The Nova rating system is based on associations, not experiment. Rating foods, processed or otherwise, according to saturated fat content is about as helpful as rating beverages according to water content. Excerpt: "Conclusions - Saturated fats are not associated with all cause mortality, CVD, CHD, ischemic stroke, or type 2 diabetes..." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26268692/
Obesity researchers are trying to understand what causes some obese individuals to be metabolically healthy. Here's a clue. "Separately, on analyzing global COVID-19 mortality data and comparing it with 12 risk factors for mortality, they found unsaturated fat intake to be associated with increased mortality. This was based on the dietary fat patterns of 61 countries in the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization database. Surprisingly, they found saturated fats to be protective." https://www.medpagetoday.com/reading-room/aga/lower-gi/86940
When researchers find that saturated fats furnish health benefits, they invoke paradox. "Obesity sometimes seems protective in disease. This obesity paradox is predominantly described in reports from the Western Hemisphere during acute illnesses. Since adipose triglyceride composition corresponds to long-term dietary patterns, we performed a meta-analysis modeling the effect of obesity on severity of acute pancreatitis, in the context of dietary patterns of the countries from which the studies originated. Increased severity was noted in leaner populations with a higher proportion of unsaturated fat intake." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846167/
As a Professor of Culinary Medicine at UMT I have studied the NOVA system extensively, and find it is a great first step in understanding how ultra-processing effects the food matrix, how additives and processing methods effect us and the gut microbiome as well. It does not "rate food," NOVA is a classification system not a rating system. Saturated fats are NOT used as a classifying criteria in our application of NOVA Guidelines (and they are guidelines at this point) other than to say that ultraprocessed foods contain many added sugars, fats, and salt in achieving their "Bliss point," as described in former FDA Head David Kessler's book, The End of Overeating.
Happy to discuss further, but although I usually agree with Nina, on this one, I respectfully dissent. Producers of ultra-processed food (often marketed as healthy, e.g., Fiber-1 cereal) would love us to fight amongst ourselves and ignore the UPF variable in evaluating the food-health equation. I feel it is important to recognize the difference and there is much good data to support that, in my opinion.
Didn’t we learn early on that if you use and adjective, especially a value judgment as if it were a fact you are biased at best, maybe saying something meaningless and since there ae no definitions we will all respectfully dissent from others opinion, at least initially. Ultra-processed is not a scientific term. It plays one in trying to advance your own point of view. “Junk” is it. Allows us to talk about things colloquially where we don’t need to have scientific certainty.
So, value-judgements with clear record of bias and causing harm: “healthy,” “evidence-based,” and all the “high- “ and “low- “ that have kept nutrition as a disheartening field notwithstanding some real scientific advances. If you say your diet is “healthy” in a publication, you paper becomes and infomercial.
Nina has done a wonderful thing notwithstanding a touch of Luddite reaction. It’s not the machine that makes seed oils a problem.
I stand corrected. I should have said Nova classification system.
There's a 4-page reference document adapted from 'The Nova Food Classification System' which does not mention saturated fats. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ecuphysicians.ecu.edu/wp-content/pv-uploads/sites/78/2021/07/NOVA-Classification-Reference-Sheet.pdf
Note, however, a longer 44-page Food and Agriculture Organization document prepared by Carlos Monteiro et al says, "The main focus of these studies has been on the dietary content of nutrients associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including both NCD-promoting nutrients, such as free or added sugars, sodium, saturated and trans fats, and also high dietary energy density, and NCD-protective nutrients, such as protein and fibre...In Brazil, the ‘average’ ultra-processed food had also a higher content of NCD-promoting saturated fat." From page 15 onward the Nova Classification Sheet repeatedly characterized saturated fat in a negative light. On page 16 it says, "Significant, direct, dose-response associations between the dietary share of ultra-processed foods and the dietary content of saturated fat or the probability of excessive saturated fat intakes (≥ten percent of total energy intake) were found in all the ten countries."
