Even fruit/vegetables have become sweeter over the decades with selective breeding.

That’s the least of societies concerns. Corn syrup and sugar infused everything is a massive problem.

no they haven't[1][2]. Please stop perpetuating this myth

1. https://twitter.com/Botanygeek/status/1149968041964396545

2. https://deniseminger.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/

It's not a myth. You're both kinda right:

1) The fruit that we eat today is hyper-sugarized and available 24/7 all the time. Eg European ancestors NEVER had access to this amount of fruit. Apples, bananas, (water)melons, sweet grapes, ...these things didn't exist 150 years ago in the form we know today. People eat these sugar bombs all the time.

2) There does exist high sugar natural fruit.

Even your modern European cousins don’t have quite the same level of access to super-sugary fruits year-round, or at least we see some blatant price differences.

Cherries right now (mid-July) in northern Bavaria: $3/lb at the grocery store, cheaper if you buy direct from farmers just outside the towns. Various small plums are free for the taking from trees along trails and rivers. I’m planning some serious jam-making over the next few weekends.

Cherries in January: if available at all, approximately $20/lb, import from South Africa or Chile. Plums are also available, about $8/lb, but not very flavorful.

Not many things have only one ingredient.

Depends on how you shop. If you buy premade food, you’re right. If you buy ingredients and prepare yourself, you’re less right. It’s a scale.

You can have pasta, or sauce (crushed tomatoes), but not both. No salt, no garlic, no onions, no olive oil. One ingredient.

Literally everything I buy and eat/drink has one ingredient.

Every single vegetable. Every single fruit. Water (I get it from the tap), rice, pasta, noodles. Meat. Eggs. Fish.

The point is that ideally all food processing occurs in your own kitchen. Of course the food you end up eating will be comprised of multiple ingredients; by only buying food ingredients that are in their original unprocessed form, and combining them yourself in constructing a meal, you have full control over the ingredients you are consuming.

Bulllshit.

Steak, chicken breast, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, turkey thighs, spinach, corn on the cob, some organic peanut butters, flour, salt, zucchini, eggplant, pork chops, tomatoes, potatoes, yams, vinegar, olive oil, bok choi, broccoli, asparagus, beef liver, canned tuna fish (are we really going to split hairs over the salt brine?), ground beef, garlic, onion, shallots, spring onion, iceberg lettuce, watermelon, peaches, bananas, apples, eggs, mahi mahi, chives, cod, romaine, gem lettuce, kale, walnuts, almonds, leek, etc.

Even if you don’t apply common sense to this heuristic and include milk, cheese, bread, good quality bacon, etc., there is a veritable cornucopia of strictly single-ingredient foods available.

But yeah, you’re gonna have to buy ingredients and cook actual meals to be healthy. No way around it, I’m afraid…

Fruits, great. Many vegetables. And steak.

You're not putting anything on the chicken or turkey? You're going to have ground beef by itself? Are you biting into that onion like an apple? And the garlic? Iceberg lettuce by itself sucks. What do you mean "flour", what do you mean "salt"?

Combining the "single" ingredients into a home-cooked meal is perfectly fine.

Keep reading to the end.

I also have a hard time believing this is a genuine source of confusion…

I read to the end. If "cook actual meals" is supposed to imply combining ingredients then you broke the rule of "only eat and drink things that have one ingredient". Otherwise I don't know what you're referring to.

I'm not confused by minimizing processing via home cooking, I'm confused by how your list was supposed to be relevant to the comment you replied to. That comment had a very specific objection.

(And yes, I see that the OP has now replied saying you can combine ingredients at home. But I think the skepticism toward the original phrasing was valid.)

You're playing dumb. We know this.

I'm not playing dumb. At this point I'm accusing them of saying the wrong thing.

"Buy things with one ingredient" is one idea. "Only eat things with one ingredient" is a very different and much more narrow idea.

And don't say it was obvious what they meant. I've seen people claim much wilder things about healthy eating than "don't combine ingredients".

So you don't know how to cook and prepare food? Get a book about it. If you read English, and especially if you are American, you might as well get Joy of Cooking.

I agree on the approach, and I try my best, but it isn't easily. You almost have to make food preparation a hobby.

Not necessarily. I used to spend a lot more time cooking but nowadays it doesn't consume much time. Having the right equipment is the most important thing. It starts with a sharp knife. Then a good array of pots and pans, utensils. All can be acquired second hand for peanuts. You can get rid of your microwave. Save some space in your kitchen. You won't need that any more.

The problem is, back in the day people learnt the skills to prepare food out of necessity. Now you have to want to do it. I suggest a good book on a favourite cuisine. Convince yourself that what you cook at home is nicer than the shit you can buy in shops and you won't want it any more. Don't forget to give your own food a chance and put just as much salt in it as they do, though. I see this mistake a lot. People think prepared/processed food is nicer just because it has more salt. Use salt.

I've found the actual cooking time is just 1/3 of the whole process. The rest is washing the produce, pealing, dicing AND lastly, cleaning all the pots, pans, etc.

And no, not everything can go in the dishwasher.

You get better at it, like you start washing things up as you go rather than letting it pile up. But some things definitely do take a lot of time. It used to be part of a full time job. But now we all work full time for someone else and have to somehow find the time to work for ourselves and our families afterwards.

Yes to only buying stuff with one ingredient. With a few exceptions like fresh bread which is made traditionally. Don't know about only eating stuff with one ingredient, though. Not sure how you'd ever eat onions and garlic, for example. Maybe you meant only eat/drink stuff made with those ingredients?

A bit of of insight here: in a lot of places the availability of sweetened food it’s not only higher than no processed food but it’s cheaper. For less privileged folks it’s quite hard to dodge high carb + high sugar foods.