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Comment by 09bjb | Hacker News Reader

Not because of the highly processed and refined wheat (and sometimes sugar) that usually constitute its main ingredients?

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Most people forget that nearly all flour is bleached. This process is highly industrial, using benzoyl peroxide to change the flour from its naturally yellowish color to the white we all associate with "clean" flour.

The industrial processes that make grocery store flour are not just the same old milling and sifting we've been doing for centuries, but a qualitatively different way to treat food.

Further, in the USA, several states still allow the use of bromate to speed up the flour aging process. Any industrial bread in those states will have this rather unhealthy chemical in it.

I'm not remotely surprised to see sliced bread count as "ultra processed".

Not all sliced bread is "ultra-processed" in this paper. They say "Industrial breads made only from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast are processed foods, while those whose lists of ingredients also include emulsifiers or colours are ultraprocessed."

...but colors seem like some of the ingredients least likely to turn a product unhealthy. With emulsifiers probably not far behind.

Pure speculation here, but we may be overlooking some mechanical mechanism in the obesity epidemic: Could it be that simply consuming a larger percentage of foods containing ingredients made of powders and pastes which are easy to mass-produce is robbing our digestion process of some fundamental function that results in over-eating?

Perhaps the human stomach needs to take its time digesting whole foods and fibers in their natural form to produce feelings of satiety for longer periods of time?

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