On page 22 it says, Increases in the dietary share of ultra-processed foods were associated with higher risk of diets with excessive content in sodium and saturated fat." chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf
Right, UPFs DO contain added sugars, salt, and saturated fat (and trans-fats) as part of the manufacturing process as I mentioned. BUT that is NOT how the classification system works; i.e., it is NOT based on saturated fat content. Whatever you feel about "implications" misses focusing on UPFs as a category to avoid because of the industrial process of food made for profit over substance.
Time will tell if focusing on UPFs as a category to avoid will help consumers avoid chronic inflammatory disease. I doubt it will do much, if anything, to reverse obesity and diabetes trends.
In terms of explaining what precipitated the obesity epidemic, University of North Carolina global obesity expert Barry Popkin almost put his finger on it in 2003 when he wrote, "If you go back to those same villages or slum areas today ... their diet includes a lot of vegetable oil ... In China ... Rice and flour intake is down, and animal-source foods such as pork and poultry and fish are way up, and the steepest increase is in the use of edible vegetable oils for cooking … People are eating more diverse and tasty meals; in fact, edible oil is a most-important ingredient in enhancing the texture and taste of dishes ... The edible-oil increase is found throughout Asia and Africa and the Middle East as a major source of change." https://theecologist.org/2014/feb/24/linoleic-acid-overwhelming-evidence-against-healthy-poly-unsaturated-oil
Prior to 2016, I had no clue that my own arachidonic acid intake was excessive. Fortunately, when I read the below narrative (2016 BMJ article), I stopped making my sandwiches with 99% fat-free turkey slices. Cheese seems to be a good choice for sandwich filling because, after I made the switch, my shoulder pain subsided, I stopped gaining 20 pounds during the cold months when less active, and a chronic winter cough ceased to be a problem. This is what inspired that experiment.
"We now know that major changes have taken place in the food supply over the last 100 years, when food technology and modern agriculture led to enormous production of vegetable oils high in ω-6 fatty acids, and changed animal feeds from grass to grains, thus increasing the amount of ω-6 fatty acids at the level of linoleic acid (LA) (from oils) and arachidonic acid (AA) (from meat, eggs, dairy). This led to very high amounts of ω-6 fatty acids in the food supply for the first time in the history of human beings." https://openheart.bmj.com/content/3/2/e000385
The above narrative doesn't "prove" that the increase in the arachidonic acid content of monogastric livestock precipitated the global obesity/diabetes epidemic. That would require a weight-loss trial in which researchers deliberately swap animal protein for plant protein while monitoring serum arachidonic acid levels. As far as I can tell, nobody has done that experiment.
Obesity can mean simply greater body mass beyond some cut-off. Or, it may mean greater weight and associated risk of some disease. Or, if you are writing a nutrition paper you can mix up the definitions as it fits your opinion. (You can use the second to support the idea that having high weight is health risk -- circular for second definition and wrong for first).
Excellent piece! I agree that the Nova classification system is a muddy mess. If it's adopted by The Powers That Be (h/t Outside the Lines) the junk food behemoths will immediately start slapping it on their products. They've already done this with foods labeled "Keto", but having seed oils and/or sugar under one of its many pseudonyms. If we're going to do something on a national scale, how about banning high fructose corn syrup? Just doing that might cut back on kids with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
Because then the food companies would use some other sweetener, just as bad... Fructose, glucose come in so many forms! The better option would be to cut all those sweet things. Reduce cravings, right?
Perhaps what's needed in both government and academia is researchers who use the eclectic approach to problem solving. In human nutrition science, hyper-specialization is the rule. Animal science researchers tend to have a better perspective on the connection between nutrient intake and health outcomes. For example, these articles furnish clues that could be used to determine which aspects of the food supply need to be altered to reverse obesity and diabetes trends.
This last item pretty much clinches matters. "The degree of fatty acid unsaturation of mitochondrial membrane lipids has been found to be one of those biochemical parameters that are most strongly correlated with longevity, when different species of mammals and birds are compared, with a low degree of fatty unsaturation being correlated with less lipid peroxidation and a longer normal life-span." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2875212/
In the final analysis, neither humans nor animals can tolerate exceptionally high intakes of polyunsaturated fatty acids of any sort without eventually sustaining metabolic and/or physiological damage.
