It is of vital importance to understand terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food wrote:

The term ultra-processing refers to the processing of industrial ingredients derived from foods, for example by extruding, moulding, re-shaping, hydrogenation, and hydrolysis.

So ultra processing is pouring the gelatin for fruit jello into a mold such as a bowl.
So ultra processing is reshaping by piping frosting through a nozzle onto a cake.
So ultra processing is flattening dough for pizza.

The definition is currently not used by the European Food Safety Authority or the Food and Drug Administration for regulatory purposes.

Perhaps with little wonder.

The Nordic nutrition guidelines do not advice against the intake of ultra-processed foods and a statement by the UK's Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) considers the evidence currently available to be insufficient to make recommendations.

Some work on the definitional seems to be urgently needed.

Your choice to believe and follow the food industry lobbied hype and confusion and befuddlement.

Or you are equally welcome to be contrary or otherwise conveniently blind for the sake of the convenience of the highly Marketed 'convenience foods'.

And then there is the real world outside the world of Marketing unhealthy greedy profits...


I'm feeling a lot more healthy for my choice of enjoying more fruit and veg and nuts and extra virgin olive oil. I'm also enjoying shunning the supermarkets game of packaging and plastic and "environmentally modified packaging"... My waste bin is now rarely used. Fantastic!

Your choice if you get to take an interest to find out...


Enjoy good natural food that has NOT been "reconstituted" or "preserved" for a never ending shelf existence...

Enjoy!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

A slightly more environmentally friendly form of slime?...


'This could be the holy grail to replace palm oil'...
wrote:

... It is estimated that almost half of all food and cosmetic products on supermarket shelves contain palm oil.

The huge demand has led to significant deforestation in areas where oil palm trees can grow...

... The new PALM-ALT product is described as having a mayonnaise-style consistency...

... it adds a smooth texture, and works as a natural preservative. And it maintains its properties under high temperatures, also making it ideal for cooking with.

It is used in everything from chocolate to shampoo, pizza, toothpaste and deodorant...

Or... Easier...

Enjoy something better and completely natural as opposed to the manufactured foods held together by palm oil?...


Eat healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Always good to read the full article:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food
wrote:

Ultra-processed foods, also referred to as ultra-processed food products (UPP), is a category of food and drink products in the NOVA food classification system, characterized by having undergone specified types of food processing

Epidemiological data suggests that ultra-processed food intake can increase the risk of certain diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Some countries have introduced dietary recommendations and other measures to reduce ultra-processed food intake. Some studies consider ultra-processed foods to have higher environmental impacts than fresh foods...

... Ultra-processed foods are an important part of the portfolio of the food industry because they rely on low cost ingredients and often enjoy higher profit margins. They often have an extended shelf life ... Among other reasons for the popularity of ultra-processed foods are the inexpensive cost of their main ingredients and aggressive marketing, especially toward youth consumers...

Note also the acknowledgement of the "doubt" and "befuddlement" thrown in there from the food industry lobbying...

Compare with the comments made in the podcast:

Ultra-processed foods ... damage your brain! | Prof Felice Jacka


Enjoy!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I see you have consumed gallons of ultraprocessed koolaid. If ultraprocessing is "specified type of processing - extrusion" that in no way changes the nutritional value or lack thereof of the item in question. (Round peg is now square peg.) It is fully correct to laugh at the definition of ultraprocessing. It is fully correct to state that the definition needs work. If that doesn't happen then it is fully correct to point fingers at those that spout it and laugh in their face and ignore it.

Now as to other specified type of processing, many of those are problematic. Narrow the focus the the actual problems only!

... Or go holistic rather than become obfuscated and lost in unconnected detail?...

Or is the obfuscation the integral part of Marketing?...


I agree that the NOVA categorization is overly crude. That is also acknowledged by such as Tim Spector (see Zoe Health and Nutrition) and others who instead give an easy "If more than 5 ingredients, or ingredients not readily available for your own domestic kitchen, then that indicates Ultra-Processed and so keep off!"...

Myself personally, rather than trying to categorize "what has been done to food" (eg NOVA), instead I take more of an interest in what the food actually is, or for how it might be good or deficient or otherwise... That requires a lot of interest to follow up to find out what our food really is!

Hence... I've gone simple.

That is: Go for what is known to be naturally good and healthy!

