> What is your definition of processed food? Are potatoes processed because they are cleaned? Is chicken breast processed because the chicken is plucked? Is vinegar processed because it has undergone a chemical transformation via fermentation? Are potato chips processed because they are sliced potatoes fried in oil? Are fried plantains processed because they are sliced plantains fried in oil?

In practice, for the vast majority, it doesn't matter where the line is drawn.

Simply moving your diet as close as possible to unprocessed food (read: minimal steps between organism and ingestion) is the goal.

My personal definition is that if you can stack the food you buy, it has been processed. It’s a subjective definition, and there might be dozens of counterexamples, but it feels true to me.

So Pringles are, but regular potato chips aren't.

Nobody seems to agree, but the best I've been able to find is that every step counts and the level of invasiveness does too. So a plucked chicken is one thing, but a plucked, chlorine rinsed, freeze dried, ground up, centrifuged, glued, rehydrated, salted, etc. is another

I've heard the theory that it's the ease of separating the food into small chunks with high surface area that matters.

Most processed food is made of ground meat and various types of mush/pastes, so it easily falls apart in the gut.

I think an easy 80% solution is to have rarely stuff that will be called processed no matter how you draw the line e.g doritos

People say processed food when they mean ultraprocessed food. Your examples are textbook processed foods.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/how-to-eat-a-balanced-...

It's hard to capture heuristics with a meme.

FWIW: I avoid added sugar (sweeteners), empty calories.

eg Pre-made spaghetti sauce has sugar, so I make my own. Can of costco tomato sauce, garlic, italian herbs, garlic, oil, garlic, pinch of salt & pepper. Then I add some garlic.

eg I use plain greek yogurt in my smoothies. Flavored yogurt means added sugar. I can add my own flavors.

In my house, we make a distinction between "snacks" (food in-between meals) and "treats". I mosdef crave potato chips, doughnuts, cake, candy, etc. To better moderate, I don't keep any of those "empty" calories at home.

YMMV. IIRC, type-2 diabetics use artificial sweeteners. I'm not a doctor and can't guess what's best for anyone else.