Complements of Captain Mani Malagon, I'm adding another interesting article by animal science researchers who study serum fatty acid profiles of captive and free-ranging cheetahs in relation to nutrient intake and health status. Excerpt: "To develop a better understanding of lipid metabolism in cheetahs, we compared the total serum fatty acid profiles of 35 captive cheetahs to those of 43 free-ranging individuals in Namibia using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The unsaturated fatty acid concentrations differed most remarkably between the groups, with all of the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, except arachidonic acid and hypogeic acid, detected at significantly lower concentrations in the serum of the free-ranging animals." https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167608
“Banning” is different from cutting. I am not sure that Jim the Geek should be food dictator for a day. HFCS actually has some unique benefits. If I say that about an ultra-processed food, many will have an emotional reaction and that won’t be good. Much better for the state of the field if I can just say “hey, I like junk food … sometimes.” Then, we’re all still friends. Good idea, Nina.
This isn’t science - it’s a way to exert more government control, even if the arguments are nonsensical. If the authoritarians can make up stories that sound like they know what they are talking about, they plan on all of us nodding our heads and going along. Given the number of people who still believe in the mRNA vaccines, they have reason to think they can be successful here as well.
If I ate that sort of thing, those Good Fats bars might look pretty good! Heard a podcast about NOVA some years ago. What you said here and how you look at it are just great. Thank you!
Thanks for your comment! The Good Fat bars are a decent good option for people getting off of sugar. Delicious! Yet some people find they get in the way of weight loss...
Robert Lustig was on the Huberman Lab podcast back in December and was praising the Nova system. I think Lustig is on the right track advising people not to eat sugar but he gets things wrong from time to time.
Hi Leigh, I plan to write a column on fiber. Fiber is a carbohydrates, and carbohydrates are not an essential macronutrient, so.... That is probably the bottom line, although there's more to say of course.
I've heard that repeated "carbs aren't essential" and while there aren't essential carbs in the way there are essential amino acids and fatty acids, fiber is repeatedly shown in the literature to feed/nourish our intestinal microbiota (even more clearly than probiotics), so I'll be curious to read what you find about where fiber is found in the diet independent of carbohydrates.
Thought-provoking post. It nuanced my view on the UPF definition. We should keep an eye on Monteiro and EAT, he's on Gunhild Stordalens new EAT Lancet 2.0-commission. Raises concern that the plant-based crowd co-opts the Nova/UPF concept to open yet another front against animal sourced foods.. https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/eat-lancet-commission-2-0/the-commission/
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I didn't realize that he was on that commission. ugh. I suspect they'll use UPF to condemn all processed meats and give a lot of grain-based foods the pass.
Another impressive job I wish I'd seen before I read the whole book on UPF! I read the Tulleken book with great interest, like a clumsy cat chasing a mouse. I kept getting a paw on the tip of the this-makes-sense tail (tale?) but the substance of my quarry slipped away again and again. Finally, I realized that as a keto-carnivore, there was nothing I needed in the UPF definition, nothing added for me, because UPF doesn't exclude enough of the bad stuff while it excludes too much of the good stuff. I think? But as you explained so well, who can tell for sure?
I was a bit surprised that you didn't hit on my favorite analogy to UPF: The Almighty Mediterranean Diet! Everybody (but us keto-carnivores) seems to agree it's the healthiest diet, but NOBODY can define what the hell that diet is. How about a ton of raw figs right off the tree? Mediterranean? UPF? Deadly to the diabetic! (This is my conclusion after reading all of the great Richard J. Johnson, MD, books, most recently "Nature Wants Us to Be Fat," on the pitfalls of fructose and other sugars.)
With precision, in this post, you have pointed to the problem: Lack of precision. And you've helped me a lot by showing how the food fraudsters can use this ambiguity to drive "heart healthy" foods like seed oils and other dangerous weapons of the carb-con-artists into the cracks of the definition to give those who haven't seen all the science the false security that they're improving their poor diets by wallowing in the vagueness of UPF.
