I think it's partly due to the people (this site is full of them) that would read any other term and go "what is processing? Cooking and cutting is processing hurr durr"
I have had this exact argument on HN at least a half dozen times.
Someone will have to explain to me why so many people claim that honey is not a "refined sugar." If bees do the refining than it doesn't count?
yeah people still do it but at least adding the "ultra" indicates is not something a person cooking for their family would be doing to food
It's just as dumb though because the act of processing doesn't really mean anything.
If it didn't mean anything then why the findings in the article?
The findings in the article basically came down to - people eat more calories when it tastes good. Even the article itself admits there are a multitude of other factors that could account for the results other than UPF.
It absolutely does if you're able to take off the pedantry glasses for like 5 seconds. Why are you nitpicking this? is it because you actually think articles like this are about chopping carrots?
"if it couldn't be made outside of a factory, don't eat it."
from someone else in the comments is pretty clear
It's still a misleading term, so it would be good to talk about what the actual harm is, as to not confuse people. And it does confuse, since I vividly remember as a kid being confused by it, and it's important to have healthy habits from a young age. It always sounded a bit weird that food being "processed" means it's bad, so I didn't understand it really. And if you don't focus on the harm, but use terms like this, it's hard to say what is pseudoscience and what is actual science.