People like variety. Also, people may still like eating meat, but want to eat less of it - not for health reasons, but for the environment and to kill less animals.

I would prefer unprocessed food as well but it sounds like cost is a major driver in this case.

Vegan chicken nuggets are similar easy food than processing vegetables yourself.

For me, I love meat, makes it easier to buy the 'better' processed food having this option.

If your supermarket doesn't have a vegi option than I can't buy it, try it etc.

I think the whole "processed" vs "unprocessed" food label is too imprecise to say anything about whether it's healthy or not. I don't think there's anything that implies that processed foods have to be unhealthy. It's just that most processed food tend to be less healthy.

> I don't think there's anything that implies that processed foods have to be unhealthy

Honestly it's just a good rule of thumb to use. Even if it's not 100% true, you're better off acting like it's 100% true in the end.

Meat sausages and cold cuts are processed as well. And are likely made with cancerous preservatives!

Normally, but not always. I can get freshly produced sausages from my local butcher.

"fresh" sausages most likely contains some of those preservatives too, as they prevent worse things like botulism. Unless maybe they're made the same day as you consume them?

"Fresh" as in made on the day they're sold from the same meat that's sold there.

According to our local, nitrate free, butcher freshly slaughtered meat contains enoigh natural nitrate-alternatives to not require additional nitrate if ham, sausages and so on are prepared soon enough.

nitrate-free is a myth. They use celery powder which breaks down to sodium nitrate. The FDA allows the producers to call this "nitrate free" since they are not using sodium nitrate directly and the FDA considers the celery powder a flavoring agent.

Chemically it breaks down to sodium nitrate and has the same carcinogenic nitrates. Its just a legal labeling loop hole.

Lucky me I don't live in the US then. And no, no celery powder used neither...

When butchered a clean facility foods without nitrates will last longer than a day.

Making a sausage is a form of processing. Sausage is a processed food, no matter what. The distinction is whether or not it is highly processed (i.e., amount of additives).

By that logic, splitting a peapod with my hands is processing, and thus all food is processed.

A nit: The nitrates/nitrites/celery powder in bacon etc. is carcinogenic, the bacon doesn’t have cancer.

Thanks for the correction!

> but would I prefer processed foo

When the processed food tastes as good and as fresh as the one you cook in your house - why not. In the case of European plant-based meat, this is the case.

Do you cook your food?

Congratulations, it's processed. Worrying about something as nonspecific as "processing" is much the same as worrying that it's made up of chemicals.