The word “processed” is kind of a lazy heuristic - butchering, cooking, hulling, mixing, those are all ways of processing that are healthy and effective.

Creating something like a Twinkie is a whole different ballgame and looks more like a triumph of chemical engineering and material science than anything related to baking or cooking.

Some bread made from acorn flower, cooked butchered meat or hulled rice would be fine, but giving them a Twinkie or Mountain Dew seems like the kind of thing that might lose them their job.

Perhaps there are ultra-processed foods that are not unhealthy, but that does not include "Impossible Meat".

Many of us have switched to things other than meat, but that choice seems beyond most people.

Another alternative is what is called "lab-grown meat", which is not a meat substitute, per se, but is actual meat that might be a lot less harmful to produce. Where it sits on the "processed" spectrum is hard to assess. Obviously it is, in one sense, 100% processed, but details matter.

The term 'hyper-processed' is used to refer to foods that bare very little resemblance to recognizable ingredients straight from the farm.

To be glib, any process that makes normally undigestible things edible to humans would qualify for that. Cooked rice is superior to raw rice, fermented cabbage is superior to raw cabbage, and glazed onions are superior to raw onions.

That's usually not the type of processing people refer to when they use the term "processed foods". It usually refers to a type of processing where the original ingredients are no longer individually recognizable, and where the end result contains much more additives (sugar, salt, fats) than were in the original product(s).

If I process cabbage into Sauerkraut or Kimchi, does that count as bad, because it's "processed"? What if it's processed by some company? What if they process it differently?

Case in point, Sauerkraut. If I make that at home, the bacteria stay alive the whole time. They still multiply in my fridge right now and keep the Sauerkraut OK to eat if a bit mushy after being left in there for too long coz I don't eat it often enough. If I buy Sauerkraut in a glass it's dead. Sure, they also used bacteria to actually make the Sauerkraut. And then they killed off all of the good bacteria by pasteurization to be able to stick it on a shelf w/ a long best before date and to guarantee the texture and color. Not to mention the extra "ingredients" they put in there.

Do you think this is some sort of a smart or incisive observation?

I am sorry if I come off as rude, but I have grown weary of people making such asinine comments, quibbling about terms and their definitions, when they clearly know what the parent comment is talking about.

And there's a case in point right in one the answers to my reply:

    So Kimchi is considered minimally processed

As with the Sauerkraut example, home made Kimchi is minimally processed I would agree. Commercial Kimchi, like commercial Sauerkraut I would probably count as just "processed", not good for you. But agileAlligator may not see even commercial Kimchi/Sauerkraut as processed and he draws the line at "processed cheese", so that weird vegetable oil with "natural" color in it.

agileAlligator says

    Asking what the definition of processed food is, is talking past the point.

1. Something that was originally nutritious, but had some part removed due to processing. Sometimes they attempt to add vitamins back into it, like enriched flour, but the issue is that we don’t know what else might be missing, or how changing the structure affects the body (faster absorbing carbs for example)

2. Foods that are sanitized heavily. Obviously it’s in the name of safety, but there could be benefits to eating a little dirt sometimes (ie there’s tons of vitamin B12 in dirt, but who knows what else we could be missing)

3. Foods that have lots of artificial or derived chemicals. Many are probably fine but it’s hard to know how certain things affect our gut microbiome.

There’s so much we still don’t understand about our bodies, especially our gut and it’s bacteria. That’s why nutrition science changes constantly. “Fat is bad, no wait it’s good” etc.

It’s not entirely scientific, but I strongly recommend reading In Defense Of Food. It’s thought-provoking and hits heavily on the many inconsistencies in our primitive understanding of nutrition. The author also calls out interesting points about “whole unprocessed foods” and why nutrition science is hard (eg too many variables)

So Kimchi is considered minimally processed. Flour has various processing levels to make bread. Enriched white is strictly worse than others.

Cookies with hydrogenated palm oil would be bad. Any oils beyond cold pressed extra virgin olive oil are supposedly bad.

Now the preservatives in store bought kimchi could theoretically be a bigger issue.. I don't know how many folks have studied them. I imagine they just pass through us but probably influence the microbiome etc...

Canned foods are worse than fresh or frozen.

According to this Mayo Clinic quotation of USDA, processed food includes anything dried, frozen, canned, or mixed. https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speak...

I don't think (and am guessing most would agree) canned tomatoes are particularly harmful food, nor are frozen blueberries or fish, nor are dried raisins when I'm putting them in oats.

It's a spectrum. With my kids, dried mangoes make me slightly guilty because I know they are pretty high in sugar, albeit natural sugar. Most people would be more wary of frozen chicken nuggets. Some more specificity around what makes processed foods harmful, from the science and science comms communities, would be helpful.

Canned sardines/mackerel is super healthy and minimally processed. Just like canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned corn..etc

When you see “natural”, “processed” or “toxin” in reference to a food, health or cosmetic product, pretend the word isn’t there. At best, it means nothing, at worst it is a manipulation designed to part your money from you or a fake cure.

Perdue sells raw, butchered chicken breasts by the pound with 5% water as “minimally processed”, for example.

- cheese, pickled herring, charcuterie and such which can be part of a healthy diet

- pre-made (supermarket) meals or junk food (a vulgar term but unfortunately fitting) which typically aren't part of a healthy diet

I think most people understand it to mean something more like "stuffed full of oil or sugar".

https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/what-is-nixtamal-arti...

Thank you!