zlacker

>>atestu+(OP)
Unfortunately there seems to be no good aligned definition of what (highly) processed food is. 1,2

Whole grain bread or infant formula can be “highly processed” despite very healthy.

In the end someone else cooks for you and packages it. They can cook healthy or not or in between, add a lot of salt or little, .. as always it’s more complex.

1: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1

2 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nutrition-research-r...

>>fabbbb+nX
People who complain about “processed foods” generally have a basic misunderstanding of chemical/biochemical processes and energy gradients or activation energies.

Ultimately, everything is highly processed or we’d be eating rocks. The magnificent manufacturing line in animal or even plant cells is one of the most processed things at the finest molecular level that we know!

>>frutig+o62
And yet we find that the foods that most people can intuitively label as "processed" come with lower satiety per calorie, unfavorable effects on blood sugar, and lower micro nutrient density per calorie. There are definitely outliers, but obvious ones are Wonderbread vs Whole grain high fiber breads (like Daves 21 grain or ezekiel bread), American cheese vs Sliced medium cheddar, even things like Sweetened apple sauce vs an Apple, White rice versus brown or "wild rice"