And with that, I'm building up quite a personal list of what is good, suspicious, or bad...


Fortunately, I do have good healthy alternatives reasonably nearby so that I can avoid the treachery of the Supermarkets.


Eat well and healthy!

Enjoy!!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Fortunately, I do have good healthy alternatives reasonably nearby so that I can avoid the treachery of the Supermarkets.

For a large percent of the population they don't even have access to a supermarket. They live in food deserts.* If lucky, they may have access to a snackermarket.

*I realize this is not the case on your side of the pond, but is normal on this side in urban cores.

If Donny and Elon arn't enough of a reason to quit Diet Coke then this maybe the 1.

Pregnant women who consume diet soft drinks could experience higher rate of autism diagnoses in their sons, according to a new study.

Smells good... But half-hearted?...


Smoking age should rise from 18, by one year every year - Rishi Sunak
wrote:

... Under the plan, the age of sale would rise from 18 every year so a child aged 14 today would never be allowed to buy tobacco...

... he believed it was the right step to tackle the leading cause of preventable ill-health.

Smoking increases the risk of strokes, heart disease, dementia and stillbirth as well as causing one in four deaths from cancer.

"There is no safe level of smoking," he said...

... Except that says nothing about the ever increasing smelly smog and plague that is "vaping" and the stubborn desperate ignorance of the vapers...


Stay clear for your gulp of clean air?

Stay healthy!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Has the solution to our PFAS problem been found?

‘Forever chemicals’ are eternal no more thanks to a pollution destroying device from Tacoma startup.

It would be fair to expect the destroyer of toxic “forever chemicals” to be a massive, intimidating device.

In which case it’s either disappointing or delightful to discover that a startup called Aquagga has successfully deployed a PFAS destruction unit nicknamed “Eleanor” that’s housed inside a modest 10-feet-long by 8-feet-wide shipping container......


.....The startup’s weapon of PFAS destruction incorporates technology from the University of Washington and the Colorado School of Mines. It annihilates the pollutants in a device that can reach high pressure and temperature — hitting 570 degrees Fahrenheit. To that they add lye — an ingredient in soap — to create a caustic environment. The conditions dismantle the PFAS, breaking off the compound at its head, chopping up its spine of carbon molecules, and lopping off the fluoride molecules that run along the backbone.

The free fluoride then combines with calcium or sodium to make more benign compounds that are the same as those used for fluoridating water or as a toothpaste ingredient. Any carbon dioxide produced in the process is captured as a solid carbonate.

Testing shows that more than 99% of the PFAS are destroyed in treated water, Sharp said. .....

Too much of a good thing is going greedily commercially bad:


‘We won’t serve it’: leading UK chefs join campaign to cast farmed salmon off menu
wrote:

Salmon has undergone a rapid transformation in recent decades...

... Scotland is world renowned for salmon production, and the fish makes up 40% of its total food exports; it is also Britain’s most valuable food export...

... Yet an increasing number of top chefs are turning their back on the pink-fleshed crowdpleaser ... citing environmental and welfare issues in salmon farming, including concerns over the use of antibiotics and chemicals; the large amounts of wild fish that could otherwise be eaten by humans being used as feed; its role in declining wild salmon populations; and lack of quality.

From Devon to Scotland, restaurants, cafes, galleries and hotels have ditched farmed salmon...

... Britain’s wild Atlantic salmon population has dropped drastically since the 1970s ... “Industrial salmon farming is one of the causes linked to this decline.”

Palmer, who previously worked as a vet on salmon farms, cites parasitic sea lice that build up in farms and can disperse and infect wild salmon and sea trout, with sometimes fatal consequences...

... chief executive of Salmon Scotland. He adds: “With domestic and global demand for Scottish salmon continuing to grow, the success of the Scottish salmon sector – and the jobs that depend on it – will not be put at risk from a handful of urban-based activist chefs.”

Greedy intensive farming spoils the dish and pollutes our world yet again...

Eat healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

By 'eck!

I have been SLIMED!!... Me!!! Slimed I have been!! Phah!

How did that happen...!...?....

Resisting the temptation for some colourful descriptions about deliberately misleading labels and the very misleading copycat packaging...


So... In haste I ventured into... A Supermarket.

Good to check up on the state of such a place and to be reminded that most of what they sell in there is completely unappealing and unhealthy...

