Confusion over ultra-processed food labelling- study
Labelling foods as ultra-processed might not be so helpful for consumers who want to know how healthy a product is, UK experts say.
Currently, packs must show whether a food item is high in fat, salt and sugar but not how processed it is.
Scientists who analysed different products say it is too simplistic to brand all ultra-processed foods (UPFs) as very bad.
Technically, sliced bread is ultra-processed, for example.
Though many UPFs are clearly unhealthy, some could fall into the "healthy" green category of the "traffic-light" system.
This was the case for meat-alternative products, the University College London team said, and some people may be unaware what they were buying was ultra-processed.
As we know, "scientists say" is another agenda flag. Nothing to do with science.
There is also an entertaining obsession with rules here. The current rule seems to be that ultra-processed foods are very bad. Unfortunately meat alternatives are often ultra-processed foods. Look at the ingredients of many plant-based meat alternatives on supermarket shelves.
In which case they have to concoct another rule which says ultra-processed foods are very bad except when they contribute to making ordinary folk poorer via climate racketeering. In which case they become very good. Something like that.
In which case they have to concoct another rule which says ultra-processed foods are very bad except when they contribute to making ordinary folk poorer via climate racketeering. In which case they become very good. Something like that.
11 comments:
Danish bacon is made pretty cruelly, so the supermarkets get the suppliers to bring their pork over here, where it is processed and called UK produced in the same way...
I always assume that the supermarkets' main aim is to cheat the living daylights out of you at every turn, and I probably gain a fraction of a benefit from shopping miserly, but at least it makes me feel - er - 'good'...
Scrobs - we don't buy bacon these days, it became too difficult to know what we were buying. So often, whatever it was supposed to be it would still ooze water and white froth when fried.
Yes supermarkets are after every penny, but I'll always remember how they kept us going during the pandemic. Self-interest maybe, but they carried on while others hid themselves away.
My Dad's invention (Quorn), is highly processed ; took 25 years to develop, 16 of which involved clinical testing and is not injurious to health, quite the reverse.
People were berated for years to replace butter by margarine.
Margarine is ultra-processed, butter isn't.
They are all lying scoundrels.
Tammly - ultra-processed propaganda seems to have been a clumsy mistake by food nuts. They appear not to have realised it would include things like Quorn plus many plant-based alternatives to meat. We eat some of those and enjoy them, we don't care if they are heavily processed. In a sense, tap water is heavily processed.
dearieme - I have a video on Ancel Keys which I've yet to watch, a major scoundrel from what I've read in the past.
I recently heard a few episodes of "Food for Life" by Tim Spector - Radio 4 were serialising it. He's very keen on eliminating "ultra processed foods". And everything else, it seems. If it's not bad for your body, then it's bad for the planet or the climate, or involves exploitation or decreasing biodiversity, or cruelty to animals. His optimal diet would require a lot of money, time, effort, and a change to the economy.
I can't understand it at all. Perhaps he started making money by being a gloomster and realised that people love being frightened. He's a bit like Stephen King, but with no ability to spin a narrative.
Sam - I don't know him, but it sounds as if you are right, he can make money by being a gloomster. It's a viable profession, George Monbiot is an example. It's probably quite easy to find something wrong with any food or any activity so there is plenty of scope.
AK, for bacon you might try Waberthwaite (available only from Tebay (PBUT) as far as I know) or Kimbers farm shop somewhere in Somerset - DuckDuckGo them. Both highly recommended.
Peter - thanks, quite a way for me but that's encouraged me to look around locally. One local butcher which sold good bacon has closed, but there are one or two farm shops which might be worth trying.
Kimber's Farm Shop not far from me, the Gloucester Old Spot bacon is good but still comes plastic wrapped; best rewrapped in paper and let dry out for a few days.
djc - that reminds me, I have an idea that a Derbyshire farm shop used to sell Gloucester Old Spot bacon. Maybe it still does.
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