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If you study regions where people live healthy and free of mental issues. Those people eat less processed foods more natural and wholesome foods. Processed foods are loaded with preservatives that changes your body and make your hormones behave differently. Here we have kids starting puberty earlier and earlier because processed foods and being overweight increases estrogen production.
I must rather eat a sensible meal made with just plain real food not all these boxed stuff.
I don't like processed foods because the levels of chemicals used irk me out. Also, Our culture prohibits consumption of artificially flavors like lethicin and gelatin.
Definitely against franken-foods as an every day dietary component in my own kitchen. Reasons are already listed by others. It's unnecessary, you really don't know what has been done, the taste isn't there, lobbying from the big food manufacturers, etc. People eat themselves into health problems as a way of life in this country (and others are following).
The anti-GM food movement is only tangential to the processed food discussion. Yes, anything that contains sugar, vegetable oil, corn or corn starch, tomatoes, potatoes or cheese probably contains GM ingredients. If you want to eat processed foods, there is a very narrow selection of "organic" products that have all the drawbacks of any kind of processed foods. Off the shelf, vegetable oil is vegetable oil and sugar is sugar. Even "organic" jams and jellies will probably contain sugar from GM sources. Since eating veal has become rare in the USA, there is no longer a large supply of calf intestines to supply rennet, so cheeses are clabbered with a product derived from GM yeast. A few European cheeses are still made using calf guts,
If you are going to eat canola, the erucic acid content is what should concern you, and you won't find that on any label, organic or not.
Although I dislike processed food, I took several seconds to think about what I eat. Even with a conscientious effort of avoiding processed foods, I found that a great amount of food products are processed in one way or another. So much for a "civilized society".
Think about it for several seconds and see what you come up with.
I prefer less-processed foods, and we do generally cook from scratch. Let's qualify that assertion - make it modified scratch. We do use canned and frozen fruits & veggies, and that is technically processed, though minimally so. Foods that you could classify as science experiments (list of 25 ingredients in a tablespoon of powder, for instance)? Not so much.
People really need to stop and consider the meaning of the word "processed." Most people are eating a significant number of at the very least, minimally processed foods. When you are cooking "from scratch," many/most of your ingredients have been in some way, shape, or form processed, unless you are eating exclusively raw vegetation.
I know that, colloquially, when people say "processed foods," people generally use it to mean packaged goods laden with preservatives, unnecessary additives that affect appearance and flavoring, etc., but "processed food" covers more than just Chef Boyardee and Velveeta. All "processed" means is that it has been altered from its raw, natural state, typically either for reasons of safety, or because it makes it easier to store and/or use.
Your whole wheat bread and pasta? It's a processed food. Anything made with a milled grain has by definition been processed. When you make a crock pot meal and toss in frozen vegetables, a cardboard carton of stock, etc.? Those things have been in some way, shape, or form processed. The artisan chorizo you got from your neighborhood hipster butcher who lists what farm the pigs were raised on and the farmer's name on his reclaimed barn board-framed chalk board, etc.? That sausage is processed. Milk is subjected to the processes of pasteurization, to kill bacteria, and homogenization, to prevent the fats fromseparating. Cheese? Not Velveeta, but actual cheese? A processed food.
Food being processed is not inherently unhealthy. The methods and substances used for some types of processing are. But "processed food" as a code for "itsgonnakillya" is pretty silly, given that the vast majority of the foods we eat have been in some way processed, whether they have been milled, frozen, dried, canned, pasteurized, cured, smoked, aged, etc.
At some point, processing became synonymous in the vernacular with "fake food," and it's really not.
Very nicely stated. It reminds me of what I say when some high and mighty person says 'Nothing from a box, can, bag or jar!' Really? No brown rice then? No jar of saurkraut? No bagged baby spinach?
It's too bad we don't use a different word for the fake foods vs lumping all processed foods together as bad. I highly doubt that bag of brown rice is bad for you like the bag of fat free potato chips is.
I stumbled across a blog called '100 days of real food' and she talks about trying really hard to buy only processed foods that have five or fewer ingredients, and only ones you recognize. I am trying to follow this. Not easy, yet not horribly difficult either. 100 Days of Real Food
A chemical is any substance that is made up of atoms Water, oxygen... both are natural... both are chemicals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kyle19125
Chemicals aren't natural and require mixing in order to work in that manner. The only way that happens is through human intervention....i.e. processing.
Last edited by Ginge McFantaPants; 01-24-2015 at 04:29 PM..
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So much for a "civilized society".
Think about it for several seconds and see what you come up with. 
