Episode 126: What Makes A Food Processed

What makes up food process the world of food can be so confusing at times. There was a time when it was clear what food was a clear aim directly from nature, whether boarding hunting or farming. Now there's so many things we eat that don't resemble natural food. Michael Pollan has a famous quote, he said, Eat food not too much, mostly plants. And in his famous book in defense of it, he devised What food should be. He says, don't eat anything your great great grandmother wouldn't recognize this bit. And we can all agree that some things are obviously not recognizable by our great great grandmother's candy bars, fast food and sports drinks. And we can also say that many of the common health issues we face today heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, cavities, etc. Did it exist at anywhere near the race before industrial process boots became available? But where do we draw the line? How do we define process and how a process is processed? And what the heck is ultra processed? Allow me to let you in on the international recognized classification system, where you go through it step by step with it Apple.

Unprocessed. according to NOVA. The official definition of unprocessed or natural foods is the edible parts of plants, seeds, fruits, leaf stems, roots are of animals, the muscle, the awful, the eggs, the milk, and also the fungi, algae and water after separation from nature. This is like eating a whole apple right out the tree. Clearly unprocessed.

Minimally processed. Minimally processed foods or natural foods altered by processes such as the removal of edible or unwanted parts, drying, crushing, grinding, fractioning filtering, Rusty boilie, pasteurization refrigeration, freezing plastic containers, vacuum packaging or non alcoholic fermentation. None of these processes add substitutes such as salt, sugar, oils or fats to the original fit. So with our apple example, once you cut the apples core out and put the slices it took Taner to bring with you for your afternoon snack, you're processing it minimally. You can even appeal a boil that chop Apple to make applesauce as long as you don't add anything else like cinnamon is still considered minimally processed

Processed. Processed foods on the other hand are relatively simple products made by adding sugar, oil, salt or other process degrees to unprocessed foods. Both processed foods have two or three grades. processes include various preservation or cooking methods, and the case of bread and cheese non alcoholic permutation The main purpose of the manufacture of processed foods is to increase the durability of all unprocessed foods or to modify or enhance their sensory qualities. So you take that applesauce, add cinnamon, or using a recipe you technically have processed the apple this could still be a healthy choice as you'll see in the next definition of ultra processed

Ultra processed is here is where things get interesting and scary. Altered processed foods are in industrial formulations, typically with five or more and usually many ingredients such as agrees avocados also used processed foods such as sugar, oils, fats, salt, antioxidants, stabilizers, preservatives bakeries only found in Ultra processed products include substances not commonly used in culinary preparations and additives whose purpose is to imitate sensory quanlities of unprocessed foods or to disguise undesirable sensitive quantities of the final product. I processed foods are a small proportion of or even absent from ultra processed foods. So pre packaged apple strudel with a long shelf life is very much an ultra processed food. If you took a look at the ingredient list of pre packaged apple strudel. One was a long shelf life, you would see added sugars old preservatives and flavor enhancers. And we can argue that the healthy Apple is a small, very small portion of the strudel conclusion.

There's clear definition between unprocessed the apple and also process the pre packaged strudel with a long shelf life foods and Apple is nowhere near what a mass produced apple strudel is. But there are a couple of different categories and between these mainly minimally processed and process, it's clear that unprocessed apple and minimally processed plain applesauce foods are almost always quite healthy and nutritious. It's also clear that ultra processed food is not so healthy.