And amongst literally a handful of items to make my quick escape, I bought what I thought was a glass jar of Marmalade from a very old reputable big name brand. It's what my gran brought me up on. It even has "By Royal Appointment" emblazoned on there with the Queen's Crest. So, good enough for The Queen, so, must be good, yes?...

The jar is shaped like a proper jam-jar should be shaped. The lid is emblazoned with the brand name just like on all other good jars, except that the standardized lid says nothing of the contents.

Which then comes to the pretentious label on, and contents masquerading in, an overly posh jam-jar:

• In low contrast slightly smudged small print for the ingredients, only obscurely there do we have the full description "... jelly marmalade" (my emphasis) and the horror of no actual real fruit[*], with instead mindbendingly lots of added sugar in various forms, to give 63g of sugar per 100g of substance! Nearly two-thirds all cheap processed sugar!!
  
  
• There is Zero listed for fat, and Zero listed for fibre (both those 'Zero's are unhealthy bad signs...);
  
  
• The 'fruit' has been replaced by "Essence Oils";
  
  
• Curiously, there is 'fruit' listed... Down with the acidity regulator (Sodium Citrates) and the 'Oils'. So... Vanishingly little actual fruit then!
  

That coloured sugar mess is going straight onto my compost heap and the glass goes into the recycling.


I won't be falling for that one again!

And that long old band name is now on my scratch list. Never again to get slimed by that one!


Eat healthy folks!
Martin

*: At least, no discernible fruit as far as I can discern!

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Too much of a good thing is going greedily commercially bad:


‘We won’t serve it’: leading UK chefs join campaign to cast farmed salmon off menu
wrote:

Salmon has undergone a rapid transformation in recent decades...

...From Devon to Scotland, restaurants, cafes, galleries and hotels have ditched farmed salmon...

... Britain’s wild Atlantic salmon population has dropped drastically since the 1970s ... “Industrial salmon farming is one of the causes linked to this decline.”

Palmer, who previously worked as a vet on salmon farms, cites parasitic sea lice that build up in farms and can disperse and infect wild salmon and sea trout, with sometimes fatal consequences...

... chief executive of Salmon Scotland. He adds: “With domestic and global demand for Scottish salmon continuing to grow, the success of the Scottish salmon sector – and the jobs that depend on it – will not be put at risk from a handful of urban-based activist chefs.”

If not the restaurateurs, "a handful of urban-based activist chefs”, supposedly cannot make a positive impact, will a few pop stars do?

‘Can we save the wild salmon of Iceland?’: Björk releases ‘lost’ song to fight fish farming
wrote:

... Iceland’s fish farming industry is “a couple of wild guys who want to make money quick and sacrifice nature”...

Greedy intensive farming spoils the dish and pollutes our world yet again...

Eat healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

"Jelly marmalade" should be "real" marmalade with all the nice chunky bits removed, just leaving (some of) the flavour behind in sugar & pectin based jelly - so the list of ingredients in the jar is probably fairly accurate. Personally I find it to be a feeble, tasteless option not worthy of the marmalade moniker. These days the abuse of the alternative sugars to be far too widely abused, they do have their place, but in any jam/marmalade/conserve is an affront to jam makers the world over.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Make your own, plenty of recipes out there.
From days of old, https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rm9H31TpGKo

Here is another significant name against the pandemic of greedy global slime:


... ‘The global food system is the leading cause of early death’
wrote:

The Australian scientist on the links between ultra-processed foods and decreased brain health, and the effect of government policy and industry resistance...

... So why are ultra-processed foods impairing our brains?

We’ve just run a very interesting study where we tested the ultra-processed food v the wholefood version of a low-calorie diet, and looked at the impact on the gut microbiome. What we think is that with ultra-processed foods, even when the packet says it’s got this vitamin, or it’s got added minerals, or it’s got enough protein, your brain or your gut microbes don’t process it as food in the same way [as wholefoods]. We just need more science to show this conclusively.

Food manufacturers often claim ultra-processed foods can be healthy for their fibre and vitamins. Is that wishful thinking?

I think the big picture is really critical here. The industrialised food system is the leading cause of illness and early death around the world. And it is the leading cause of biodiversity loss...

... Given that those foods interact really strongly with the reward systems of the brain ... it is very difficult for individuals to make healthy choices...