Bravo!
Thank you again, Nina, for being the voice we need so badly,
Fritz, Thank you for such a nice comment. And thoughtful. Re: the Mediterranean diet, I don't mean to self-promote, but I wrote a chapter on that in my book--and I document how impossible it is to define. And test. It was a concept dreamed up by the European Olive Oil Council to sell more olive oil! And then Harvard got on board... But it is super interesting. Maybe worth a read?
My glib summary of the Mediterranean diet, based partly on having read your excellent and thorough book (thus, any glibness is my own contribution): what upper-middle-class Americans eat when on holiday in the romantic southern European villages and countryside.
And who wouldn't feel healthier in those life and geographical circumstances?!
Nina, so sorry! Good catch! Thanks for telling me. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "What I wrote was both creative and correct; however, the part that was creative was not correct and the part that was correct was YOURS!" At least my stumbles took me back to the source. I'll certainly take your advice about reading your book. I have "The Big Fat Surprise" on both Kindle and Audible, and have read and listened umpteen times. I'll do both again as soon as I finish listening to Gary Taubes' great new book on diabetes. In the future, any advice not already in your book about helping people understand the definitional problem with the Mediterranean Diet would be helpful. The term is, as you know, ubiquitous and almost always used in a terribly misleading context without warning as if it were as easy to pin down for a neophyte dieter as the keto, the carnivore, or even the low-fat diet. A person can easily be aware of failure to meet carnivore or keto definitions, but the terminally vague Mediterranean Diet is, like vegetarianism, the darling of carb creep and carb cons! Thanks again. -- Fritz
Thanks, Fritz. You're reminding me that I want to do a post on the Mediterranean diet. There diet is impossible to characterize among Mediterranean countries, and then a different thing in the US altogether. It's a joke
That would be a great contribution. I could then tell the ones who criticize my keto-carnivore diet by saying "but Harvard likes the Med diet" by saying, "Yes, and the best definition of the healthy mediterranean diet is that of Nina Teicholz, which is ..."
I don't envy researchers or public health officials who must wrestle with these questions.
For myself, except for intellectual interest, the subject of UPF is moot. I would not touch that stuff with a barge pole.
If more people could be motivated to do the same, eventually the food industry might be motivated to take a different direction. Unfortunately, as Nina points out elsewhere, that different direction might be even worse.
There seems to be a conflation between healthy user effect and the potential of factors that would characterize someone as healthy and their potential effect on diet. It seems you are slightly misunderstanding what confounding is or how it might contribute to biased estimates in effect sizes.
In order for something like "Access to health care" to be a confounding variable for diet -> outcome, access to health care must independently effect diet. Can you give me an example of how access to care influences diet in the general population? I understand wealth or income, but that is (usually) easily adjusted for with (usually) readily available study information.
I think you were too dismissive of the Kevin Hall study. The important result to my mind was that Kevin Hall was reportably dismissive of the UPF argument and did the experiment to show that what mattered was the macronutrient content. He was surprised at the results and yes it was very limited but clearly indicative. But who would ever fund a much larger study? Rather legislation against UPF whatever the definition, I would support the mantra ‘eat real food’.
The Nova rating system is based on associations, not experiment. Rating foods, processed or otherwise, according to saturated fat content is about as helpful as rating beverages according to water content. Excerpt: "Conclusions - Saturated fats are not associated with all cause mortality, CVD, CHD, ischemic stroke, or type 2 diabetes..." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26268692/
Obesity researchers are trying to understand what causes some obese individuals to be metabolically healthy. Here's a clue. "Separately, on analyzing global COVID-19 mortality data and comparing it with 12 risk factors for mortality, they found unsaturated fat intake to be associated with increased mortality. This was based on the dietary fat patterns of 61 countries in the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization database. Surprisingly, they found saturated fats to be protective." https://www.medpagetoday.com/reading-room/aga/lower-gi/86940
When researchers find that saturated fats furnish health benefits, they invoke paradox. "Obesity sometimes seems protective in disease. This obesity paradox is predominantly described in reports from the Western Hemisphere during acute illnesses. Since adipose triglyceride composition corresponds to long-term dietary patterns, we performed a meta-analysis modeling the effect of obesity on severity of acute pancreatitis, in the context of dietary patterns of the countries from which the studies originated. Increased severity was noted in leaner populations with a higher proportion of unsaturated fat intake." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7846167/
Thanks, David. Always appreciate your comments!
