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Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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That's kind of loaded. Banned is a strong word but, Cheetos specifically were not only engineered to be addictive, but Frito-Lay isn't even shy about admitting that.most of the snacks you find in the middle aisles are. Soda included.
They said Cheerios, not Cheetos. Tbf tho some of the flavored Cheerios are kind of addictive.
No, Cheerios. The heart-healthy cereal that people give to infants. That's an "ultra-processed food", because the phrase is bullshit.
Real quick, define heart healthy. Tell me what the Cheerios people actually mean when they say that.
That phrase actually is bullshit. It's marketing wank designed to illicit an emotional response from worrisome mothers and evidently specific dudes on the Internet.
And while there's no firm definition of a UPF, there is an actual general understanding of what that term means. No one is going to look at a bag of lettuce and call it ultra processed. In the same stroke, you can't look at a bag of Chex mix and tell at a glance what they're made out of. About half the ingredients on the bag are synthetic. The rest have been reduced to their component atoms and reassembled in a way that's still technically edible.
And brother, if you think we're not giving UPFs to babies you've got a very rude awaking coming to you. Almost all of the foods marketed towards infants and toddlers are UPF. That's actually a big problem and a likely contributor to the ongoing obesity problem we have.
As it happens the product you're seeing babies eat isn't generally Cheerios, it's something made of rice that dissolves faster to prevent choking. What's the marketing for it anyway. And the fact that you and most people without kids can't tell the difference at a glance says something about the food we're feeding to kids.
For your edification, choking hazards for children are a real thing, because we've failed as a society to teach our children how to chew. Because we've been feeding them processed crap from a spoon. If you give a baby a bit of food too big for them to swallow, they'll pick it up and gnaw or gum at it for a while. Unless you put it in their mouth for them, in which case they'll instinctively try to swallow it and you'll have a problem on your hands.
When Cheerios says it's heart healthy, it's because it has some kind of fiber that helps lower cholesterol. That's according to scientific studies and the pre-Trump FDA.
Except it's actually not a problem, because UPF does not mean unhealthy.
Yeah, no, it's definitely Cheerios.
I've got three kids. We gave them actual Cheerios. Every parent I know used actual Cheerios. Their daycare has Cheerios on hand for when a kid needs an extra snack. They're healthy, easy to chew, and have a hole in the middle. They are not a choking hazard.
There are other cereal products specifically made for infants to snack on, but Cheerios are cheaper, more available, and just as good.
For my first two kids we did baby-led weaning (the third one is only five days old), so I know all about teaching children how to chew. And for what it's worth, my kids eat healthy as fuck. They eat more than a serving of plain vegetables with every dinner, and they enjoy it. Which is why it's not a big deal if I want to treat them to a donut for breakfast every once in a while.