Ultra-processed foods harm men’s health. They increase weight, disrupt hormones, decrease testosterone, and introduce harmful substances linked to declining sperm quality. They contain industrial and synthetic ingredients. This may be why over the past 50 years, sperm quality has plummeted.

[u/mvea]

https://cbmr.ku.dk/news/2025/not-all-calories-are-equal-ultra-processed-foods-harm-mens-health/

[u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

Because it doesn't really mean anything. It's almost always just a very poor proxy for high sugar and high sodium.

[u/FrenchFryCattaneo → u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

It's not just that. It's also referring to foods that have been engineered to highly appeal in a certain way to your body. In the same way there's a difference between a card game with your friends and a casino, these foods are so hyper-appealing a normal person won't regulate their intake of them the way they would 'normal' food.

[u/ztj → u/FrenchFryCattaneo]

Being hyperpalatable is stated as a purpose for the processing but it is not a requirement to be considered ultra processed (referring to the dogshit NOVA definition here since the study used that.)

[u/130lb_sumo_wrestler → u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

It does mean something, it’s sometimes used to refer to the “ultra-processed” group in the NOVA classification, which relates to how raw ingredients are manipulated to produce food products. Think: “we sliced the mango and dried it” vs. “we emulsified all the bits of pig and added chemical binders and stabilizers”.

I’ve seen the criticism of this classification system before that the ultra-processed group contains lots and lots of foods that some people might consider healthy, like whole grain bread from the grocery store. While this might make the classification functionally too coarse for the US public, I think it also supports the idea that these foods, despite potential health risks, are so fundamental to our diets that we’d consider excluding them as overly impractical or impossible. I personally don’t find the classification useless, rather a reflection of how far down the road of ultra-processed foods we’ve gone.

Edit: this study also uses the NOVA classification. I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia page on it for further context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

[u/JamesTiberiusCrunk → u/130lb_sumo_wrestler]

The vast majority of people including dietitians and researchers would consider whole grain bread to be healthy. That's exactly the problem with this classification. It doesn't reliably tell you anything about healthiness or risk of the food. If you have concerns about high blood pressure, you want to track sodium, not level of processing. If you're concerned about diabetes or weight gain you should track sugar, not level of processing. If you're concerned about micro plastics, you'd need an understanding of which processes might introduce them, because not all processes will.

I personally don’t find the classification useless, rather a reflection of how far down the road of ultra-processed foods we’ve gone.

Ok, but that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the debate here. If you want to use this classification system to understand the prevalence of things in this classification system, that's fine. The entire debate everyone else here is having is whether this classification system is a good proxy for the healthiness and risk of eating a particular food. On that front, it's pretty close to useless.

[u/130lb_sumo_wrestler → u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

I disagree, what I’m hearing is that the classification system fails because it goes against “common understanding” of what is healthy or not. My point is that this system is useful for that exact reason; it doesn’t consider what people think is healthy, it measures the distance between the raw ingredients and the ultimate food product, hence the term “processed”.

Whole wheat bread is a good example here because it highlights that “common understanding” of healthfulness is based on the perception of the raw ingredients, rather than the ultimate product. In this case, the NOVA system clearly distinguishes whole wheat bread from a grocery store (compared to being made at home) by the presence of preservatives, emulsifiers, binders, and the like. The clarity this system provides is: “when you make whole wheat bread in an ultra-processed fashion, such as industrial food production, you may sacrifice much of the healthfulness of an otherwise very healthy food product”.

The system at large shouldn’t be ignored because it counters common viewpoints on what foods are healthy.

Edit based on your first comment I replied to: agreed that more specific measure of salt, sugar, calories etc. are perhaps more useful for certain questions, but NOVA offers the perspective that processing has effects on healthfulness aside from changing the numbers for such components of foods.

[u/Sitethief → u/130lb_sumo_wrestler]

That is still useless. Knowing which binders, preservatives, emulsifiers etc are the problem is usefull knowledge, not that a food product has some of those categories. Because then you can avoid it, regulate it, label it, and advise people about them. The rather hard to do with a badly explained and defined term as Ultra processed.

[u/jason_steakums → u/Sitethief]

If anything healthier foods being lumped in with unhealthy foods in this classification means these studies may be vastly underestimating the bad effects of the unhealthy ones because the healthier ones bring up the averages

[u/130lb_sumo_wrestler → u/Sitethief]

What is the difference between:

“Eating foods that contain emulsifier X, or preservative Y might contribute to health problems”

vs

“Eating foods that contain emulsifiers and preservatives might contribute to health problems”

The latter being not-so-far removed from the point of the linked article.

[u/dreamykidd → u/130lb_sumo_wrestler]

It’s the difference between

“Eating foods that contain proteins may kill people with peanut allergies”

and

“Eating foods that contain certain Ara h proteins may kill people with peanut allergies”.