David,
As a Professor of Culinary Medicine at UMT I have studied the NOVA system extensively, and find it is a great first step in understanding how ultra-processing effects the food matrix, how additives and processing methods effect us and the gut microbiome as well. It does not "rate food," NOVA is a classification system not a rating system. Saturated fats are NOT used as a classifying criteria in our application of NOVA Guidelines (and they are guidelines at this point) other than to say that ultraprocessed foods contain many added sugars, fats, and salt in achieving their "Bliss point," as described in former FDA Head David Kessler's book, The End of Overeating.
Happy to discuss further, but although I usually agree with Nina, on this one, I respectfully dissent. Producers of ultra-processed food (often marketed as healthy, e.g., Fiber-1 cereal) would love us to fight amongst ourselves and ignore the UPF variable in evaluating the food-health equation. I feel it is important to recognize the difference and there is much good data to support that, in my opinion.
Didn’t we learn early on that if you use and adjective, especially a value judgment as if it were a fact you are biased at best, maybe saying something meaningless and since there ae no definitions we will all respectfully dissent from others opinion, at least initially. Ultra-processed is not a scientific term. It plays one in trying to advance your own point of view. “Junk” is it. Allows us to talk about things colloquially where we don’t need to have scientific certainty.
So, value-judgements with clear record of bias and causing harm: “healthy,” “evidence-based,” and all the “high- “ and “low- “ that have kept nutrition as a disheartening field notwithstanding some real scientific advances. If you say your diet is “healthy” in a publication, you paper becomes and infomercial.
Nina has done a wonderful thing notwithstanding a touch of Luddite reaction. It’s not the machine that makes seed oils a problem.
Thank you. Adjective use in journalism is bad enough, but in scientific writing is even less appropriate.
We see constant references to "healthy diet". The obvious response is, "According to who?"
I stand corrected. I should have said Nova classification system.
There's a 4-page reference document adapted from 'The Nova Food Classification System' which does not mention saturated fats. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ecuphysicians.ecu.edu/wp-content/pv-uploads/sites/78/2021/07/NOVA-Classification-Reference-Sheet.pdf
Note, however, a longer 44-page Food and Agriculture Organization document prepared by Carlos Monteiro et al says, "The main focus of these studies has been on the dietary content of nutrients associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including both NCD-promoting nutrients, such as free or added sugars, sodium, saturated and trans fats, and also high dietary energy density, and NCD-protective nutrients, such as protein and fibre...In Brazil, the ‘average’ ultra-processed food had also a higher content of NCD-promoting saturated fat." From page 15 onward the Nova Classification Sheet repeatedly characterized saturated fat in a negative light. On page 16 it says, "Significant, direct, dose-response associations between the dietary share of ultra-processed foods and the dietary content of saturated fat or the probability of excessive saturated fat intakes (≥ten percent of total energy intake) were found in all the ten countries."
On page 22 it says, Increases in the dietary share of ultra-processed foods were associated with higher risk of diets with excessive content in sodium and saturated fat." chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf
Experimentally, saturated fat intake has not been linked to any non-communicable diseases that I know of other than multiple sclerosis. But that is a special case. https://www.msnz.org.nz/saturated-fats/#:~:text=Swank%20concluded%20that%20if%20people,normal%20to%20an%20advanced%20age'.
Right, UPFs DO contain added sugars, salt, and saturated fat (and trans-fats) as part of the manufacturing process as I mentioned. BUT that is NOT how the classification system works; i.e., it is NOT based on saturated fat content. Whatever you feel about "implications" misses focusing on UPFs as a category to avoid because of the industrial process of food made for profit over substance.
