There is a spectrum of processed foods, and it includes both healthy and unhealthy items.
Technology has changed the world beyond recognition. And one of the many areas it has transformed is the food industry. Refrigeration makes it possible to ship food further than ever before. And advances in canning and packaging mean that food can now be preserved in mass quantities.
New chemical additives keep food from spoiling and give it a much longer shelf life. But what do we actually mean when we say “processed food”? Technically, this term could describe anything from cheese to Cheetos. So let’s clear things up a bit.
The key message here is: There is a spectrum of processed foods, and it includes both healthy and unhealthy items.
Just about everything we eat these days is processed in some way. So it’s helpful to think of most foods as existing on a spectrum. On the one end, we have “minimally processed,” and on the other, there is “ultra-processed.”
Minimally processed foods go through stages like washing, peeling, or dehydrating. Examples include canned fruit or dried beans. And ultra-processed foods are things like packaged bread, sugary snacks, breakfast cereals, potato chips, and frozen pizzas.
Generally speaking, minimally processed foods are the healthiest – but, of course, nothing is ever black and white. Processed foods like canned fish and frozen fruit and vegetables can be high in nutritional value. In fact, flash-frozen produce is often processed at peak freshness and can contain lots of vitamins and nutrients.
Counterintuitively, frozen fruit may even be better for you than the “fresh” produce that’s traveled halfway around the world before arriving at your local supermarket.
The argument against ultra-processed food is much more clear-cut. It’s bad for you – and for the planet. Not only do these types of foods contain lots of sugar and salt, they’re also produced and packaged in ways that pollute the environment. Given the amount of processing and packaging involved, ultra-processed foods are considered “resource-intensive.” These are the sorts of foods that negatively contribute to climate change.
Sadly, in many countries, people get a lot of their calories from foods that fall into this category. Ultra-processed foods are extremely popular in Brazil, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and the US. One study showed that Americans receive nearly 60 percent of their energy from ultra-processed foods.
If you do decide to buy prepackaged foods, it’s always good to check the label for nutritional value. But, as we’ll see in the next blink, packaging can also be misleading. - source: Blinklist
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