What does "Ultraprocessed" mean?

(Central Florida Bob ) #1

I suppose that’s really all I’m trying to find out. It seems every other day we hear warnings about ultraprocessed food but there doesn’t seem to be a widely agreed upon definition of that word. I’ll wager that there are things that people agree on, but I’ve never seen anything like that.

If you have a beautiful ribeye steak with marbling, that’s probably not even considered processed, but if they take the cattle scheduled to be slaughtered in a month or so and change their feed to add candy to increase the amount of fat the cow has, I’d consider that some sort of processed. I’ve heard folks say that happens but don’t really know.

So what’s ultraprocessed? Is a Snickers bar ultraprocessed? That seems easy to agree to think so. Is bacon?

(KM) #2

As I know it, ultraprocessed: food created using either methods or ingredients or substances you would not as an individual typically seek out or even have access to.

Nutterbutters: UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE {VITAMIN B1}, RIBOFLAVIN {VITAMIN B2}, FOLIC ACID), SUGAR, PEANUT BUTTER (PEANUTS, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, HYDROGENATED RAPESEED AND/OR COTTONSEED AND/OR SOYBEAN OILS, SALT, AND PEANUT OIL), VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN AND/OR CANOLA AND/OR PALM AND/OR PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED OIL), WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT FLOUR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SALT, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE), CORNSTARCH, SOY LECITHIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR.

Prepared Lord knows how. Vs

plain old “processed”, which involves manipulating known ingredients in commonly accepted ways. Taking ground wheat, processed white sugar, churned milk solids (butter), eggs, a pinch of sodium bicarbonate and some ground legumes, mixing and heating in an oven = peanut butter cookies.

I’m not sure a finely honed legal definition makes any difference to actual health, though. At last poll, internal organs still can’t read.

#3

In health circles, it means industrial processed food made with ingredients and/or requiring processes that normal people can’t / don’t have access to.

(Central Florida Bob ) #4

Pardon my delay in responding but in a way it’s a good thing because it allows me to do an answer that combines both:

and

Both of those are close to saying, “count the number of ingredients on the package and if it’s more than X, that’s over processed” it adds that the ingredients are things “normal people can’t or don’t have.”

You could say anything with any partially hydrogenated oil, but it’s sort of beyond that.

I asked if a Snickers bar is ultraprocessed, and while this whole discussion is sorta rhetorical since most of us are keto or carnivore and would never eat one. I found a website that dives into that:

Short version, it contains ingredients I don’t have around the house, wouldn’t know where to get, and wouldn’t use if I could. So, yeah, a Snickers bar is ultraprocessed to me.

#5

I agree with everyone, weird methods or ingredients makes things ultraprocessed to me too. If it’s just cut, peeled, mixed, cooked, smoked and stuff, that’s fine.
Number of ingredients doesn’t matter, I cook simply but some of my items has a dozen ingredients (well a dozen is very modest for ultraprocessed stuff… I only went over that when I still made veggie soups). Well I am sure sometimes it’s more than a dozen (it happens when I bake - my low-carb flour mix always was somewhat complex - with a spice mix).

(KM) #6

Two dissonate statements from me:

  1. My personal shortcut is to forward to the bottom of the ingredients list where the weird stuff tends to hide.

  2. If I’m doing a sweet cheat, a mini Snickers bar might be my fave ever. I can make one last 20 minutes.

(Central Florida Bob ) #7

One of the things about the Snickers ingredients that just “triggered” me was that the old ingredients said, “Sweetened Condensed Whole Milk” while the new one listed “Skim milk, lactose, milkfat” which is approximately the same thing, depending on the exact ratios they use. Is this one of those things where the labeling laws made them say three things instead of one, or are they tweaking the amount to make it taste different? And the big question: does it matter? Short answer is it doesn’t matter to me because I haven’t had one in so long I forget.

Semi-related story. I make my own mayonnaise and at some point in the last year, had some issues with the mayo “breaking” (that’s where it turns from what everyone would recognize as mayo into a liquid). I decided to try adding lecithin. There’s a choice between sunflower or soy lecithin, and I went with sunflower. It probably doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference - it would be like saying were your oranges from Florida or California? Or even less meaningful. If it’s the same chemical, and both say lecithin the only difference would be how chemically pure they are, and that should be what they regulate. Is that how it works? I don’t really know how to find out.

(Tracie Angel) #8

Any thing which gone through different refinement process to improve its shelf life is ultra processed foods. I mean like saucages. Use raw and fresh items for cooking!!!

(Central Florida Bob ) #9

This just my definition, but to me that’s not ultra-processed, it’s just processed. Sausages are ground meat with some other stuff in it. Could simply be a little salt with some spices, and it could be more. I’m leaning toward anything I couldn’t do myself, like hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils are the dividing line.

All oils can’t be thought of as ultra processed. People have been pressing olives to get olive oil for thousands of years, I don’t know of grains that was done with. Canola oil is probably ultra-processed, I’m not sure about walnuts or other nuts.

(Bob M) #10

It’s a difficult definition. I always thought of sausages made with raw meat as really not processed much, as these are often meat, salt, possibly fat, some herbs/spices, possibly a casing. These are, however, often considered to be processed or even “ultra” processed meats. I’ve made breakfast sausage like this multiple times.

