Ultra-Processed Foods May Be Linked To Cancer, Says Study (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Ultra-processed" foods, made in factories with ingredients unknown to the domestic kitchen, may be linked to cancer, according to a large and groundbreaking study. Ultra-processed foods include pot noodles, shelf-stable ready meals, cakes and confectionery which contain long lists of additives, preservatives, flavorings and colorings -- as well as often high levels of sugar, fat and salt. They now account for half of all the food bought by families eating at home in the UK, as the Guardian recently revealed. A team, led by researchers based at the Sorbonne in Paris, looked at the medical records and eating habits of nearly 105,000 adults who are part of the French NutriNet-Sante cohort study, registering their usual intake of 3,300 different food items. They found that a 10% increase in the amount of ultra-processed foods in the diet was linked to a 12% increase in cancers of some kind. The researchers also looked to see whether there were increases in specific types of cancer and found a rise of 11% in breast cancer, although no significant upturn in colorectal or prostate cancer. "If confirmed in other populations and settings, these results suggest that the rapidly increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods may drive an increasing burden of cancer in the next decades," says the paper in the British Medical Journal.

Comments

Compared to....

[Templer421]

Deaths from Botulism or food poisoning like Cholera?

The trade off is living long enough to get cancer.

Re:Compared to....

[Misagon]

Meat that has been smoked (or cooked over an open flame) or cured with nitrites are well-known risk factors for stomach cancer and colorectal cancer.

Modern meat processing is now so clean and safe that nitrite is not needed to prevent botulism. In practice its only purpose is to give meat the reddish colour that consumers have got used to. The meat-processing industry claims that meat with a greyish colour does not sell.

Re:Compared to....

[bjwest]

They're talking about ultra-processed foods, not ultra-pasteurized. Crap like all the different preservatives and emulsifiers they put in just about everything nowadays. Pasteurization is nothing more than heating to a specific temperature for a specific amount of time, something that kills both harmful and beneficial bacteria.

Re: Compared to....

[angel'o'sphere]

US eggs don't last longer.
The e-coli outside on the shells have absolutely nothing to do with the life period of eggs.
If at all, e-coli or other bacteria that get into the egg are the problem. And inn this regard then american way of washing is counter productive as it encourages migration of microbes through the shell.

On the other hand, the white of the egg is alkaline, bacteria usually don't survive this. Only in rare cases they manage to reach the yolk. In the yolk they strife so quickly that an "rotten egg" is immediately recognized.

Eggs last easy half a year or longer, in stable conditions. However they dry out.

Since the EU doesn't want to regulate to that level ($$),
Sorry, you are completely mistaken: we have the exact same regulation, with the exact opposite wording: it is forbidden to wash eggs because of the automated washing processes that would rub the bacteria into the shell. And using hot water and even detergents on the outside would reduce the shelf life of the eggs.

In other news...

[fred911]

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Cooking is hard

[rsilvergun]

it is. I mean that. Especially if you live in a cheap apartment with a crappy kitchen. I do, and I cook most of my meals and it sucks. Your stove takes forever to heat up. Your burners don't heat evenly so you have to set them and let the pans hit for 10-15 minutes or your food cooks unevenly. The stove never stays level either. Your microwave is cheap and your fridge small. Your freezer smaller

If I make a meal of eggs, potatoes & some pancakes from scratch (minus the pancake mix, which is pre made) I need to plan on a little over an hour. 10-15 minutes to heat the pans. 5 minutes to mix the pancake batter (you can't mix it until just before you use it or it screws up the pancake texture). 15 minutes to cook the pancakes (one at a time, since I only have 1 full sized burner) 5 to cook the eggs (I'm not a good cook, so if I try to juggle the eggs and pancakes I burn one or the other) meanwhile the potatoes are cooking for about 30 minutes while being flipped periodically. Then I need to sit down and eat (15-20 minutes) and then clean up (10 minutes). Of course, I have to wait at least 30 minutes to an hour to clean since the pans need to cool or they'll warp. And you can't leave the pans sitting around, especially in an apartment. You'll get roaches. Lots of them. And ants.

Then there's the cost of fresh food. If it's not on sale it's expensive. If it is on sale it's about to go bad. You can freeze meat, but vegetables & fruits don't freeze well (fruit it tolerable in smoothies but nothing else). Packaged dinners are a great buy because they keep for months. I can buy them when they're on sale, stock up and save. I can't do that with Bananas. They're worm food in 5 days tops.

There's a reason why women used to be home bound. Food preparation was a full time job. As pay decreases they moved into the workforce largely to make up the difference. Processed foods made that possible. But wages keep going down. So we need foods that need less and less prep time and cost less and less. There are consequences.

Re:Cooking is hard

[another_twilight]

I can understand your frustration, and if you're frustrated at something, you're less likely to spend time getting better at it. Working with poor tools is frustrating.

