It’s difficult to say whether alcoholic drinks count as UPFs, Monteiro and colleagues wrote in 2019. But they provide some general guidance: fermented drinks like beer, cider and wine are considered “processed” and “ultra-processed” if they are fermented and then the resulting alcohol is distilled – like whiskey, gin, rum and vodka.
So all spirits are UPF and must be abjured etc. Which does rather go against their other definition, what you wouldn’t find in Granny’s kitchen. Depends upon the Granny really, doesn’t it? Mine, well……
My own belief here is that they’re all just making it up as they go along. The real definition that they’re not quite using yet is “anything made by capitalism”.
In what way is how processed something is a measure of how healthy or unhealthy it is? As far as I can see, it isn’t. What kinds of nutrition it has in it is the important part. I can see that it is possible that low quality ingredients might require a lot of processing to make them palatable and that they might have low nutritional value. But that is down to the poor ingredients, the processing isn’t the cause. Manufacturers of wine beer and spirits are incredibly choosy about their ingredients and only ever use those of the highest quality. So I Call bulshit basically.
Bavarian brewers would like a word.
Dread to think what they’d make of cheese.
Ultra processed food is what the self appointed elites and food Nazis think is what the common weal eat. Therefore it must be derided and condemned so that when the plebs are forced to eat minced ants to save the planet, they’ll be glad to have such natural and wholesome food…
The real definition that they’re not quite using yet is “anything made by capitalism and enjoyed by the proles“.
FTFY.
BiND,
You can sense the conflict in the article. They’re probably wondering how to make craft gin OK but Aldi’s Greyson Gin (which is very good) not.
Any food that is not raw is processed. Cooking food processes it by causing chemical and structural changes.
Preserving food by: drying; salt/brine; sugar; acetic/citric acids; fat/oil; saltpetre; cooking; alcohol; freezing; fermenting = processed.
Mankind has been doing this for a very long time.
People who fret about “processed” foods, ‘chemicals/additives’ should be put on a peasant’s diet of 500 yers ago, or the diet of people today in rural Africa or India.
“Ultra processed food is what the self appointed elites and food Nazis think is what the common weal eat”
It is what they eat, largely. And witness the resultant epidemics of obesity and chronic illnesses. It’s all of it down to diet.
If Trump wins, it will be interesting to see Robert F. Kennedy Jnr tackling the lies of the food industry and the associated regulatory capture of government agencies. It is quite extraordinary, for example, to see a politician speaking about the dangers of the seed oils which now make up such a significant part of the western diet.
People aren’t fat because they take too much food and too little exercise. It’s because those frozen pizzas, designed by wicked Dr Frankensteins, malevolently leap from the supermarket shelf into the mouths of innocent consumers.
John B: «Any food that is not raw is processed. Cooking food processes it by causing chemical and structural changes. »
Heating isn’t even a prerequisite for simple processed food. A proper mayonnaise with a raw egg yolk, olive oil and a dollop of mustard (all at room temperature please) is an emulsion that requires more than simply mixing the raw ingredients. Ditto a vinaigrette sauce.
So, anything where capital is used – say, your stock of apple trees – to make a product – say, cider – is evil. Ok, got that. That’s the entirety of the economy. Humans interacting with humans is evil and must be stamped out, presumably with force if neccessary. Ok, got that. One slight problem: humans stamping out humans is interacting with ’em – so how do you interact with them to stamp out them interacting with ’em without interacting with ’em?
Wowser is a wonderful word. You don’t really need a dictionary to understand it right off.
What the wowsers don’t understand is that the availability of a bit of alcohol is one of the things that makes sharing a planet with them tolerable. They’d be in trouble if it was gone.
jgh. In the US during prohibition the FBI actually chopped down apple orchards that were of the variety used to make cider.
It seems to me that the Impossible Burger and its ilk, vegan “cheese” and the like, are the ultimate UPFs, but what do I I know?
That is one of the delightful little spats going on inside the UPF community. “But, but, that makes Vegan Meat UPF” to which some respond “Sure does” and others say “But, we’ve got to change this!”
Those fake meat burgers are some of the worst examples of UPF. Absolute garbage, and a recipe for ill-heath.
My missus has an app (Yuko I think, don’t quote me) where you scan the barcode on a product and it tells you how healthy it is, if any additives are bad for you etc.
I wonder what it would say about the vegan ”meat” and “cheese” ?
I just look at those traffic light labels. The more red there is, the better it is likely to taste.