The following sentence was very unexpected by me:
Those in the study who ate the most ultraprocessed foods were “more likely to be younger, women, White, had higher education and income, and were more likely to have never smoked, and less likely to be current alcohol consumers,” the study found.
“Ultraprocessed foods in general are bad for every part of us,” said Katz, president and founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine.
Ultaprocessed foods are usually high in sugar, salt and fat, all of which promote inflammation throughout the body, which is “perhaps the most major threat to healthy aging in the body and brain,” said Dr. Rudy Tanzi, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the genetics and aging research unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
From a personal observation, despite eating a vast variety of home-cooked foods during the COVID “vacation” in far-from-diet quantities and without a lot of attention to eliminating any particular class of foods, both of us lost a fair amount of weight (in my case, over 25 pounds). This compared to our pre-COVID diet of eating restaurant food 6-10 months a year while traveling.
From the OP article: “There was an interesting twist, however. If the quality of the overall diet was high — meaning the person also ate a lot of unprocessed, whole fruits and veggies, whole grains and healthy sources of protein — the association between ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline disappeared…”
What are whole grains?
A grain is considered to be “whole” when it contains all three parts of the original kernel: bran, endosperm and germ. Bran is the fiber-filled outer layer of a grain kernel that is full of B vitamins and minerals. The endosperm is a starchy carbohydrate middle layer with some proteins and vitamins. And the germ is a nutrient-packed core with vitamins, healthy fats and other beneficial compounds.
Barley, brown rice, millet, oatmeal, wheat, rye, corn and spelt are all common whole grains. (Quinoa and buckwheat are technically seeds but are often classified as whole grains in diets.)
Whole wheat — including whole wheat flour — counts as a whole grain because it contains the three components, said Joanne Slavin, a professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota. White flour doesn’t count, she said, because it is milled in a way that removes the wheat bran and germ."
Hah! So my morning Cheerios, made from whole grain oats, and my lunches of roasted turkey/grilled chicken sandwiches aren’t all that bad.
Cheapskate tip o’the week: Wendy’s and Arby’s offer geezer pop for cheap. Just get the sandwich and the geezer pop, pass on the fries and save $2, over the “meal” price.
Problem is, the turkey shortage at Arby’s continues, and Wendy’s/Tim’s are MIA.
EEEEWWW!!! I can’t believe that people still drink pop! It’s so disgusting that I wouldn’t drink it if it were healthy.
I remember that pop seemed like a nice treat when I was a child, but I lost my taste for it at some point. I think it was when Dad became concerned about his health, and the whole family switched to a healthier diet. (Both of my parents are still alive and well, so the change paid off.) I think that Ronald Reagan was still president at the time I last ordered pop when out somewhere. I’m thankful that I lost my taste for pop at the time I did, because the fast food joints began offering free refills at some point.
Until just a few years ago, I was completely oblivious to free drink refills until I read about them as one of those things that shock foreign visitors. Because I had been ordering water (or occasionally milk) at fast food joints and restaurants since the 1980s, I was just as shocked as those foreign visitors.
Deep-fried foods are the worst of the worst for your health. I’m never ordering any again. The vegetable seed oils are pro-inflammatory and unhealthy enough in their “fresh” state. That oil gets reused many, many times in those deep fryers. Every time the oil is heated up, it accumulates trans fats, carcinogens, and oxidation products. These nasty substances multiply one’s risk of a stroke, heart attack, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and other deadly diseases.
Of course, I also have short-term reasons for avoiding deep-fried foods. One is the likelihood that I’ve lost my taste for them as a result of avoiding junk foods and restaurant foods due to the pandemic. Another reason is the food coma. At this point, eating deep-fried food would be like shooting myself with one of those tranquilizer guns that they use for capturing bears and other wild animals.
Alley’s weight problems may have caused this. If environment is more powerful over the long run than your DNA, her weight was perhaps her biggest environmental causality.
Kirstie Alley? It seems that celebrities have been dropping like flies. Yes, Leap1, I cannot help but think that her weight fluctuations weakened her organs. According to this logic, somebody needs to bubble-wrap Oprah. (Then again, maybe her body has recovered from the weight fluctuations she used to be known for.)
The Hebrew version is better - “Al ta’am va’rayach, ein ma le’hitvakayach” … in matters of taste and smell, there can be no argument. In other words, taste and smell preferences are individual.
Keep in mind that this is a Brazilian study. In many developing nations, fast food and ultraprocessed foods are often considered luxury items.
Also want to point out that obesity is one of the primary risk factors for dementia, which means that anything that increases the likelihood of obesity will positively correlate with dementia risk. For this reason there is probably a positive correlation between dementia and the consumption of anything that people like to eat, such as ice cream, baked goods, pizza, fried chicken, and any entree from Taco Bell.
In other words it is possible that one could eat lots of ultraprocessed foods but not increase the risk for dementia by controlling one’s weight.
I’m not going to suggest that deep fried foods are good for you. (Everything in moderation)
But since you haven’t had a soda pop this century, maybe you didn’t see this news item about trans fats back in 2008
Mike
Just because the oil used by McDonald’s is trans-fat-free at the factory doesn’t mean that it remains that way after it has been repeatedly heated up in those deep fryers.