Time will tell if focusing on UPFs as a category to avoid will help consumers avoid chronic inflammatory disease. I doubt it will do much, if anything, to reverse obesity and diabetes trends.
In terms of explaining what precipitated the obesity epidemic, University of North Carolina global obesity expert Barry Popkin almost put his finger on it in 2003 when he wrote, "If you go back to those same villages or slum areas today ... their diet includes a lot of vegetable oil ... In China ... Rice and flour intake is down, and animal-source foods such as pork and poultry and fish are way up, and the steepest increase is in the use of edible vegetable oils for cooking … People are eating more diverse and tasty meals; in fact, edible oil is a most-important ingredient in enhancing the texture and taste of dishes ... The edible-oil increase is found throughout Asia and Africa and the Middle East as a major source of change." https://theecologist.org/2014/feb/24/linoleic-acid-overwhelming-evidence-against-healthy-poly-unsaturated-oil
Prior to 2016, I had no clue that my own arachidonic acid intake was excessive. Fortunately, when I read the below narrative (2016 BMJ article), I stopped making my sandwiches with 99% fat-free turkey slices. Cheese seems to be a good choice for sandwich filling because, after I made the switch, my shoulder pain subsided, I stopped gaining 20 pounds during the cold months when less active, and a chronic winter cough ceased to be a problem. This is what inspired that experiment.
"We now know that major changes have taken place in the food supply over the last 100 years, when food technology and modern agriculture led to enormous production of vegetable oils high in ω-6 fatty acids, and changed animal feeds from grass to grains, thus increasing the amount of ω-6 fatty acids at the level of linoleic acid (LA) (from oils) and arachidonic acid (AA) (from meat, eggs, dairy). This led to very high amounts of ω-6 fatty acids in the food supply for the first time in the history of human beings." https://openheart.bmj.com/content/3/2/e000385
The above narrative doesn't "prove" that the increase in the arachidonic acid content of monogastric livestock precipitated the global obesity/diabetes epidemic. That would require a weight-loss trial in which researchers deliberately swap animal protein for plant protein while monitoring serum arachidonic acid levels. As far as I can tell, nobody has done that experiment.
Note, however, that some researchers suspect that excessive arachidonic acid intake promotes metabolic syndrome, obesity, and possibly cancers. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730166/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212877814001495
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9138452/
Obesity can mean simply greater body mass beyond some cut-off. Or, it may mean greater weight and associated risk of some disease. Or, if you are writing a nutrition paper you can mix up the definitions as it fits your opinion. (You can use the second to support the idea that having high weight is health risk -- circular for second definition and wrong for first).
Excellent piece! I agree that the Nova classification system is a muddy mess. If it's adopted by The Powers That Be (h/t Outside the Lines) the junk food behemoths will immediately start slapping it on their products. They've already done this with foods labeled "Keto", but having seed oils and/or sugar under one of its many pseudonyms. If we're going to do something on a national scale, how about banning high fructose corn syrup? Just doing that might cut back on kids with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
Because then the food companies would use some other sweetener, just as bad... Fructose, glucose come in so many forms! The better option would be to cut all those sweet things. Reduce cravings, right?
Probably the very last thing we could ever expect from Big Food is an attempt to reduce cravings! 😀
Perhaps what's needed in both government and academia is researchers who use the eclectic approach to problem solving. In human nutrition science, hyper-specialization is the rule. Animal science researchers tend to have a better perspective on the connection between nutrient intake and health outcomes. For example, these articles furnish clues that could be used to determine which aspects of the food supply need to be altered to reverse obesity and diabetes trends.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3031257/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4693156/
https://animalscience.psu.edu/news/researchers-aim-to-further-enrich-eggs-poultry-meat-with-omega-3-fatty-acids
This last item pretty much clinches matters. "The degree of fatty acid unsaturation of mitochondrial membrane lipids has been found to be one of those biochemical parameters that are most strongly correlated with longevity, when different species of mammals and birds are compared, with a low degree of fatty unsaturation being correlated with less lipid peroxidation and a longer normal life-span." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2875212/
In the final analysis, neither humans nor animals can tolerate exceptionally high intakes of polyunsaturated fatty acids of any sort without eventually sustaining metabolic and/or physiological damage.
