You might have misremembered it. Or the author was dumbing it down for the ease of the audience, especially if it was a lay-public science magazine.
It's a scientific category. Legal definitions are local. The term did not originate in US and it took a while to take hold in US.
Here is the Brazilian epidemiologist who coined it.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

> things that couldn't be made in a normal kitchen

It's a definition that a random influencer would give, not one used in science.

Nova is the most recognized classification/definition.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

The stuff you mentioned fall under: "minimally processed foods". That's the healthiest category.

Cottage cheese is in the minimally processed category.
Cheddar is processed. You don't need any special technology to make it. It was made by aging it in damp caves in the 12th century.
Cheese singles are ultra processed.

> Although I don't buy the worst food because we have health standards here

We have health standards to protect us from food poisoning and poisoning from additives.
We don't have health standards to protect us from chronic diseases.

> if I would switch over to completely healthy my grocery bill would become two to three times more expensive.

It would not. It would actually be cheaper. Mine is. You are doing it wrong.

Regular cheese, yogurt and sauerkraut are not considered ultraprocessed.
Are there ultraprocessed cheese products and sugar loaded flavored yogurt products with fillers? Sure.

Not really. US is a large country with a large range of cost of living.
Where I currently live, it's below median. The store nearby often has great sales.

The basic stuff you listed cost about the same. $1 pasta. Bananas 59c/lb etc. Chicken thighs 45c/lb on frequent sales. Legumes are cheap everywhere.
If you cook for yourself with traditional ingredients, food is highly affordable in US. The low income people have food banks and get money from the government. Food is perhaps 2% of my expenses unless I need to eat out at work.

Unfortunately, ultra processed food consumption is 55% of caloric intake in US. It's much worse in the young.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fsections%2Fs...

Even as a busy professional, I cook for myself (about 3 times per week) and have my teen waist line and weight in late 40s. BMI is 21.4. Normal and basic food is inexpensive. I don't specially exercise. I just walk rather than drive.

However, even those on food assistance buy a lot of prepared and processed food. Whenever I ate processed food, I gained weight fast, even when I wasn't buying sugary stuff. I just avoid buying prepared food and include enough vegetables and fiber in my diet. My carb intake is only complex carbs. US is not protein deficient at all, but vegetable and fiber intake are inadequate on average.

That's all it takes, some basic common sense about diet. Food is very affordable in the developed world.

paul,

“one man speaking with adafruit’s social media accounts”

lazy. limor was quoted directly in the article and you still couldn’t credit her.

your claims aren’t accurate. we were asked to step in and build arduinos during the period when the guy falsely claiming an mit phd took over. we helped stabilize the platform and stayed a reseller until demand and circumstances shifted. every board, up until the last years, was shown to arduino before release to see if they wanted to make it, support it, etc. for example we presented feather, they were not interested.

“maybe some of the points have some merit?”

the concern isn’t imagined. the open source community is vocal because the issues are real there are a lot of people in the arduino world, discords, and dev channels raising the same flags. you not being in those spaces doesn’t mean it does not exist. you’re not tuned into these conversations. but at least don’t erase limor’s words and claim it's just me or downplay the people who are doing the work.

> I've been calling it techno feudalism

You and every Cyberpunk author ever.

At the end of the day, dataset authors must make a call on what is important and what is not. Just because it exists should not be a reason that it should be in training data. Training data must not be blindly representative, but prioritize epistemic value.
Let's take science as an example. There would be nothing in Hindi (or other regional languages in low scientific output areas) that isn't also in English, as far as scientific value is concerned.
What would the dataset miss? Local chatter?
Microsoft's smaller Phi models did quite well by sticking to high quality datasets.
We can always specialize high quality LLMs later for regional use.

I use Claude quite a bit. I never had this problem.
Although, my use is strictly technical and academic... opinions aren't involved.
I would want my AI to question my assumptions.
I manage thousands of lines of code with ease before perplexity goes up.

That's the standard Luddite argument.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
It was there with the industrial revolution. It was played back with the computer revolution. Now it's AI.
Yes, some people will lose jobs. There will be some disturbance in the labor markets of course. But we adapt.
I understand that this time it feels different, but that is how it felt back then too.

The posts are not copyrighted content.
And it's a stretch to call Reddit user content compensated by this.