Nutrition science is notoriously low quality.

I largely believe the basic idea about whole foods being healthier than processed, but there's so much selection bias and other stuff that goes completely unaccounted for in these studies.

For instance, many people in poor health switch to a vegan diet after being diagnosed with serious heart conditions. One of the first things new vegans do is substitute a bunch of fake meat because it's familiar. When those people have heart attacks, it has nothing to do with the fake meat. However, I also have no illusions about those products being good for people.

All that said, I think it's fascinating how many of these articles defending the clearly unhealthy Standard American Diet have been coming out since RFK's involvement in the government became an inevitability.