Ties or not, it's true that the label is imprecise and that not everything that's been highly processed is equal.

For example I'd argue that wheat flour and subsequently bread or pasta are in fact very highly processed, and carb bombs to boot, but nowhere near as bad as some other stuff out there.

Or take soy protein nuggets. As ultraprocessed as it gets, but probably healthy if anything.

It's a really complex topic and I feel lkke any sweeping generalizations are bound to be misleading in some ways or others.

Doesn't change the fact that "ultraprocessed food" is not really a meaningful category.

Is this surprising? The tobacco industry does the same thing.

The whole definition is one of process, not of product. While it correlates with the nature of the end product it does not define the end product. Exactly the same end result with some steps done at home somehow magically changes the result.

And until we control for the proxy it's meaningless anyway. UPFs have a big problem in that people tend to consume too much (the expected endpoint of companies engineering for what people buy) and that causes a whole host of health problems. I haven't seen anything meaningful that differentiates UPF from overconsumption.