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from the recommended-daily-amount-of-Cheez-Its dept.
Nutrition experts are reviewing data on ultra-processed foods for 2025 guidance:
For the first time, health experts who develop the federal government's dietary guidelines for Americans are reviewing the effects of ultra-processed foods on the country's health—a review that could potentially lead to first-of-their-kind warnings or suggested limits in the upcoming 2025 guidance, The Washington Post reports.
Such warning or limits would mark the first time that Americans would be advised to consider not just the basic nutritional components of foods, but also how their foods are processed.
[...] Deirdre K. Tobias, a member of the guidelines advisory committee, told the Post that the study suggested ultra-processed foods seem to promote higher "passive intake" of calories beyond what our bodies need and that the numerous epidemiological studies suggesting a link between eating ultra-processed foods and having a higher risk of many diseases is "as compelling as it can be." She declined to comment directly on the upcoming guidelines, noting that the committee's work is underway.
The Post also notes that the food industry has strongly pushed back—writing directly to the committee telling them not to issue any warnings or limits. One key point of contention is that there is no exact or established definition of what counts as "ultra-processed." Generally, it is considered to include any industrially produced food product with artificial combinations of flavors and additives, such as artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, and synthetic colors. Products that easily fit the definition include things like chips, frozen dinners, boxed sweetened cereals, chicken nuggets, and boxed macaroni and cheese.
Much to the dismay of nutrition experts, the National School Lunch Program allows its 30 million participating schools to serve products clearly in the ultra-processed food category, including Domino's pizza, Lunchables, and Cheez-Its. Currently, the products must only meet the federal dietary guidance's standards for things like sodium, fat, protein, and whole grains—regardless of how many other additives they include.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday November 20 2023, @06:23PM (3 children)
Clearly if you are going to warn about it then you kind of need to know what you are going to warn about or the warning be somewhat pointless.
Without any kind of clear and established definition this is either going to be long list, or a really short list -- ALL OF THEM as it would seem to be easier to just name the once that are not processed into oblivion by one method or another. Unless you just picked it from a tree inside the store then it was processed in some regard for your convenience.
Even if they decide on what is "ultra-processed" I guess they could just create some other buzzwords or definitions. No, our food isn't ultra-processed ... We only do Epsilon-Processing here. The good kind!
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Monday November 20 2023, @07:27PM
I suspected as much once I saw the use of the prefix "ultra". This seems to signal garbage terms these days ("ultra-loyal" is another example). Anyway, reviewing Wikipedia, something called the Nova classification [wikipedia.org] appears to be the source for the term:
Moving on:
I'll note that even pre-agriculture humans could easily hit level 3, processed foods and hypothetically level 4, if they ever used dyes to make the food look pretty. So it's basically a way of lumping industrially processed foods into the last category with a lot of other stuff tossed in.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday November 20 2023, @08:24PM
Something that comes out of the ground or out of an animal and then rinsed and cut, you can consider unprocessed. Beyond that, a rough guideline [sciencedirect.com] may be of more practical use to the unwashed (but rinsed) consumer than an "exact or established" legal definition.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 21 2023, @08:35AM
Plenty might already know that stuff is unhealthy. But how unhealthy is it? Can a normal US person on a healthy diet regularly eat a typical serving once a week (e.g. cheat day once a week)? Once a month?
Also those who are willing to change their diet to eat more healthily, might not know what is healthy from the subset of what they can afford and is available within their "shopping range".
Lastly, the USA has long had the Department of Agriculture giving out diet advice. Maybe a different department might be more appropriate when it comes to giving authoritative dietary advice for human health?