Complements of Captain Mani Malagon, I'm adding another interesting article by animal science researchers who study serum fatty acid profiles of captive and free-ranging cheetahs in relation to nutrient intake and health status. Excerpt: "To develop a better understanding of lipid metabolism in cheetahs, we compared the total serum fatty acid profiles of 35 captive cheetahs to those of 43 free-ranging individuals in Namibia using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The unsaturated fatty acid concentrations differed most remarkably between the groups, with all of the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, except arachidonic acid and hypogeic acid, detected at significantly lower concentrations in the serum of the free-ranging animals." https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167608
“Banning” is different from cutting. I am not sure that Jim the Geek should be food dictator for a day. HFCS actually has some unique benefits. If I say that about an ultra-processed food, many will have an emotional reaction and that won’t be good. Much better for the state of the field if I can just say “hey, I like junk food … sometimes.” Then, we’re all still friends. Good idea, Nina.
This isn’t science - it’s a way to exert more government control, even if the arguments are nonsensical. If the authoritarians can make up stories that sound like they know what they are talking about, they plan on all of us nodding our heads and going along. Given the number of people who still believe in the mRNA vaccines, they have reason to think they can be successful here as well.
If I ate that sort of thing, those Good Fats bars might look pretty good! Heard a podcast about NOVA some years ago. What you said here and how you look at it are just great. Thank you!
Thanks for your comment! The Good Fat bars are a decent good option for people getting off of sugar. Delicious! Yet some people find they get in the way of weight loss...
You're doing the lord's work, Nina! I could never be this meticulous ... or this diplomatic!
thank you, Amy!
BTW... This is Amy Berger. Need to figure out how to post as "myself," haha!
Robert Lustig was on the Huberman Lab podcast back in December and was praising the Nova system. I think Lustig is on the right track advising people not to eat sugar but he gets things wrong from time to time.
Yes. He thinks fiber is essential, for instance. But his sugar video has been viewed by millions.
I did watch a podcast recently in which he admitted that those on a carnivore diet would not need fiber.
Hi Nina, just curious about your thoughts on fiber? I appreciate the alternative view on the term UPF.
Hi Leigh, I plan to write a column on fiber. Fiber is a carbohydrates, and carbohydrates are not an essential macronutrient, so.... That is probably the bottom line, although there's more to say of course.
I've heard that repeated "carbs aren't essential" and while there aren't essential carbs in the way there are essential amino acids and fatty acids, fiber is repeatedly shown in the literature to feed/nourish our intestinal microbiota (even more clearly than probiotics), so I'll be curious to read what you find about where fiber is found in the diet independent of carbohydrates.
The linoleic acid content of food may be more important than fiber content in terms of promoting gut health. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2023.2229945
A lot of fermenting takes place in the colon and the presence or absence of certain species of bacteria determines health outcomes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590157523003851
I hope you go into the pros and cons of soluble versus insoluble fiber.
Good work, and we’ll written. Thank you.
Thought-provoking post. It nuanced my view on the UPF definition. We should keep an eye on Monteiro and EAT, he's on Gunhild Stordalens new EAT Lancet 2.0-commission. Raises concern that the plant-based crowd co-opts the Nova/UPF concept to open yet another front against animal sourced foods.. https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/eat-lancet-commission-2-0/the-commission/
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I didn't realize that he was on that commission. ugh. I suspect they'll use UPF to condemn all processed meats and give a lot of grain-based foods the pass.
The Rich Get Richer, and the Poor Get Poorer.
Another impressive job I wish I'd seen before I read the whole book on UPF! I read the Tulleken book with great interest, like a clumsy cat chasing a mouse. I kept getting a paw on the tip of the this-makes-sense tail (tale?) but the substance of my quarry slipped away again and again. Finally, I realized that as a keto-carnivore, there was nothing I needed in the UPF definition, nothing added for me, because UPF doesn't exclude enough of the bad stuff while it excludes too much of the good stuff. I think? But as you explained so well, who can tell for sure?
