request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition 
There's this widespread claim that "highly-processed foods are bad for you". I'm not just talking about things like "high in sugar" here, but merely the property of it being 'processed' being considered bad.
Where does this idea come from? Does it have a legitimate scientific basis? I am seeing this argument pop up suspiciously often in the context of defending particular industries (meat, dairy).
request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition :boost_requested:
request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition
@fraxinas This unfortunately seems to be yet another 'correlation study' that just observes that two things appear together, and makes no attempt to explain their relation (or provide any evidence that there's a *causal* link), if the abstract is any indication. Likewise makes no mention of poverty.
The data isn't entirely *useless*, but it also doesn't support "highly-processed foods are bad for you" either. Most nutrition studies are like this, and it's a big part of why I'm suspicious of the claims.
request for historical/scientific context, food/nutrition
@fraxinas (Aside, it observes that plant-based alternatives were not 'associated with risk' - even though these are typically processed in very similar ways to the 'risk groups' mentioned there. This alone should call into question their conclusion of "higher consumption of UPFs increases the risk [...]", because it strongly suggests a confounding factor.)
