Processed foods: NOT bad, just misused and misunderstood
I always hear people in the gym saying they don’t eat "processed foods" because they are "bad for you." Are frozen foods ALWAYS bad for you? Are potato chips ALWAYS bad for you? Is a Powerbar Protein ALWAYS bad for you?
"(gg) The term "processed food" means ANY food other than a raw agricultural commodity and includes any raw agricultural commodity that has been subject to processing, such as canning, cooking, freezing, dehydration, or milling." -FDA regulatory term index
So, the ONLY foods that are not technically a processed food are raw fruit or vegetables straight from the ground that have had nothing at all done to them besides harvesting and refrigeration at a temperature above freezing, or meats that have had NOTHING done besides cutting. Once the food becomes frozen, preserved or enhanced in any way it is technically processed. Processed foods include milk, ANYTHING pasteurized like OJ, grape juice, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc, ANYTHING frozen, ANYTHING canned, and ANY grain that has been milled and is not in raw form.
The most infuriating association with processed foods is sugar and whether it is "natural" or not. If you extracted then ingested 5 grams of fructose from an apple, and extracted and ingested and 5 grams of fructose from white table sugar(sucrose=glucose + fructose), your body only recognizes that you are eating fructose and CAN NOT differentiate the source of the fructose. Both 5 gram samples will cause the exact same physiological response within the body.
Unless you’re eating ONLY water and raw, COMPLETELY unmodified or preserved fruits, vegetables, or meats, you are eating processed foods. Don’t throw around terms of ignorance(not meant to sound mean, it just truly is ignorant to perpetuate a negative term without proper knowledge) unless you know exactly what terms you’re using and why.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to submit them. Thank you for reading.
-Brian
December 25, 2008 at 12:31 am
Awesome and well said!!!!
December 25, 2008 at 12:45 am
You make a lot of sense. Just as long as you eat in moderation you should be ok.
December 25, 2008 at 1:18 am
You couldn’t have explained that any better!! That has always annoyed me. Good job haha
January 7, 2009 at 2:08 am
That’s absolutely right! I hear about how this, this, this, and this, are all bad for you. But whatever you are saying is bad for you, chances are it’s in something else you’ll eat that you think is good for you. Whether or not it’s in the bad or the good, it’s still there. It’s ridiculous when people say that fat is bad for you, well, yea, most of it is, but you have to have "some" fat in your diet to maintain a healthy body. It doesn’t mean you have to sit around doing nothing while it becomes "your" fat. Solution is simple, burn it off!