Included in that definition is a note that there are possible exceptions to the claim that all UPFs are inferior to their non-UPF counterparts, noting the examples of infant formula and plant-based meats. It concludes that these exceptions don't "invalidate the general rule." Why not? Because.

The UPF literature is a mess. bsky.app/profile/garr...

Read more here and feel free to reach out if you need help accessing the paper. 9/9 online.ucpress.edu/gastronomica...

But efforts to make food systems healthy need to be based in 1) good nutritional evidence, 2) good environmental evidence, and 3) realistic social contexts. To this point, the UPF/NOVA frameworks are not cutting it. 8/

It can be hard to argue against the UPF concept without sounding like a shill for processed foods. To be clear, we should be supporting efforts to help people eat minimally processed whole foods! And the food industry has done some bad stuff to get people hooked on junk food! 7/

Just as important, the rhetoric of the anti-UPF brigade is deeply alarmist, often disconnected and elitist, and frequently selling you something. In the case of RFK Jr/MAHA, it's also a distraction from the ways they are undermining effective public health approaches. 6/

The idea that UPFs are uniquely bad for the environment is upended by the fact that lots of animal-sourced foods with demonstrably poor environmental impacts are granted a non-UPF halo while lots of environmentally sound plant-based foods are deemed destructive UPFs. 5/

The NOVA system is just not good! The categories are confusing and unreliable. Some UPFs are actually good for you. Some non-UPFs are clearly unhealthy. Evidence connecting UPFs to poor health is mostly explained by a few categories -- especially sugar-sweetened beverages. 4/

But as UPFs have permeated nutritional discourse, it's proven to be just as reductionist as its predecessors -- just in different ways. Now, whether a food is "good" or "bad" gets decided by its place within the 4 categories of NOVA. But here's the problem... 3/

When I first learned about UPFs and the NOVA system, I was optimistic. I agree that the "goodness" of a food should not JUST be about its nutritional composition. Reductionism can be bad! We should consider food's impacts on culture and ecology too! 2/

If it comes down to late-breaking undecideds, I think Ciattarelli will be the next governor. At the very least, he comes across as authentically FROM HERE, whereas she seems like she was made in a lab by highly-paid Democratic consultants. I hope I'm wrong...

Also, they don't report the primary registered outcome (sperm DNA methylation, which they say they will report in a future paper), and they don't say why.

And it doesn't seem to occur to them that sat fat, sugar, and fiber, rather than processing, might be the issue.

HT @garrettbroad.bsky.social

The idea that processing is the only thing that matters irrespective of nutritional composition is bizarre. We can do multiple things at once -- encourage minimally processed foods (which are good!), limit nutritionally poor UPFs, AND improve nutrition of UPFs because they have useful functions too.

Given that, this result seems like something that shouldn't be so shocking, despite the NYPost headline and the quote from the lead author? UPFs tend to have much worse nutritional composition, we've known this! Why do we act like we're uncovering some big mystery? nypost.com/2025/10/06/h... 3/

"Compared with the unprocessed diet, the ultra-processed diet contained elevated levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, refined grains, added sugars, and dairy products and lower amounts of fiber." So while these diets were matched for calories, they were NOT NUTRITIONALLY EQUIVALENT. 2/