“Processed food” is any food altered from its natural state, from simple washing and freezing to complex manufacturing with added sugars, fats, flavors, and/or preservatives, The “processed foods” I want to focus on for purposes of this entry are the ones with lots of added components. Examples of these include:
ï Sweets: Candy, cookies, cakes, ice cream, sweetened yogurt
ï Snacks: Chips, crackers, pretzels, packaged pastries
ï Drinks: Soda, sugary juices, energy drinks, sweetened coffee
ï Breakfast: Sugary cereals, instant oatmeal, breakfast bars
ï Meats: Hot dogs, bacon, deli meats, sausages, chicken nuggets
ï Meals: Frozen dinners, instant noodles, packaged soups, pizzas, ready-made meals
ï Sauces: Ketchup, gravies, salad dressing
For convenience purposes, lots of people incorporate heavily processed foods and the reasons include:
- Cost: It is much less expensive to pop a frozen meal into the microwave than eating out
- Time: For many people under time constraints processed foods present a very quick alternative to preparing and cooking a meal
- Taste: although freshly prepared foods will tend to taste better there sure are a bunch of processed foods and snacks that taste quite good.
If a graph was made of the growing obesity epidemic in America the exponential growth would parallel the growth of the use of processed foods in our country. I implying that this is the only reason for the obesity epidemic in the U.S. but it sure is a strong contributing cause. People always remark that in European countries such as Italy, lots of pasta, wine and chocolates are consumed yet the population as a whole appears quite thin, certainly compared to U.S. citizens. The use of processed foods in those countries is far less than ours.
Take a step back and assess YOUR use of processed foods. Take every step possible to reduce the consumption of these evil food sources.
As sugar sodas come under the category of highly processed drinks, and because it is the holiday season, let me post and old Coca Cola song that is quite nostalgic.
