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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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How the fuck do you expect to get kids to eat salad when the salad dressing is locked behind a counter with the cigarettes?
The problem is that "ultra-processed foods" is too broad to be meaningful. Also the fact that, you know, some amount of personal choice is essential to a free society.
When I was an italian kid, I have never had problems eating salads with no ultra-processed dressing.
No Italian buys salad dressing. Salt pepper herbs olive oil and vinegar.
che processing
I'm sure that's because of choices that your parents made and nothing to do with living in an area with high population density and easy access to fresh food.
I don't understand. I'm pretty sure raising a child depends on the choices of the parents. What do you mean, that in areas with higher population density it is easier to get fresh food? And that thus the parent's choices are not influential or only possible because of the environment? In my experience fresh food is more accessible in low population density areas, thus I don't really follow.
Mmm olive oil
it is not ultra-processed, it is just processed.
The real stuff is just pressed adn expensive, but most olive oil is counterfeit shit.
Eh. That's the thing with UPF, it doesn't really have a definition. There's a whole lot of transformation that's happened to make olive oil - quite possibly more than whatever American-style dressing.
Umh, it quite depends on what you classify as olive oil. In Italy etra vergin olive oil is the same recipe as it was centuries ago, just automatized. That by definition can't be classified as ultra-processed since you could recreate that kind of olive oil by hand in your own kitchen.
Ah, but what's in my kitchen?
I don't think I have any MSG right now, but it's super common in the homes of some ethic groups, and I do have some interesting microbial-derived ingredients. I could make potato chips/crisps the same way as they do industrially, and I wouldn't need any of that.
A really simple cream-based dressing could be bits of plants and raw milk that has settled out and been skimmed. Vinegar is often involved, though, and it looks like for a proper American-style ranch dressing there's still oil that goes into the mayo.
But, it's not the only example. You also like espresso in Italy, yes? How many steps does that take, and have you ever seen a raw coffee bean in person? As much as we love making fun of Americans, the only people who can really do it on these grounds are like, tribes in the rainforest. And if it becomes the old thing where we all assume our own culture is "correct", than that's not good.
Whatever man, I think Usa-made dressing you buy bottled is not genuily made unlike olive oil. If you still want to discuss I am not interested. Besides I live both in europe and asia and have no problem finding whole foods to eat. To me the basic definition of UPF makes sense. Hope you will understand too amd push goverment to regulate food industries more.
Spoken like someone who doesn't understand neuroscience.
Please, explain to me how Cheerios are addictive and need to be banned.
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.
They sure did. I just really wanted to talk about Cheetos I guess. Because I definitely read it as Cheetos.
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.
Learn about how the human body processes carbohydrates. Then learn about what a truly "normal" amount of carbohydrates for a human to consume on a daily, weekly, annual basis is. Finally, compare that amount of "normal" carbs to the amount in a single bowl of Cheerios. Subtract the dietary fiber involved if you need precision. But the basic comparison is so obviously skewed that the dietary fiber part of the calculation is barely more than a rounding error.
Cheerios don't need "banning" for any of the reasons we prohibit or control the sale of truly hazardous or life-threatening materials. Nobody said that is what is needed. Overconsumption of carb-heavy foods like Cheerios are bad for our health on a time scale measured in years or decades. Drinking drano is bad for your health on a time scale measured in seconds. Don't get it twisted. Nobody's treating eating cheerios like drinking drano. Insinuating such a thing is happening is simply incorrect and not a valid argument.
Humans need to eat more green things and eat less carbs. We need companies that serve human needs to truly serve the real human needs, not lie about the exploitable bugs in human cognition, pretend they're "needs", and try to say there's nothing wrong with encouraging people to over-consume to the point of morbid obesity just to pump the shareholders' stocks a few cents higher.
That's the basic message. Humanity is more important than profit margins.
Yeah, and no one is saying that either.
We all agree people need to eat healthier. Targeting "ultra-processed foods" is a stupid way to accomplish that. It would backfire completely, and cause more problems than it would solve.
Then let's hear your genius, sure-fire, guaranteed-to-work idea that's been built on high-quality research and rigorous data collection methodology.
You clearly don't know how ridiculously stupid the entire food labeling regulations process is. All because CEOs refuse to do reasonable, rational things that are better for human beings than their stock price.
The problem here isn't the regulations. The problem is the failure to recognize that every regulation is written in somebody's blood. So, how many people is the "right" number of people who need to die of preventable causes before we conclusively say "maximizing addictive properties in food" is no longer a business practice we're willing to accept as a nation? Do 100 people need to die? Thousands? Do you need to see millions of dead bodies piled up end-over-end like cord wood before you recognize that, gosh golly gee, maybe we should listen to scientific opinions over corporatist scumbag opinions?
There are places that don't have easy access to fresh food. You want people to die of preventable causes? Let's ban the bread they make their fucking sandwiches with, because other people are shortsighted and privileged enough to think that the only reason anyone doesn't choose whole-grain, small-batch, artisinal bread is because white bread is "ultra-processed", so it must be addictive.
By the same token, banning Cheerios would be a great way to make sure a bunch of kids are malnourished.
Apply a little reading comprehension to this extremely scientific article and see how they're dancing around the fact that "ultra-processed" isn't synonymous with "unhealthy". Phrases like "includes soft drinks and packaged snacks such as crisps and biscuits" are clearly manipulative language meant to gloss over the fact that the category includes those things but is not limited to them.
Anyway, here are some better ideas: a four day work week and expanding work-from-home so that people actually have time to make healthy choices. Or how about better funding for school lunches, with an emphasis on variety so that kids can be exposed to more foods, giving them the tools to make healthier choices later in life.
There are so many ways we could try to improve this situation, and blanket bans is by a wide margin the most idiotic.
Why would you even buy a readymade dressing? Salad dressing is dead simple to make.
No italian would touch ranch dressing. Nor would they eat anything in an Olive Garden.
Vinaigrette is better anyway.
Sure if you're just making Italian or Russian dressing. If you want thousand island or caesar, you need more than a basic pantry. Also the time and energy/motivation, which a lot of people don't have.
That's why I have my own olive trees, chicken farm, lemon orchard, anchovy fishery, and a dairy farm in Parma
I don't know why anyone would buy readymade olive oil, eggs, lemon juice, anchovies, or Parmesan, they're dead simple to make
Friendly reminder that Parmesan generally refers to an American counterfeit product. Please refer to the cheese as Parmigiano.
I Say this because the US seems very proud of producing counterfeit products and wants to maintain a monopoly on such goods https://en.edairynews.com/us-blasts-eu-for-monopoly-on-south-america-dairy-meat/
Parmeesian.
The first two dressings you listed are much healthier than the latter two. If I'm eating a salad, I don't need to put a caloric dressing on it.
If you have a healthy life style and eat well, it does not matter what you place into your salad. Not that I ever did put anything too caloric in a salad, I guess there was a period in which I added yogurt, but I wouldn't feel bad if I wanted something caloric in there. Hell, I'd like to be rich and afford various types of nuts to throw into a salad.
No, you don't need to. But it makes it a lot more palatable.
Edit: also, there's very little caloric or nutritional difference between russian and thousand island
Only to people who eat way too much sugar.
Why do they need to eat salad? Or do you think that's the only healthy food?
If you want to follow a Mediterranean diet, yes, salad is a very healthy food that you should eat weekly
Mediterreans eat salad with every meal.
It was an example of how fucking stupid this idea is.