... what I also know is what industry does, absolutely knowingly, is to jump in and make people confused. With cigarettes, it has never been categorically shown through a randomised controlled trial that smoking causes lung cancer. How could you randomly assign people to either smoke or not and follow them for 40 years? But we know from convergent evidence – from animal studies, from epidemiology – that if people stop smoking, their risk goes down.

What the tobacco industry had done for a long time was to confuse people by saying correlation doesn’t equal causation. Now, they do exactly the same thing with food. Think of the billions of dollars that are generated in profits through the industrialised food system every year, and the power of those industries to get people, including scientists, to muddy the waters...

Eat healthy and live healthy!

Enjoy!!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

The number one slime ... https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/one-type-seasoning-experts-no-120022530.html

Sadly, cynically, no surprises here, other than...


Revealed: the industry figures behind ‘declaration of scientists’ backing meat eating
wrote:

Document used to target top EU officials over environmental and health policies but climate experts view it as propaganda

A public statement signed by more than 1,000 scientists in support of meat production and consumption has numerous links to the livestock industry, the Guardian can reveal. The statement has been used to target top EU officials against environmental and health policies...

... The declaration was published a year ago but gave no information on its provenance. Its supporters appear to be overwhelmingly researchers in animal, agricultural and food sciences...

... the creation, launch and promotion of the declaration have significant links to the livestock industry and its consultants.

The declaration and associated studies are viewed as “propaganda” by leading environmental scientists...

... ‘Fossil fuel playbook’

The declaration states that “the highest standards of … evidence underscore..."...

... Prof Peter Smith of the University of Aberdeen, UK, a lead author on eight reports by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: “The Dublin Declaration reads more like livestock industry propaganda than science. It makes a mockery of independent, objective science publishing. This is not about stifling debate – it is about protecting scientific integrity.”...

... A recent response in the same journal by 16 scientists said the [declaration] letter “contains unsubstantiated generalisations and statements” and “overlooked and downplayed research demonstrating the incompatibility of current and projected levels of consumption of animal products with the imperatives of bringing humanity’s economy within the planetary biophysical limits”...

... The declaration was also highlighted to the European Commission’s group of chief scientific advisers as it produced its advice on moving “towards sustainable food consumption”.

The EU’s sustainable food systems legislation was expected to be published in September but has since been dropped. “It’s clear that this commission, when it comes to food and farming, started with a very high level of commitment, at least in words, but it has ended up with basically nothing,” said Marco Contiero, Greenpeace’s EU policy director on agriculture.

Olga Kikou of the campaign group Compassion in World Farming said: “The commission seems to have undertaken a U-turn in its promised reform of the EU agriculture policy. It is clear that more transparency is needed on how tools such as the Dublin Declaration are used.”...

How can such dirty destructive lobbying win?

Big steaks corruption??...


Stay healthy on our only one planet?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Enjoy your long healthy life!


Enjoy some very straightforward tips:

Scientists name eight measures that can slow ageing by up to six years
wrote:

Measures including healthy sleep and regular exercise may slow pace of body’s biological ageing...

... A study suggests that following these measures promotes good heart health, which in turn may slow the pace of biological ageing by up to six years...

Eat and sleep and live well!

Enjoy!!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

This was a huge improvement over the cooking over open fires from the days of old.

However...

There's been a long time cover up of the still unhealthy effects:


Gas cookers pump out toxic particles linked to childhood asthma, report finds
wrote:

Scientists find average levels of nitrogen dioxide almost twice as high in homes cooking with gas as in those cooking without

Gas cookers are pumping toxic particles linked to childhood asthma into kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms across Europe...

... found average levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were almost twice as high in those cooking with gas as in those cooking without. One in four homes with gas cookers breached hourly pollution levels set by the World Health Organization, while none of the homes in the control group, which used electric cookers, broke the limits...

... “Changing to electric cooking – preferably combined with use of well-designed ventilation hoods to reduce exposure to high levels of particulate matter from cooking – can bring these values down to below recommended levels.”

Burning gas to cook food releases pollutants such as NO2 that hurt lungs and inflame airways. Scientists have long known of an association between gas cookers and childhood asthma, though they have not proved a causal link between the two...

... The study found that cooking with gas frequently led to levels of indoor air pollution that would be illegal outdoors ... rules in the EU and UK only govern outdoor pollution levels...

Go electric and go for better ventilation!

(And cook rather than burn your food!!)

Enjoy!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)