No processed ingredients. Chemical free. All natural. These phrases sound pretty great and have been big hits with consumers when featured in marketing campaigns. But the shocking truth is that they have no meaning… and are actually impossible! Say what?! Hang with me for a second…
When we think of processed foods, we of course think of canned beans or frozen dinners, but we don’t think of products that can fit into other parts of this very broad definition. When you bag a bunch of carrots at the grocery store… they become processed food. When lettuce is rinsed… it becomes processed food. When an onion is chopped… yep, you guessed it! Processed. The reality is that unless you pull the apple right off the tree and bite into it with no rinsing, or drink the milk right out of the tank before it’s pasteurized (which some do), every ingredient of every meal you eat is processed. Filtered water is processed. And that’s okay. Making Sense of the Broad Definition Many organizations have tried to clarify which processed foods are good or bad by organizing processing methods on a spectrum, arranging the products into what’s called the NOVA classification. It goes like this: So it’s “Ultra-Processed” That’s the Problem? Following this categorization of processing methods, media outlets switched their attacks from the broad realm of “processed foods” to the much scarier sounding “ultra-processed foods.” Foods from the ultra-processed category comprise 60% of the average American’s calorie intake. But you may or may not be surprised to learn that those are not empty calories. In 2014, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition featured an article that put numbers to the specific nutrients that form those calories. They found “that processed foods provide both nutrients to encourage and constituents to limit as specified in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Of the nutrients to encourage, processed foods contributed 55% of dietary fiber, 48% of calcium, 43% of potassium, 34% of vitamin D, 64% of iron, 65% of folate, and 46% of vitamin B-12.” In acknowledging the struggle to define what food is processed and what food isn’t, the researchers poked holes in the “ultra-processed” label. “Admittedly,” they said, “all classification schemes are somewhat arbitrary, but a subjective definition based on extent of processing is value-laden and does not characterize foods in a helpful manner. Rather, a reproducible and useful scheme for assessing the role of processed foods in the diet is to define the characteristics of the food by use of objective, government-determined nutritional terms for dietary standards.” Still, this same article reported that 43% of consumers are concerned about processed foods. Maybe it’s instead the compounds that the authors dubbed, “constituents to limit”?
Additionally, supplementing nutrients into foods they would not naturally occur in can be a big win for sustainability. Instead of having to transport an ingredient that is our best source of certain vitamins and minerals thousands of miles to a part of the world it does not naturally grow in, we can chemically engineer the compounds to synthetically incorporate that nutrient into foods we do have on hand. While a lot of attention has been given to increasing the yield of raw products, often neglected is the role that processing those products will play in making what we already have go farther. Processing agricultural commodities will be the key to feeding our world. Salt Unfortunately, processing does have a dark side. The salt that protects our food supply also makes us want too much of a nutrient that can harm us by enhancing palatability, making the food’s taste and texture more desirable. And many would claim that food manufacturers use this knowledge to exploit our own taste buds at the expense of our health. I wrote an entirely separate article about sodium’s complex relationship with heart health where I discussed that, although there is a clear link between excess sodium intake and high blood pressure, that surprisingly doesn’t automatically raise our heart disease risk. In fact, going without sodium altogether is more dangerous than an excess of it. Nevertheless, health professionals have held tight to the general advice that limiting our sodium intake to less than 1,500 mg a day is a step worth taking.
But a common misconception is that the more “processed” a carbohydrate is, or the farther away from its natural form, the more unhealthy it becomes. What exactly makes a spaghetti noodle more or less processed than a chocolate bar? Consumers have more difficulties answering these types of questions, and we begin to see some holes in the anti-processed mantra. Surprisingly, the processing of carbohydrates can actually make them more healthful. In 2017, the Journal for Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition said, “Although industrial food processing generally tends to be negatively perceived by the general population, it is often key for preservation by achieving reductions of anti-nutritional factors, toxins, or pathogenic microorganisms…. The impact of food processing on the physicochemical properties of carbohydrates is very complex and, contrary to popular belief, can contribute significantly to the consumption of healthful carbohydrates by providing means to create them during the manufacture of the product.” Additionally, the 2017 issue of the Journal of Nutritional Science reported that Australian studies found “high added sugar consumers were likely to have a different intake pattern of many foods such as lower intakes of wholemeal bread and fruit, higher intake of non-alcoholic beverages, but meat and poultry consumption not differing according to added sugar intake level. In a [different] study concerning 14 709 Americans, daily servings of meat, poultry and fish decreased with increasing added sugar level. Therefore, high added sugar intake may compromise dietary quality, which is not necessarily shared by naturally occurring sugar.” In other words, it’s not the added sugars that we should be concerned about, but, instead, going without the foods that are being replaced with “sweets.” Still, this is a stark contrast to the fearful perception of the “highly-processed” snack foods that come to mind when we hear the phrase, “simple sugar.” I’m obviously on team complex carb, but that should not be thought of to exclude foods with that underwent more intense manufacturing.
And there does seem to be substantial evidence to back such concerns. In 2016, Dutch researchers had an article published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism that concluded “dietary saturated fatty acids, when compared to carbohydrates and cis-unsaturated fatty acids, raise plasma LDL-C, a causal risk factor for heart disease…. The effect of reducing dietary saturated fatty acids is most strongly affected by the macronutrients that replace them. The greatest reduction in heart disease risk occurs when cis-polyunsaturated fatty acids replace dietary saturated fatty acids.” In 2011, researchers from India reviewed the available literature, finding that “trans fat increases low density lipoproteins (LDL), triglycerides and insulin levels and reduces beneficial high density lipoproteins (HDL). The overall picture of trans fatty acids (TFA) implies a detrimental effect of TFA on health…. Relative risk for cardiovascular disease was increased by 27% as a result of consumption of TFA.” In Conclusion As you can see, avoiding processed foods in pursuit of more natural living is both impractical and unnecessary. Although I will always advocate for consumers to investigate the processes behind their food, considering anything that’s not a raw product as processed and therefore unhealthy has been the default position of far too many grocery shoppers. Considering the wide range of activities that food processing encompasses, including everything from rinsing an apple to refining grains, we realize that everything we eat is processed to some degree. You can’t escape processed foods, and you shouldn’t want to. Instead of this black and white interpretation, we need to direct our attention to the nutrition label to see exactly what is in our food. Food processing plays an important role in supplementing ingredients with paramount nutrients and reaching our food security goals. However, the good is also accompanied with additives that do have very real health concerns. The solution should be to abandon the fear of food processing altogether and instead pursue ingredients that meet our nutrition goals.
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