Every kind of food processing has trade offs including cooking which destroys vitamin C among other things.

White rice is missing thiamine (B1) which historically was killing off significant numbers in Asia as it became popular. There’s plenty of historic examples with similar issues. Now days foods are often fortified with various things to cover the most common and severe issues, but that’s probably not enough on its own.

In terms of highly processed foods you run into various additives. There’s a long list of minimally studied additives/dyes/preservatives/etc being used only for them to later be recalled and replaced with some other poorly studied substances. Ignorance may be a legal defense for Nabisco adding X to their products, but it’s not going to protect your health.

So, the advice is basically to have the absolute minimum amount of processing steps which is a surprisingly useful heuristic alongside having a varied diet including lots of different plants.

> Unless I run out in the field and bite a cow

Oh, how I now want to invent a new fad diet...

Given the question, I'm willing to bet that running is likely to result in a heart attack.

I take it you interpret "save money" to mean keep yourself barely fed, clothed and housed, and otherwise consuming the bare minimum so that you can maximize the amount you put away?

If not, you might want to loosen your interpretation of words in other domains, too.

Industrial processing. As a simple rule, the longer the list of ingredients on the food label, the more processed. The ingredients aren't something you'd normally think of as food? More processed.

Basically don't eat food that comes in a box.

Eat fresh or frozen meats, vegetables, fruits, some whole grains.

In most supermarkets, shop around the perimeter and avoid everything in the center aisles.

Another way I've heard it stated: "single ingredient foods." And as you prepare them, try to keep them that way.

For example, adding a ton of butter to potatoes makes them 10x less healthy. More or less, calorically they become fries. Fries taste great but they should be an occasional treat, not a staple.

That’s really a question of what the rest of your lifestyle and diet looks like.

Potatoes and butter go really well together because it covers a more complete percentage of our dietary needs. If your diet mostly consists of veggies + starches (rice/potatoes/etc) + ultra lean meats then adding a little butter is actually a good idea. If you’re constantly eating fired chicken then it isn’t.

Keep in mind that if you buy a bunch of "let's pretend it's not processed" "healthy" foods and use them to cook a meal, you're a) creating an ultra-processed meal, and b) it now has a long list of ingredients, you're just not writing it down.

When you look at a box even single ingredients like sugar have a great deal more processing than you’re likely aware of. Chicken on the other hand is the kind of thing a single person can take from a live bird to a meal in a single day.

So, no if you’re cooking with essentially raw ingredients it’s not going to end up highly processed because you simply don’t have the time.

I found this list really helpful to understand:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_...

In 2023 it means...

An apple...not processed.

An ear of corn...not processed.

Oatmeal...not processed.

Frozen peas...not processed.

Breakfast cereal...processed.

Heat & serve meals in the frozen section...processed.

Yogurt with fruit (and tons of sugar) pre-added...processed.

Soft drinks...processed.

Kid's "Happy Meal"...processed.

And so on.

Btw, Slaughtered and butchered meats !== processed meats.

Recommened book:

- Exercised - D Lieberman

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/29/exercised-by-d...

- Burn - Pontzer

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/07/16/1016931...

- Comfort Crisis - M Easter

- Scarcity Brain - M Easter

https://eastermichael.com/

Also recommended, the series "The Foods That Built America" on the History Channel.

p.s. Again, key phrase "as we evolved". Last I checked archeologist aren't digging up McDonald's from eons ago.

Generally, if you buy it on the perimeter of the grocery store, and it has a relatively short shelf-life, it's not processed.