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Thank you for the details - as you point out this is a functionally useless definition.

It reeks of "You know what I mean - that bad stuff". And that's not a good scientific definition.

A product containing more than five ingredients is likely to be ultra-processed

Curry is "ultra-processed" - you heard it hear first.

Like I said - "Sports are dangerous" is a very bad way to try to categorize risky activity. Golf and football are very different as are Curry and Twizzlers.

In this reply you you talked about "some breads", the OP Post only talks about bread - and that for sure had only ingredients in using at home.

Same for French fries: potato, salt, fat .

I'm with the poor downvoted fellow, I don't understand where the risk comes from when it's described this vague.

Are home made burgers better? Is it the freezing process and I should lower my meal prep? Is it additives?

A product containing more than five ingredients is likely to be ultra-processed

Ugh. No. That amounts to saying "anything that contains five spice is ultra-processed". Why do you hate Chinese cuisine.

The "not used in home cooking" rule of thumb is way better though you can certainly make absolutely filthy dishes at home. Home cooking also uses "chemicals, colouring and sweeteners", and also home cooks care about appearance, taste, and texture.

What I'd actually be interested in is comparing EU vs. US standards UPC. EU products use colourings such as red beet extract, beta-carotene, stabilisers, gelling agents etc. like guar gum or arrowroot, when they use fully synthetic stuff then it's generally something actually found in nature. Companies add ascorbic acid as antioxidant, grandma added a splash of lemon juice, same difference really.

A EU strawberry yoghurt which says "natural aroma" is shoddy, yes, you're getting fewer strawberries and more strawberry aroma produced by fungi, but I'm rather sceptical when it comes to claims that it's less healthy.

"An ultra-processed food (UPF) is a grouping of processed food characterized by relatively involved methods of production. There is no simple definition of UPF, but they are generally understood to be an industrial creation derived from natural food or synthesized from other organic compounds.[1][2] The resulting products are designed to be highly profitable, convenient, and hyperpalatable, often through food additives such as preservatives, colourings, and flavourings.[3] UPFs have often undergone processes such as moulding/extruding, hydrogenation, or frying.[4]" Wikipedia

I don't know why it is not defined as such. It's easy to understand to me anyway. Flour has been ground up by humans for centuries, and has gone through a process, but the end product still at least resembles what you find in nature. Glycerides however, need to be explained and created using chemistry through indusrial processes.

I don't know if I could have picked a better example I am no expert. I'm simply disheartened so many struggle to distinguish between processed and ultra processed.

Olive oil is processed; if then, in an industrial process they extract the glyceride from that process and isolate it to its chemical form, to only then inject it into another food stuff product, that's ultra processed.

Im not that smart, anyone feel free to holler at me for being incorrect. This is my understanding however.

I gave up Ultra-processed foods 15-20 years ago and lost a lot of weight, and maintained that weight loss for years only using the avoidance of ultra-processed foods. Of course when I got slack, I gained again. So to me it seems obvious the harms. However, one could argue injecting vitamin c to a food is healthy, and would be defined as going through ultra process to isolate the vitamin compound.

But there is, to me, something sinister to have food scientists engineer food to be highly palatable and addictive, while also being detrimental to our health. Looking at you hot cheetos.