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Complex Numbers #1071760 added May 27, 2024 at 10:22am
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Distrust the Process
One reason I think science confuses people is that nutrition science, in particular, is a hot mess that can't seem to make up its mind about anything. Case in point, from Inverse (reprinted from The Conversation):
Even I gave up on trusting its results after several iterations of eggs being good, then bad, then good, then bad, then good, then bad, then good, etc. Not to mention all the questionable studies funded by people who push for a particular result. Nowadays, I mostly just eat for enjoyment; let other people get neurotic about what's healthy or not this week.
I recognize that part of the problem here is that biology is fiendishly complex, and has all sorts of mechanisms to return to equilibrium after a push away from it, some of which we don't fully understand. Another part of the problem is that it can be extraordinarily difficult to remove confounding variables from a nutrition experiment. And a big part of the problem is breathless reporting, eager to announce the Next Big Bad Thing or explain why the Last Big Bad Thing wasn't so bad after all—the latter of which seems to be the case for today's article.
In recent years, there’s been increasing hype about the potential health risks associated with so-called “ultra-processed” foods.
There's always a bogeyman, because we can't just let people enjoy their meals in peace. First it was fats (turns out we need some), then carbs (turns out we need some of those too), then gluten (still a source of grave misunderstandings) or whatever. Now, apparently it's ultra-processing, which I'm sure is defined somewhere.
But new evidence published this week found not all “ultra-processed” foods are linked to poor health. That includes the mass-produced wholegrain bread you buy from the supermarket.
Like I said, carbs went from good to bad to maybe good. The "maybe" is probably a matter of high vs. low glycemic index. Meaning, for example, whole wheat bread is probably better for you than white bread, which I did a whole entry about a couple of weeks ago.
Ultra-processed foods are industrially produced using a variety of processing techniques. They typically include ingredients that can’t be found in a home kitchen, such as preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, and/or artificial colors.
I told you it was defined somewhere. Well, sort of. I'm pretty sure we all have things in those categories in our home kitchens. Salt, for example, is a preservative. Egg protein is an emulsifier (a thing that keeps oil and water from separating as nature intended). And so on.
Common examples of ultra-processed foods include packaged chips, flavored yogurts, soft drinks, sausages, and mass-produced packaged wholegrain bread.
In other words, anything that actually tastes good.
The new paper just published used 30 years of data from two large US cohort studies to evaluate the relationship between ultra-processed food consumption and long-term health. The study tried to disentangle the effects of the manufacturing process itself from the nutrient profile of foods.
I'm not reading that, so I'm not going to comment on the validity of the study. I'll just point out that this is just throwing another osis into our collective neuroses.
The study found a small increase in the risk of early death with higher ultra-processed food consumption.
The obvious question here is: correlation or causation?
Existing national dietary guidelines have been developed and refined based on decades of nutrition evidence.
But mostly based on pressure from lobbyists who work for manufacturers of ultra-processed foods, so that sentence makes me laugh. Nutrition science is convoluted enough as it is; throw in government bullshit, and you can see why I've given up.
Which doesn't mean I'm going to snack on Doritos all day. Just that I'm done worrying about every little thing that goes into my food and drink. |
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