My main gripe is that "processing" per se isn't unhealthy at all. I don't think cutting or drying or canning or packaging is unhealthy.
It's just as stupid as "natural." Uranium is natural, as are rattlesnakes and those poisonous frogs.
I think there is a small number of ingredients that mess with our biology. LA probably #1. Maybe fructose, or certain types of it, or in certain contexts. E.g. I'm open to the idea that HCFS would be bad even in absence of high-PUFA diets, who knows. Or maybe we'd have to treat it like honey and eat it seasonally.
There might be more of these. Maybe carrageenan or food dyes or whatever is in franken foods a lot.
But my grandma made cookies and ate dried/canned fish and those "ultra-processed foods" certainly didn't seem to cause her any problems.
Yeah, I agree. But Hall's study showed a huge difference in calorie intake and weight gain between ultra-processed and less-processed foods, so clearly the definition is capturing something notable.
NOVA is a psy op
Anyone who uses it can safely be disregarded
It's not a terrible thing to use the way Hall uses it, as a putatively objective third-party definition.
But one needs to note the question-begging embedded in it.
How is it not terrible? I'd allow that using an objective standard would be unterrible, but using a terrible standard is terrible.
How would you fix it?
I wrote a rant about NOVA a while ago:
https://www.exfatloss.com/i/120312264/processed-foods-are-a-mirage
My main gripe is that "processing" per se isn't unhealthy at all. I don't think cutting or drying or canning or packaging is unhealthy.
It's just as stupid as "natural." Uranium is natural, as are rattlesnakes and those poisonous frogs.
I think there is a small number of ingredients that mess with our biology. LA probably #1. Maybe fructose, or certain types of it, or in certain contexts. E.g. I'm open to the idea that HCFS would be bad even in absence of high-PUFA diets, who knows. Or maybe we'd have to treat it like honey and eat it seasonally.
There might be more of these. Maybe carrageenan or food dyes or whatever is in franken foods a lot.
But my grandma made cookies and ate dried/canned fish and those "ultra-processed foods" certainly didn't seem to cause her any problems.
Yeah, I agree. But Hall's study showed a huge difference in calorie intake and weight gain between ultra-processed and less-processed foods, so clearly the definition is capturing something notable.
I agree with your conclusion as to what it is...
This is the same Kevin Hall who fed the "keto" arm of his "keto vs vegan" study a 26% linoleic acid diet... he knows what he's doing.