It’s not the category that has the effect, it’s the specific item. Some proteins are poisons like those used by snakes, some are allergens, and others are biologically neutral but great for building muscle. Emulsifiers, preservatives, etc are just as broad in their effect as proteins, so it tells us next to nothing about their function by trying to tie a broad category to specific functions.

[u/130lb_sumo_wrestler → u/dreamykidd]

Point taken, thank you for responding to my point

[u/SaxRohmer → u/130lb_sumo_wrestler]

do you not understand the field of science and its purpose

[u/istara → u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

I disagree, because there is a growing body of research that specific ingredients (notably certain emulsifiers) in an otherwise "healthy" product may be causing havoc with the gut biome.

UPF isn't the only or the defining scale of whether a food is healthful and/or non-harmful (the two are not the same). But it is an important scale and should be taken into account in the debate.

[u/JamesTiberiusCrunk → u/istara]

specific ingredients (notably certain emulsifiers) in an otherwise "healthy" product may be causing havoc with the gut biome.

Then the problem is those emulsifiers, not processing in general.

UPF isn't the only or the defining scale of whether a food is healthful and/or non-harmful

It's not any part of that calculus at all.

[u/manonthecorner88 → u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

The emulsifiers and additives are needed to produce a product that remains palatable when produced in an industrial context. In the case of bread, they are required to allow leavening to occur at all, look up the chorleywood bread process.

Sure, perhaps we could find alternatives that don’t have these health effects (though the science, especially concerning the effects on gut, is very poorly understood) but the fact remains use of extensive additives goes hand in hand with UPF foods.

Without them the finished product would either be totally unappealing or wouldn’t resemble food at all.

[u/istara → u/130lb_sumo_wrestler]

Exactly this. The problem is that it doesn't just mean "junk food" though there is usually huge overlap. There are ostensibly "healthy" foods that are actually ultra processed (various vegan meats and low calorie products often fall into this category) and there are very unhealthy foods that aren't UPF at all, such as crisps that may be just salt/oil/potato, but are essentially empty calories.

UPF refers to something quite specific as research is increasingly showing that food processing methods alone alter the way our gut absorbs foods, and certain additives - emulsifiers in particular - are potentially playing havoc with the gut biome.

[u/130lb_sumo_wrestler → u/istara]

Agreed. I’ve been trying to avoid the gums for a while, but only because they give me the craziest farts. Also, belly feel better when I eat my salad without emulsified dressings.

[u/mojocookie → u/130lb_sumo_wrestler]

It’s interesting that what we in the US and Canada call “bread” would be classified as “cake” in the EU due to its sugar content. Our “bread” is definitely ultra-processed. The wheat it is made from is already ultra-processed, and the manufacturing process adds even more chemicals such as stabilizers, preservatives, and synthetic nutrients.

[u/stumpyraccoon → u/mojocookie]

"Classified" for tax reasons based on extremely old taxation laws. It has nothing to do with nutrition or health or some exotic "oh la la Europe is so advanced!" fantasy. But that doesn't get clicks...

[u/SweetNeo85 → u/[deleted]]

Well thanks for sharing any of your information. "I read this book guys trust me."

[u/42Porter → u/SweetNeo85]

Now you know it exists you could read it for yourself. I don’t agree with it 100% but it did make some eye opening arguments. Of course these issue are more within the public conscious now than when it was written so it may no longer have quite as much impact.

[u/stumpyraccoon → u/[deleted]]

Gonna blow your mind here but anyone can write a book that says anything. It's in fact getting easier by the day.

"I read a book" is just a little above "I saw it on YouTube."

[u/Jgfidelis → u/stumpyraccoon]

Its a deeply researched book with tons of references and always using state of the art scientific research to back their claims. It goes into details explaining the papers and the reasoning. Why do people make such an effort into not reading a simple book and believe a wrong claim on reddit? And this is the science subreddit…

[u/fire_alarmist → u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

Stupid or what? Its never been about the high sugar or whatever. Its about consuming a food product that is the result of an industrial process and weeks of transport and all the additives/things picked up along that whole process that are not present in fresh foods.

[u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist → u/JamesTiberiusCrunk]

Uh it is? While ultra processed foods can include high sugar and high sodium/salt, that's really just the mask on all the other ingredients. Ultra-processed means 5 or more added ingredients/additives. Sugars, salts, oils (and fats) would fall under normal or minimal processing.

A good example is bread. Normal processed bread would include 4-5 ingredients. Flour, Water, Yeast. Maybe some sugar or salt or butter/oil. However normal sliced white bread from the store can include 10-15 ingredients, and some more that don't even have to be put on the label.

[u/JamesTiberiusCrunk → u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist]

Ultra-processed means 5 or more added ingredients/additives. Sugars, salts, oils (and fats) would fall under normal or minimal processing.

So what? This is completely separate from the point I was making.

A good example is bread.

A good example of what? There are "ultra processed" breads that are perfectly healthy and there are low ingredient count foods that have a ton of sugar in them.