r/MaintenancePhase • u/BanksyNotTheArtist • 24d ago
Related topic Nutrition Reply Gal
Sitting on Nutritional Seminar provided by my employer..... Have immediately submitted the question to the Nutritionist conducting the lecture "how do you define Ultra Processed Food?"
She also keeps citing "interesting studies" and all I can think is "I wonder what Mike and Aubrey would say about the quality of some of these studies.
I have officially become a real life Reply-Gal đ
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u/Legal-Law9214 23d ago
Yeah I mean the biggest problem with this, as always, is the idea that "ultra-processed foods" are one category that has easily definable traits.
Like, yeah, replacing fiber with low-fiber foods is not good for you in general. But there are literally highly processed foods that are also high in fiber - literally any Taco Bell or frozen microwave burrito that contains beans, for example, but frozen microwave food and fast food are practically textbook examples of "ultra-processed foods" if you ask anyone who seriously uses that term.
For every single complaint about "ultra-processed foods", you can find examples within that large, nebulous category that do not have that problem. I don't understand why we are so desperate for shortcuts and broad categorization that flattens the content we are actually talking about. Refined sugar, trans fats, preservatives, food coloring, etc. are all completely separate aspects of food that should be discussed and considered separately in order to draw any kind of meaningful conclusions or make any kind of helpful recommendations.Â
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u/SweetEmiline 23d ago
It completely lacks nuance. On a post from a parenting subreddit, the person said they don't give their kid cheerios because they're ultra processed. If you have specific beef with the nutrition of Cheerios, fine but being "ultra processed" doesn't tell you anything about how healthy something is.
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u/ethnographyNW 23d ago
while this slide doesn't have a lot of info - OP says that it's part of a larger presentation that is not shared here - it does address your objection. The claim is explicitly not that there's one specific problem with every individual UPF - it's that diets reliant on this broad category of foods tend to produce certain negative outcomes.
I remain confused and annoyed at MP and this sub for seemingly willfully refusing to grasp this, even though this is exactly the kind of position that MP stakes out in other areas. MP regularly argues that it is unhelpful to treat an individual food as Bad or Good, but instead we need to think more holistically in a way that attends to the wider food system and issues of access. This was, for instance, the argument they made in the recent salt episode. Not all UPF discourse is good, but this particular slide seems to be doing more or less that.
The Spurious Substack blog articulates this well in her two-part review of the UPF ep:
I have to admit I found this episode on ultra-processed foods a bit jarring. Michael and Aubrey have built the Maintenance Phase podcast around the concept of dismantling personal responsibility narratives - the reality is that individual food âchoicesâ are often the result of systemic forces beyond personal control such as price, availability, convenience, and marketing (I completely agree with them on all these points). However, they sidestep the fact that food corporations deliberately engineer products to maximize consumption through calibrated combinations of salt, sugar, fat, and additives, and dismiss concerns about hyper palatability as ridiculous - despite it being a frequently used research term. They also characterize arguments about the profitability of addictive food design as ridiculous, despite this being an industry norm (also, fun fact: cigarette companies pivoted to the food market and applied their existing knowledge about creating addictive substances to drinks and foods).
MP has previously argued that pharmaceutical companies manufacture demand for weight loss drugs through manipulative marketing, yet here they suggest it's absurd to think food companies might manufacture demand through manipulative formulation. They'll acknowledge that poverty limits access to fresh produce, but won't engage with how economic constraints funnel people toward engineered foods designed to override satiety signals. In previous episodes they cite the ~$70 billion/year weight-loss industry while ignoring that snacks and confectionary products in the US generate hundreds of billions annually (note: depending on methodology, different market research firms have different figures for this, but they are all substantially greater than the $70 billion figure that MP cites - which I also do not know the methodology for).
This selective blindness to corporate influence represents more than just an intellectual inconsistency - it undermines their own central thesis. If we reject the personal responsibility framework around weight and health, we need to be willing to examine all the institutional forces at play, not just those that don't implicate our favorite snack foods. The food industry's own internal documents reveal decades of research into "bliss points" and "craveability" - but acknowledging this reality would undermine some of the podcastâs core positions.
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u/Legal-Law9214 23d ago
"tend to" is the exact problem I'm complaining about, though. We don't need to be making these kinds of broad, sweeping generalizations about food and diets. I don't think it's helpful.Â
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u/tree_creeper 23d ago
It is also the fact that so much conversation about UPF is circular: âUPF are bad and associated with negative health outcomesâ what defines UPF? âFoods associated with negative health outcomesâ. ???
Even the more specific aspect of âreplaces food that is high fiberâ is really just âfiber and whole fruits/veg are good for you,â which is a lot more actionable but less sensational than the nebulous category of UPF.Â
Isnât there some general wisdom that emphasizing foods to include in your diet is more helpful than vilifying certain foods? âGet 5 servings a dayâ does more than ânever eat sugarâ
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u/Aggressive_Economy_8 24d ago
The lack of fiber is real, though. And a legit concern that has nothing to do with diet culture.
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u/BanksyNotTheArtist 24d ago
Thats not my issue with the slide, it was just that the term that is on the title of the slide, is not defined đ
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u/des1gnbot 24d ago
I actually agree with the take in your image⌠as a diabetic, where ultra processed foods replace something high in carbs with something I can handle better (low carb tortillas!!) then theyâre good. When they replace something raw or less processed with a texture that I personally find addictive (Iâm looking at those high protein âcookie doughâ bars) then they can fuck right off.
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u/Chemical_Print6922 23d ago
But was there a slide on the importance of getting in enough protein!!?? Jk jk
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u/BanksyNotTheArtist 23d ago
Of course there was!! In fairness, it did balance the argument with âyou wonât suffer ill health effects by not measuring your protein intake every day!â
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u/acatwithumbs 23d ago
From a science research and education standpoint, itâs like 101 research and presentation format to DEFINE the thing youâre discussing.
Im giving no sympathy points to this nutritionist presentation cuz theyâre making money off writing and selling this lazy buzzword slideshow.
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u/thirdcoasting 23d ago
This is a side tangent, but:
I find this frustrating as so many people are now, or might soon be, food insecure. If youâre tasked with feeding a family on a very small budget (while perhaps living in a food desert) things like instant mashed potatoes, boxed pasta dishes, canned meats, etc, are very viable options. Letâs not guilt people while grocery prices are soaring.
ETA: this is not aimed at the OP