479
California becomes the first state to phase ultraprocessed food out of school meals
(www.nbcnews.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
479 points (99.2% liked)
News
35749 readers
2169 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The term ultra processed us pretty controversial unless they explicitly define it in this legislation. A PB & J is considered ultra processed even if you make the peanut butter, the jam, and the bread yourself because those ingredients have been processed heavily from their natural state.
Edit:
Ah ok that makes sense.
There’s already a classification system in place used by researchers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification), but I imagine it has to be translated into legalese.
Also, according to that classification system, a PB&J wouldn’t necessarily be a UPF. You could use whole grain bread with no additives, jam made using raw sugar or honey and no other additives, and peanut butter with no additives.
Key factors to the Nova classification system seem to be whether it was made industrially and requires substantial processing, and the amount of additives, and whether those additives are heavily processed themselves.
My concern is that some of these "additives" could just be harmless preservatives, dyes, or even lab synthesized ingredients that are usually naturally occuring through some non industrial method, but they add them a different way because it's cheaper at scale.
Not saying it's the same but it gives me similar pause and concern as the the "natural dyes" initiative by RFK. The natural dyes are literally just the same chemicals just gotten from "natural" means rather than synthesized in a lab.
Another example is the fear mongering against high fructose corn syrup in the 00's when it's literally broken down into the same thing as sugar in your body before it's used. The only difference between it and sugar, even down to flavor, is that it was created in a lab from corn because it was cheaper because of government subsidies.
PB&J is not healthy for you regardless of whether it's ultra processed or not
Unless it's directly harmful to you like alcohol, the term "healthy" when relating to food is very poorly defined, and is for the most part exploited by companies to make you feel bad about what you're currently eating, and to sell you their food at a markup because it's "healthy"
What's healthy for is having a good idea of the levels of essential nutrients you intake, your caloric intake, and making sure you eat everything in moderation.
Listen, you only need sugar if you're doing sports in the next hour. You can eat zero sugar and be perfectly fine. It's not a nutrient necessary for life. So it doesn't fall under necessary nutrient.
Bread, similarly, is mostly carbs with little nutritional value it has coming from added vitamins in the flour. The amino acid profile is trash (low in lysine)
Peanut butter has some protein, but it's mostly fat. You need fat to live, so I'll consider it healthy.
Overall, a PB&J sandwich is less healthy than a pack of peanuts. That is unless you're a lumberjack or a professional athlete who needs the extra calories
Yes a pb & j is ultraprocessed food, there is nothing healthy, only fat and sugar.
Check the ingredients of infustrial bread itself you might have surprises