An aside: I’m of the opinion that you could eat nothing but these types of sausages, and everything would be fine (assuming you could get a variety of meats in this form).

Not sure what fermented and cured meats would be – probably at least “processed”? But the human race has made these for many years. A few thousand years:

My understanding is that most milk is no longer “milk” and instead is separated into fat/cream and skim milk, then they recombine it to get whatever the “milk” should be. The super high heat for a short time is also possibly troubling. What does it do to the structure of the milk? Not sure. I think this should be “ultraprocessed”.

The idea of not being able to do it yourself is a good one. For instance, you could make olive oil yourself if you had olives - just put them in a container and let the oil come out.

(Central Florida Bob ) #11

Thanks, Bob - I haven’t heard that! The only milk product I use is heavy whipping cream, so maybe some info went by that didn’t stand out enough to remember, but it’s interesting. My guess on if the heat affects the molecular structure is it would have to be more heat than plain pasteurization. Hmmm, a quick look at


seems to show it routinely could get higher temperatures than I had filed away in my mind, like this chart:

Temperature Time Pasteurization Type
63ºC (145ºF)* 30 minutes Vat Pasteurization
72ºC (161ºF)* 15 seconds High temperature short time Pasteurization (HTST)
89ºC (191ºF) 1.0 second Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
90ºC (194ºF) 0.5 seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
94ºC (201ºF) 0.1 seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
96ºC (204ºF) 0.05 seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
100ºC (212ºF) 0.01seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
138ºC (280ºF) 2.0 seconds Ultra Pasteurization (UP)

I thought it was pretty much always under 80ºC. Nope. Maybe 60 years ago when I was drinking more “whole milk.” I don’t know enough about the proteins in milk to say where in that list doesn’t change it, so I’d feel more comfortable using milk treated at 63 or 72C than 96C or above.

During a trip to Israel, I saw olive presses that dated back to BC and the web says the first presses were “about 2500 BCE”. ( https://www.thoughtco.com/ancient-history-of-making-olive-oil-4047748 ) I trust that as not ultraprocessed.

(Doug) #12

This makes sense to me. Multiple changes.

I think to an extent it’s just semantics - “ultra”? Why not just “highly-processed” as opposed to minimally or slightly?

I’d say it goes beyond just extending the shelf life, too. The more chemical and physical changes, the more additions to it, or subtractions from it, the degree to which it’s been changed, and the permanence of the changes all factor in.

(Central Florida Bob ) #13

and to borrow from farther up the thread, multiple changes and especially changes that a person with an ordinary kitchen couldn’t do: like partially hydrogenated oils that turn polyunsaturated oils into cis- and trans- unsaturated oils. Gee… remember when people were making a fuss over cis- and trans- fats?

(Bob M) #14

Yeah, I don’t know what would happen. It seems to me that something could happen, but whether it does or not, I don’t know.

There are local farms around us that probably don’t separate the cream and skim milk, but I don’t remember what kind of pasteurization they use.

I do drink raw milk every once in a while.

I’m taking creatine and collagen peptides, and I like to have something to drink this with. I’ve tried water, but I like milk or yogurt better.

(Central Florida Bob ) #15

I think you and I spoke about this in the past, but I was trying creatine and long story short, saw no difference and quit. I probably didn’t do a long enough or fair enough trial. I should figure out what’s a good experiment and try it.

I was putting the creatine in my morning cup of coffee with HWC. Maybe that’s not a good way to do it.

#16

But things usually lose me at the very beginning… Sometimes I find 3 sugars in the first 4 ingredients and I don’t even buy sweets! As I dislike added sugar and keto sweets are better anyway. (Fruits are better too though they have horrid macros… Still taste amazing and my body handles some.)
Reading the ingredients list tends to put me off, hence my very low highly processed item consumption since more than 1.5 decades :slight_smile: The bigger half of my food has no such list at all, most of the others have 1-2 ingredients (dairy), sometimes 3-4 but mostly okay ones.

I can’t smoke meat so I buy smoked dry ones but that’s a small amount per day. Probably below 10g on average nowadays with a very short and good ingredient list so I don’t worry about that.

In my sausages (I mean the ones I buy though my own is similar except the sugar. I very rarely make sausages though, I make meatballs with smoked skin, similar enough), it’s meat, salt, spices and sometimes a very tiny bit of added sugar but often not. Below 0.5g sugar per 100g, tolerable. Oh and intestine, of course. In the better case. The other casing is chewy, I dislike that. But that’s more for Vienna sausages, normal ones typically use intestine.

Collagen peptides would ruin my milk (I dislike the flavor), I hide such things in my batter. Once I looked it up, internet said heat is no problem so it’s in my breadsticks and cakes now. Part of my high-protein flour mix. Useful.

(Bob M) #17

I’m not sure it does much either. I’ve been taking two scoops with milk/yogurt and my collagen peptides (which I do think do a lot). When this container is done, I’ll stop with the creatine to see what happens.

I doubt taking it with coffee is an incorrect way to take it.

It might be that we’re getting a lot of creatine by eating meat.