Ultra-processed food

[igenlode]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_food

An interesting way of classifying food intake -- and which would seem to suggest that I'm currently eating a diet of well over ninety percent non-'ultra-processed' food, depending on whether you count things like butcher's sausages and white pasta (sole listed ingredient durum wheat, but made in a factory; definitions appear to vary). So far this year I've bought three packets of chocolate biscuits (and eaten two), and been given an Easter egg, and just about everything else has been cooked from scratch.

It seems a little odd to me that apparently if I buy a packet of frozen 'oven chips' it counts as 'ultra-processed', whereas if I cut a potato into slices, roll them around in a tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt, and bake them for half an hour (as I did last night, when I was craving a snack), then that is in some way a completely different thing. Likewise if I buy bread, biscuits, buns or cakes, those are called 'ultra-processed', but if I bake them myself using butter, sugar, flour and eggs, then they aren't.

Although it might explain why I'm able to eat what a colleague disapprovingly calls a 'high-carb diet' involving suet puddings and serving dessert with every meal, whereas he drinks green juice, eats lean meat and goes running in an attempt to keep his weight down, and still worries about his figure -- I'm cooking everything from raw materials and 'culinary ingredients'. Doesn't stop me eating fast, sleeping badly and suffering anxiety, though, which are allegedly symptoms of an 'industrialised diet'...

Comments

[watervole]

I suspect, but don't know, that many oven chips are probably made from processed potato rather than cut into slices? But I don't eat oven chips, so I don't really know anything.

I'm just going by McDonalds french fries which have no internal texture at all!

The type of cooking oil also makes a difference.

[igenlode]

Hmm, interesting suggestion -- 'mechanically recovered potato'? ;-)
It would certainly be an easier way to ensure the maximum number of uniformly sized and shaped chips for a given volume of roots...

I've had oven chips a couple of times (generally when they were date-expired and on special offer); they don't taste anything like the deep-fried kind, but then a vegeburger doesn't taste anything like a beefburger, and that doesn't mean it doesn't taste good.
I think the lack of internal texture is probably a red herring, because now that you mention it my home-cooked potato slices (which don't taste much like either oven chips or chip-shop chips) have a completely soft inside as well -- it's the 'fluffy' effect you're supposed to aim for with roast potatoes, and more dependent on the potato variety than anything else, I think. What is harder is getting them to go crisp on the outside. They cook soft in the middle all on their own!

I think 'ultra-processed' has more to do with the number of extra ingredients and additives; I found an ingredients list for McCain's Home Chips, and they do appear to have an ingredients list the length of your arm, even if most of it is just colour and coating. (I wondered why they were advertising 'gluten-free' chips -- well, now we know how the gluten gets in!) Presumably the coating is in order to make it much easier to get them crisp outside.

One interesting thing they mentioned in the programme was an experiment that had been done using two sets of volunteers on calorifically and nutritionally equivalent diets: same proportions of fat, salt, vegetables etc. The half who were given an 'ultra-processed' diet and instructed to eat until they felt full still ate more than their counterparts on the other side of the trial, the conclusion being that it was somehow the processing itself and not disproportionately high levels of fat etc. that was causing the problem.

One suggestion was that industrialised food, rather than being poisoned in some way by additives, is simply the result of an arms race between manufacturers all trying to to make their product more appealing -- doing their best to fine-tune the seasoning, texture etc. in order to make it as easy and rewarding as possible to eat. So it has 'evolved' to make people want to eat more and more of it.

This doesn't explain why chicken nuggets, microwave lasagne, etc. are often in my experience quite nasty -- as is most restaurant food, or at least quite disappointing. I enjoy a good doner kebab, although I don't get to eat them very often, but when I spent a week in B&B eating out (for free) at a different establishment every night, honestly the only one of them I would have wanted to go back to, let alone been willing to pay to attend, was the curry house. I can't cook curries that appetising. The other stuff I could have done better, or provided better alternatives, myself -- and I am *not* a high-end cook, just a fairly pedestrian one who prefers slow but cheap to risky and exotic. (Cheap but exotic is always worth a try!)

[watervole]

I believe it's the fibre content that actually makes the difference.

Were fibre levels matched in the study?

Fibre makes you feel fuller.

[igenlode]

The suggestion in that article was that it may have been related to the protein content: "The ultraprocessed meals contained slightly less protein, and some research has found that people tend to eat until they reach a certain protein target". Although I'd have thought the sheer bulk of indigestible fibre was more likely to affect participants' perceptions.

The 'processed' diet included "fiber-enriched beverages" in order to compensate for the comparative lack of fibre in its content. Apparently the follow-up study is going to further increase the protein levels and try using soups instead of soluble fibre supplements in an attempt to narrow down the findings.

[watervole]

I've certainly read an article saying that protein was an important factor as well.

I suspect killing two birds with one stone by eating nuts and pulses has a lot going for it.