What is Processed Food?
The term ‘processed food’ applies to any food that has been changed from its natural state in some way, either for safety reasons or convenience. Some foods need processing to make them safe, such as milk, which needs to be pasteurized to remove harmful bacteria. Other foods need processing to make them suitable for use, such as pressing seeds to make oil.
But there is a difference between mechanical processing and chemical processing. If it’s a single ingredient food with no added chemicals, then it doesn’t matter if it’s been grounded or put into a jar. It’s still pure food. However, foods that have been chemically processed and made solely from refined ingredients and artificial substances, are what generally known
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Processed foods and beverages are the biggest sources of added sugar (and High fructose) in the diet. Sugar is very unhealthy and can have serious adverse effects on metabolism when consumed in excess. Sugar contains a lot of calories, with no essential nutrients. It also causes tooth decay by feeding the harmful bacteria in the mouth. For people who are inactive and eat a processed food, large amounts of fructose from added sugars get turned into fat in the liver. Excess fructose gets turned into fat, which can lodge in the liver and cause non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Highly processed foods are loaded with artificial chemicals, including flavorants, sweeteners, texturants, colorants and preservatives. Many of these products contain less real food or no food at all. Some of them contain highly refined ingredients like wheat flour, corn syrup and vegetable oils. They are then made palatable using artificial flavors and various processing techniques. Keep in mind that processed foods can contain dozens of additional chemicals that aren’t even listed on the label. For example, “artificial flavor” is a proprietary blend. Manufacturers don’t have to disclose exactly what it means and it is usually a combination of chemicals. For this reason, if you see “artificial flavor” on an ingredients list, it could mean that there are 10 or more additional chemicals that are blended in to give a specific