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Thanks, in part, to the Internet, spreading misinformation about food and health is very easy. People can easily make claims without baking up their arguments, including the idea that all processed foods are bad for your health. In this post, we’ll separate the truth from the myths people believe about processed foods.
Myth: Processing Food Is a Modern Invention
Many people who are nervous about eating processed foods believe that processing is a modern invention. They assume processing food means adding chemicals for flavor, color, or preservation. This is sometimes true, but processing isn’t a new invention. It makes food ready for consumption. By that logic, cooking is a type of processing!
Myth: Processing Always Adds Chemicals to Food
While it’s true that some manufacturers add things to food products to make them look and taste better, that’s not true of all processed foods. Take a look at the list below to see what kinds of activities count as processing:
• Baking
• Cooking
• Roasting
• Harvesting
• Sorting
• Labeling
• Shipping
• Packaging
As you can see, processing includes cooking food, harvesting crops, and even sorting food on conveyor belts. In fact, there are lots of benefits to using conveyors in food processing since automation accelerates production. Food processing makes it possible to feed the entire country and for you to buy a rotisserie chicken from the store for dinner. Sure, the chicken is processed, but that doesn’t mean it’s chemically different from a chicken you roast at home.
Fact: Processing Food Yourself Is Healthier
Let’s look a little deeper at the rotisserie chicken example. Is there a reason to avoid buying pre-processed foods from the grocery store? The truth is that letting other people process your food for you often leads to eating more sugar, fat, and salt than if you prepare food at home. Those ingredients make food taste good and draw customers back for more.
Common Sense Food Rules
If you want to eat healthier, ruling out all processed foods isn’t the answer because most of the food you eat is processed. Avoiding foods with added sugar, fat, salt, dyes, artificial flavors, and preservatives can help. Think of ingredients you wouldn’t add to your food at home or that you wouldn’t add very much of.
Look for foods with recognizable ingredients or foods that don’t need ingredient labels at all (like whole fruits and vegetables). If sugar is one of the first three ingredients, we recommend not eating that food. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that consuming lots of sugar is bad for you.
We hope these myths people believe about processed foods have been helpful. Always check with your doctor before trying a new health trend or diet.
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