What is Processed Food? Although what you do in your kitchen is technically processing, processed food refers to the products of food manufacturers or "processors." These products are literally manufactured in industrial processes. They include almost any food packaged in a box, bag, jar, or can, including foods such as bread, pizza, ice cream, cake, or frozen dinners. (See this list of processed foods.) Many foods when made at home are simple and natural. The ingredients of bread can be as simple as whole wheat flour, yeast, and water. Pizza is a similar dough with a topping made from cheese, tomatoes, olive oil, and herbs. Ice cream can be made from milk, sugar, and eggs. But in the supermarket, these foods are complicated, with a long list of ingredients. These foods are not simply "baked," "made," or "cooked"—they are manufactured, commonly under high temperatures and high pressures that further degrade the ingredients. Today's food is manufactured in large quantities (for economy of scale) and shipped long distances (for market share). The product is required to have a long shelf life. If any part of an ingredient might cause the final product to spoil, that part is deliberately removed or transformed during processing. Unfortunately, those spoilable food parts contain most of the original food's nutrients and taste! Typically, spoilable food parts are replaced with ultrarefined or synthetic ingredients. In fact, today's food products often have a negative nutritional value, because the body needs to pull from its own mineral stores in order to break down and eliminate the ingredients. Characteristics
IngredientsProcessed foods are frequently made primarily of refined grains, sweeteners, refined salt, low-quality and artificial fat, and food additives. Others begin with whole foods that are then cooked and/or treated or mixed with additives. Even a piece of raw meat from the supermarket can contain processed ingredients as additives, according to this article in the Washington Post.The food additives serve many purposes. Additives substitute for traditional ingredients, such as butter or eggs, that give texture to food. Additives allow the unfinished product to be mixed or baked, and give the final product the look and feel of traditional food. Additives replace the taste lost in processing and are engineered to satisfy tastes for richness, sweetness, saltiness, and fat. A few select nutrients, in synthetic form, are sometimes added back to the product. Additives are at best manufactured from food sources; frequently, additives are synthetic. Most of today's food products are derived from just a handful of crops. Wheat, corn, soy, and rice supply two-thirds of American calories, almost entirely through processed foods and ingredients of processed foods. Processed food is linked to "Western diseases" such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, and is probably the primary source of much ill health. "Western diseases" were rare before these foods were widespread, and were unknown in areas in the world that cooked and ate in traditional ways. More InformationDirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industryby Sally Fallon Return to Healthy Eating Guidelines Return to Getting Started With Healthy Eating Home |
Related Pages
List of Processed FoodsTypes of Food Additives
What are Whole Foods?
Healthy Eating Guidelines