That's not about understanding, that's deliberate obfuscation. If people cannot (or don't want to) distinguish between a faucet and a blender, there is no further discussion to be had.

I don't know if that is true when speaking to the general public about this. They usually think processed food means toxic chemicals were added.

Certain podcasters/influences/etc are absolutely misleading people either for the views or to sell people a "detox" tea they can drop ship from China.

Food that is merely washed might be processed, but is not ultra-processed according to the Nova classification [1]. There's an actual criteria that's being applied in these studies that concern ultra-processed food.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

And have you read their definition?

Yes. The Nova classifications are on the page I linked.