaughtered meat, you’re more likely to get depressed.
Great use of time and money there. 👍
Are you not able to buy vegetables, fruits, pasta, rice, beans and so on in your local supermarket?
This is a false choice, ultra-processed foods vs farmers’ market produce. Almost any grocery store is going to have produce available for probably cheaper than ultra-processed foods. Bulk carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, zucchini, yellow squash, and more are less expensive per meal than the foods you’re talking about, as are beans, pasta, rice, and more
Buying from the bins (bulk purchasing) is all I ever do or will do, so beans and pasta, even nuts, are redonk cheap in comparison (thank you WinCo), and we’re doubling the size of the vege garden this year. It’ll be another year or two until we can make it pretty, but I’ll take function over from anyday. I want to can an entire pantry by this time next year.
1/3rd of your life is spent on buying food.
I want that to be as close to zero as possible. I want all my costs to be as close to zero as possible. I fucking hate the despair of not having money.
The farmers market quip was hyperbolic to drive a point, but for reals I have some serious issues and concerns over buying produce that’s out of season and not local. Like how apples and oranges are kept in anaerobic environment (prob nitrogen or argon) for 6-12 months before being shipped out, to make sure there’s a year supply
Sure, it might be ‘fine’, but if I have the option to, like right now, buy pomegranates instead of nitrogen-doped pink ladies, I’m going with the seasonal
Only exception to that that I can think of is bananas, cuz Iceland
So like… anything you’re not cooking from scratch yourself. And even a lot of things you are, like any baked good would qualify as ultra-processed due to sweeteners and emulsifiers (e.g. egg).
Read the link 😑
Eggs are a primary ingredient. If you see “emulsifiers” on an ingredient list, it is dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, acetylated monoglycerides, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, or diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides, as a few examples. It is not “eggs.”
There are lots of baked good that do not meed the UPF criteria. If you read the link you can see for yourself.
Lactose? Whey? So raw milk straight from the udder is ultra processed?
Please, everyone read the link before thinking one of these ingredients makes something an UPF. No, whey and lactose don’t make milk ultra processed. Whey and lactose being extracted from milk and then added to something else make something ultra-processed
You should clarify that in your comment then, because you only listed the one criteria and that makes people think it’s the only criteria.
I posted a link to the full description of the NOVA criteria. You think I should have copy/pasted the entire page for you? When you read the ingredients on a milk jug, you will notice is doesn’t say “lactose” or “whey.”
There is more difference between those ingredients than commonalities.
Color, sugar and whey are being treated the same?
The entire definition of “processed food” is stupid and useless. Which ingredients are the ones causing problems? Because I guarantee you that a little bit of lemon or vinegar used as a “preservative” isn’t going to impact one’s diet as badly as 1/2lb of sugar in soda.
If you think the list above equates a little bit of vinegar to half a pound of sugar, you definitely didn’t read the article I linked about the NOVA classification system
Oh, I did. It was as empty as the calories in junk food.
They basically created arbitrary rules that put foods in whatever categories they wanted them to be in.
The ingredients for those groups are way too diverse to be helpful. And it’s not really about the ingredients since “natural” foods don’t get dinged for having ingredients which others do
It’s useless.