Today I Learned

Really interesting. I often thought "what is actually so bad about processed food?" because in the end everything we eat is just chemicals in different mixtures, so as a nerd it makes me skeptical of most food health advice. There doesn't seem to be an easily explainable understandable theory or scientific model model behind this.

I could have sworn I read "hyperpalatable food" in the blurb but I can't find it now. Maybe I dreamed it lol. But that would be a good objective issue with ultraprocessed food, triggering the brain's reward system and encouraging excessive eating. The ability to split ingredients into separate parts and then recombine them to be too palatable, and/or not balanced enough in the sense that e.g. fibers or proteins or vitamins that would naturally occur in raw food.

I think is true that the idea of ultraprocessed food is not totally well defined, but I think there are some clues that help to at least identify the most important or more ultraprocessed ones. I think one tip is: industrial manufactured ingredients that can't be find in a regular home would potentially fall in the ultraprocessed category, so from your list:

rolled oats spun in a blender, instant oatmeal: is processed not ultraprocessed, unless the instant oatmeal it comes with ultraprocessed ingredients.

Cookies made from unprocessed ingredients, put them in a bag and sell them on a shelf: processed. The problem here is a lot of cookies that say that they use unprocessed ingredients is just not true, but if we are talking about home made cookies with basic unprocessed ingredients they would fall as just processed.

*Raw Milk: unprocessed Fresh, pasteurized milk : "minimally processed"

Brown Sugar: unprocessed white sugar: processed

white sugar and pasteurized milk mixed together: processed

Freeze that mixture? Ultra processed.* Not true, the fact of freezing doesn't make it ultraprocessed.

I think the corporations are also trying to make this distinction more confusing to make the idea of ultraprocessed food les guilty, because if everything it may be ultraprocessed then none it is.

I used to really piss hippies by telling them that anything food put in a food processor is processed food. This includes your homemade hummus & raw smoothies.

My Boomer mom microwaves water to make tea... with the teabag in it.

It's a wonder I survived to become the handsome and successful person I am.

Those packaged toddler foods are expensive as well. I’d wager most parents are simply giving their toddlers portions of foods they eat themselves over buying this crap.

I think it is not only issue with the price but also with the time to prepare it. They do not survive using one salary to have more time to care of the children. Or lets say two salaries but 1/2 work time both.

Actually, there is no place on earth nowadays to have possibility like that, with one salary.

And people are wondering why young generations do not make children.

Gen Silent with one salary had 5 boomer children. I would love to have one salary and 2.5 children working half time

MATKETED to toddlers. Nobody is marketing apples and whole wheat.

Crust-first pizza eaters are sociopaths

Yes, as we all know, infants should be fed a steady diet of raw milk and steak. All the better if the steak is from road kill. And eat it directly from a toilet seat. Germs can only hurt you if you're afraid of them!

For prisons, my fellow Americans immorally view prisoners as less than human and not deserving of the basic elements of life -- poll a large swath of everyday Americans and I'm convinced 6+/10 will agree that prisons should serve intentionally unpleasant and non nutritious food as part of the punishment process. It's sad.