UPFs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco, say researchers

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report.

UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both.

UPFs, which are widely available worldwide, are food products that have been industrially manufactured, often using emulsifiers or artificial colouring and flavours. The category includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits.

There are similarities in the production processes of UPFs and cigarettes, and in manufacturers’ efforts to optimise the “doses” of products and how quickly they act on reward pathways in the body, according to the paper from researchers at Harvard, the University of Michigan and Duke University.

One of the authors, Prof Ashley Gearhardt of the University of Michigan, a clinical psychologist specialising in addiction, said her patients made the same links: “They would say, ‘I feel addicted to this stuff, I crave it – I used to smoke cigarettes [and] now I have the same habit but it’s with soda and doughnuts. I know it’s killing me; I want to quit, but I can’t.’”

  • Lumisal@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    11 hours ago

    Obviously nobody was making regulation Coca-Cola, but the dividing line is getting a lot less clear already. Why is a distillate of some cursed local herb fine, but fresh-squeezed cochineal dye not?

    That question is called moving the goal posts. We were talking about soda, not something else.

    I actually have emusifiers in my kitchen, and I didn’t have to buy them anywhere weird.

    That you bought an ingredient produced via industrial processes doesn’t negate that the ingredient was made with industrial processes. It’s not really a “traditional home cooked meal” if you’re still using something that requires extensive machinery or chemical processes to create - even if you didn’t create them in your kitchen.

    Your argument on using the additives in your kitchen as a point that it’s not ultra processed anymore is equivalent to me buying chemistry supply and making some paracetamol and saying it’s not a pharmaceutical drug but more akin to a herbal remedy because I made it myself.

    Just stopping to point out that’s not food, you aren’t supposed to swallow it. It’s about equally as close to candy as to a teething ring.

    And yet it’s sold in the candy section and has calories via sugar. Weird that this is the one you were able to easily identify as ultra processed.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      11·
      9 hours ago

      That question is called moving the goal posts. We were talking about soda, not something else.

      Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s conchineal in some sodas to make them red. It was honestly just the first food dye I thought of.

      The issue with a soda is the ingredients, right? Otherwise it’s just mixing.

      It’s not really a “traditional home cooked meal” if you’re still using something that requires extensive machinery or chemical processes to create - even if you didn’t create them in your kitchen.

      A coffee maker or airfryer is extensive machinery. And even cooking something over a primitive campfire would be a chemical process, so neither of these are really an obvious, airtight definition.

      If you require a machine to be used to make ultraprocessed food to be extensive, than that’s called a No True Scotsman fallacy, or just circular reasoning.

      Your argument on using the additives in your kitchen as a point that it’s not ultra processed anymore is equivalent to me buying chemistry supply and making some paracetamol and saying it’s not a pharmaceutical drug but more akin to a herbal remedy because I made it myself.

      Exactly. Where the process happens shouldn’t matter. I’m not making this conundrum up, right? Food researchers are struggling with it too.

      You’re quoting “traditional homemade” a lot, so I’ll point out that the traditional part is itself relative. Unless it’s mammoth over a campfire it’s not going to go back forever. What is normal cooking like mama used to do, and what is scary frankenfood bioscience is perception.