I was a bit surprised that you didn't hit on my favorite analogy to UPF: The Almighty Mediterranean Diet! Everybody (but us keto-carnivores) seems to agree it's the healthiest diet, but NOBODY can define what the hell that diet is. How about a ton of raw figs right off the tree? Mediterranean? UPF? Deadly to the diabetic! (This is my conclusion after reading all of the great Richard J. Johnson, MD, books, most recently "Nature Wants Us to Be Fat," on the pitfalls of fructose and other sugars.)
With precision, in this post, you have pointed to the problem: Lack of precision. And you've helped me a lot by showing how the food fraudsters can use this ambiguity to drive "heart healthy" foods like seed oils and other dangerous weapons of the carb-con-artists into the cracks of the definition to give those who haven't seen all the science the false security that they're improving their poor diets by wallowing in the vagueness of UPF.
Bravo!
Thank you again, Nina, for being the voice we need so badly,
Fritz
Fritz, Thank you for such a nice comment. And thoughtful. Re: the Mediterranean diet, I don't mean to self-promote, but I wrote a chapter on that in my book--and I document how impossible it is to define. And test. It was a concept dreamed up by the European Olive Oil Council to sell more olive oil! And then Harvard got on board... But it is super interesting. Maybe worth a read?
My glib summary of the Mediterranean diet, based partly on having read your excellent and thorough book (thus, any glibness is my own contribution): what upper-middle-class Americans eat when on holiday in the romantic southern European villages and countryside.
And who wouldn't feel healthier in those life and geographical circumstances?!
Nina, so sorry! Good catch! Thanks for telling me. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "What I wrote was both creative and correct; however, the part that was creative was not correct and the part that was correct was YOURS!" At least my stumbles took me back to the source. I'll certainly take your advice about reading your book. I have "The Big Fat Surprise" on both Kindle and Audible, and have read and listened umpteen times. I'll do both again as soon as I finish listening to Gary Taubes' great new book on diabetes. In the future, any advice not already in your book about helping people understand the definitional problem with the Mediterranean Diet would be helpful. The term is, as you know, ubiquitous and almost always used in a terribly misleading context without warning as if it were as easy to pin down for a neophyte dieter as the keto, the carnivore, or even the low-fat diet. A person can easily be aware of failure to meet carnivore or keto definitions, but the terminally vague Mediterranean Diet is, like vegetarianism, the darling of carb creep and carb cons! Thanks again. -- Fritz
Thanks, Fritz. You're reminding me that I want to do a post on the Mediterranean diet. There diet is impossible to characterize among Mediterranean countries, and then a different thing in the US altogether. It's a joke
That would be a great contribution. I could then tell the ones who criticize my keto-carnivore diet by saying "but Harvard likes the Med diet" by saying, "Yes, and the best definition of the healthy mediterranean diet is that of Nina Teicholz, which is ..."
I don't envy researchers or public health officials who must wrestle with these questions.
For myself, except for intellectual interest, the subject of UPF is moot. I would not touch that stuff with a barge pole.
If more people could be motivated to do the same, eventually the food industry might be motivated to take a different direction. Unfortunately, as Nina points out elsewhere, that different direction might be even worse.
There seems to be a conflation between healthy user effect and the potential of factors that would characterize someone as healthy and their potential effect on diet. It seems you are slightly misunderstanding what confounding is or how it might contribute to biased estimates in effect sizes.
In order for something like "Access to health care" to be a confounding variable for diet -> outcome, access to health care must independently effect diet. Can you give me an example of how access to care influences diet in the general population? I understand wealth or income, but that is (usually) easily adjusted for with (usually) readily available study information.
I think you were too dismissive of the Kevin Hall study. The important result to my mind was that Kevin Hall was reportably dismissive of the UPF argument and did the experiment to show that what mattered was the macronutrient content. He was surprised at the results and yes it was very limited but clearly indicative. But who would ever fund a much larger study? Rather legislation against UPF whatever the definition, I would support the mantra ‘eat real food’.