My guidance was: "If it couldn't be made outside a factory, it's ultra processed."

An apple can be made outside a factory. A steak can be made outside a factory. That doesn't mean there aren't factory farms.

Sugar cannot be made outside a factory. If you press and boil your own sugar cane, you won't get refined white sugar.

The candied bacon you buy at the store could not be made at home. The sulfates and industrial products alone would be impossible to make.

If you made your own, that'd be way healthier.

▲

vel0city 7 months ago | parent [-]

> Sugar cannot be made outside a factory

We've been making refined sugar as an ingredient in foods for over a thousand years. Hard to say it can't be made outside of a factory when they were making it in 350 AD. Even the white refined variety, it's just been clarified and filtered. Anything they're doing in the factory to clarify it can be done in a kitchen. Which then continues to make me question at what point is a kitchen a factory? You've still never actually answered that question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar

> industrial products

Can you actually define this term? Is dihydrogen monoxide an industrial product? Sodium bicarbonate? Sodium chloride? Trimethylxanthine?

And finally, candied bacon is really not an ultra-processed food? I truly don't understand what the definition of "ultra-processed" is if something which is cured in various salts, fried, and glazed with a refined sugar is considered a healthy, non-ultra-processed food. So long as I use the right sources of nitrates and refine the sugar myself. As long as it's not in a building technically considered a factory by cynicalpeace, its A-OK!

	▲	cynicalpeace 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		"Which then continues to make me question at what point is a kitchen a factory? You've still never actually answered that question." This is like asking when some grains of sand become a heap of sand. There's not some number of grains when it becomes a heap, but heaps of sand obviously do exist and 2 grains of sand is not a heap of sand. Arguing about definitions is always boring. If your food is getting produced at a Costco type bakery, yeah that's worse than abuela grinding the corn herself. You get enough abuelas together and it starts to look like the bakery from Costco. Less "hands" in your food is directionally better. Also, I know very well how sugar is made. My wife is Colombian and grew up on a sugar cane farm. They have a panela cabin which is industrial under some definition of the word. Eating panela is way worse than just chewing the stalk, or adding some cane juice to a dish at home. The labor to create panela in any useable quantity requires large and/or expensive tools. Even more so for white sugar. Even more so for Coca-Cola. > And finally, candied bacon is really not an ultra-processed food? I truly don't understand what the definition of "ultra-processed" is if something which is cured in various salts, fried, and glazed with a refined sugar is considered a healthy, non-ultra-processed food. So long as I use the right sources of nitrates and refine the sugar myself. As long as it's not in a building technically considered a factory by cynicalpeace, its A-OK! This is just ad-hominem and doesn't take anything I said at face value. Disingenuous and against HN guidelines. I didn't say candied bacon isn't ultra-processed. I said if you actually made it from scratch on your own, it'd be better than store bought.