Buy a decent pan with a thick bottom, the thicker the better. It will take longer to heat, but it will also provide a more even and consistent heat as the mass helps 'smooth' fluctuations or uneveness and 'hot spots' in your heat source. It will take some of the need to micromanage cooking out of your process. You'd be surprised how much better you'll cook when your pan is an even, consistent temperature. You'll start to get a feel for how long things take and not have to constantly check. (You mention warping and uneven heating, so I assume you're talking about relatively thin pans)

I'd recommend all stainless with rivetted handle(s) and maybe go with a saute pan rather than a fry pan. All stainless means you can cook with it in the oven. Rivets tend to last longer than spot welding. Keep an eye on 2nd hand sales. Decent cookware is expensive, but tends to last long enough to be used and sold.

If you really can't prep while your pan is heating, then it's free time. Time to wind down and get ready to eat. Maybe catch up on some reading.
You've mentioned a meal with some fairly serial processes. Are there meals that better suit your cooking conditions? Finding new foods is part of the joy (for me) of cooking. I also clean as I go. There's always a minute here or there where I can wipe or rinse. You mention needing to leave the pans to cool for 30 minutes, but they are cooling as you eat and by the time you're done and ready to wash the dishes you've eaten on, the cooking gear is cool enough to wash.

If an hour for a meal is more than you can afford (and given commute and other time costs, I understand it can be) then maybe looking at meals you can freeze and/or store. Cooking more than one serving at a time doesn't increase time linearly. You mention packaged dinners - DIY it with a stew or pasta sauce or something similar once a week. Cut them with fresh meals for variety. Make things that can act as the basis of other meals - like meat sauces for pasta.

Like many things, especially DIY, initially the difference between what you can make and something you can have made is disappointing. Knowing that it's healthier doesn't help, and cheaper isn't always the case once you also count time. It takes time to get to the point where you're producing food that's better than you can easily buy. Like anything else, you'll have to work out if the time to get better is worth it. For something as basic and so integrally linked to health as cooking, I think it is. YMMV

I'm ambivalent

[Presence Eternal]

I liked that the article talked about the term "ultra-processed" and the pros and cons of using it. On the one hand, it's fairly well established that many forms of processing are harmful, and having degrees of processing as a broad category might be useful. By using an umbrella term like that, you can avoid many of the problems with bullshit statistical studies: "Green M&M's are 95% likely to cause cancer."

On the other hand...this is basically a "common knowledge" study which serves no purpose and tells me nothing at all. Gee, "Hungry Man Salisbury Steak" dinners are bad for me? Shocking. I'm fucking stunned by your scientific revelation. Which parts of the processing are most harmful? Should I skip that damned brownie that never cooks properly? Are ensure or soylent "ultra processed?" Oh, you don't know? Thanks for nothing.

https://xkcd.com/882/

Does it have to be one or the other?

[rsilvergun]

Can't I just say no to Botulism _and_ cancer?

Re:I thought so some years ago...A cheese example.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tried the same thing with some water and it didn't melt either. It even ruined the lighter. If it can do that, just imagine what it's doing to your body. That's a lot of damage!

Not sterile

[sjbe]

Eggs are heavily cleaned in the US.

This is true and not necessarily a good thing. It's also arguably unnecessary if you design the supply chain properly. As evidence see how eggs are handled in other countries without the same amount of washing. Most places in the world do not bother with the expensive cleaning and refrigeration systems the US supply chain requires.

In the US, the entire supply chain from post clean to shopping cart has to be germ free.

Not even remotely true and not possible either. The supply chain does have safe food handling regulations including cleaning and refrigeration and testing but safe handling does not equal germ free. If it was germ free it would be FAR more expensive.

Now the US egg lasts a lot longer because it's been sterilized and sits in a sterile environment.

A) They aren't sterilized. Some (but not all) eggs are pasteurized which isn't the same thing. Those that aren't are cleaned but nothing remotely close to sterile.

B) Eggs are most certainly not stored in a sterile environment nor are they handled in a sterile manner in most of the supply chain. Especially once they reach the grocery store. People open literally almost every egg carton to ensure no breakage prior to purchase so they are a LONG way from sterile by the time you get your hands on them.

C) Eggs in the US demonstrably do not last longer and because of how they are processed they have to be refrigerated which is not required other places. I own chickens and eggs that aren't cleaned (which removes the protective coatings) actually can sit on a counter for weeks without ill effect even without refrigeration. US eggs are refrigerated which makes a difference but you can refrigerate uncleaned eggs too and get the same effect. Once you refrigerate an egg though it has to stay refrigerated until you use it.

Re:Or

[Anne Thwacks]

Try to live like your grandparents did. They were in most cases not inflamed by BS books from Marxists and other SJWs. Neither were they inflamed by the BS factory called Hollywood. Feminism and Ecology-Nazis were non-existent.

I am not sure how old you are, or where your "reality" comes from. Marxism was a big thing in the 1940's and 1950's. Feminism is far older it was big in the 1920's and 1930's, but had its origins earlier than that. Your grandparents probably took Hollywood more seriously than people do today.

People have been campaigning for social justice since at least the time of Jesus Christ, and probably even earlier - you might remember a guy called Moses saying "let my people go". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzDw1QF-9ko? Not all people trying to stop their surroundings being actively destroyed are "Ecology-Nazis" although clearly some are.

Re:Or

[Nidi62]

Try to live like your grandparents did.

Eat a lot of fried food, use butter and/or animal fat when cooking just about everything, and smoke unfiltered cigarettes?