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Comment by Chris2048 | Hacker News Reader

Chris2048

I'm a bit dissatisfied with the phrase "Processed food". I mean, what does that mean? I guess it implies added sugar/salt etc, but does it need to?

By definition:

  A processed food is any food that has been altered in some way during preparation.
  Food processing can be as basic as: freezing. canning.

The problem, I guess, is how manufacturers choose to process (with cheap, unhealthy additives as possible); Such that you have to buy natural just to avoid these unbeneficial decisions.

In fact, I think we shouldn't even distinguish between processed/non-processed, but instead judge foods on their relevant aspects. An example of this is battery-farmed vs free-range cornfed chicken are both non-processed.

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It means making as most distance between the starting product (or products) and end product. Adding the distance by removing parts from the starting product, or adding additional things(especially hard to pronounce ones) is particularly bad.

And people pretend like they don't know what we mean by "processed food". You need like one hour of education about food, or really common sense to distinguish which kind of processing is bad in almost all cases.

We eat processed sugar more than ever before. We eat processed fat more than ever before. We eat processed protein more than ever before. Hell, we eat anything more than ever before. And we move less. And then we nitpick on what "processed" actually means?

Is it that hard to figure out that packaged broccoli is better than breakfast cherios? Or that farmed chicken cooked in your house is better than deep fryed minced with who knows what fast food one? That raw cacao bean is better than sweets in the store? That raw nuts are better than hydrogenated palm oil? That strawbery is better than strawberry icecream?

Most of us know even only by intuition what type of processing is bad, but we overeat almost everything and then blame particular food group or item or macronutrient.

> Adding the distance by removing parts from the starting product, or adding additional things(especially hard to pronounce ones) is particularly bad.

It sounds like a fairly poor, even progress adverse, distinction. You may as well judge foods by the character count of their ingredients & additives.

> people pretend like they don't know what we mean by "processed food"

Does it differ from the dictionary definition I just quoted?

> We eat processed sugar more ... And then we nitpick on what "processed" actually means?

Maybe if we where clearer on terminology, we'd eat less of these things?

like distinguish between medium, high and very-high sugar density foods to avoid binary thinking (healthy vs unhealthy).

> Is it that hard to figure out that packaged broccoli is better than breakfast cherios?

No, but you're cherry picking a low-sugar vegetable and a high sugar cereal. Grey areas still exist; I don't know who this rant is directed at.

> Most of us know even only by intuition what type of processing is bad

Nonsense, there are lots of unhealthy foods that mislead in packaging.

Eat fresh food - fruit, vegetables, nuts. Meat is ok but not processed like sausages. Beware of sauces that have a lot of sugar.

I just... don't understand the science behind this. Have you actually seen how sausage is made? It is just pureed meat with salt and spices. There is no difference between that and a raw steak, from a health perspective. This tells me most of our knowledge of what is an unhealthy food is just based off of some from-the-heart intuition.

For sausages and bacon and similar cured red meat, the issue is that processing often involves nitrites, which create carcinogenic compounds and are associated with colon cancer specifically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_(food_preservation)#Nit...

Still, the added risk is not massive and unless you eat bacon and sausage every day, there are probably other and more important carcinogenic factors in your life that you need to care more about. The calories and saturated fats in most cured red meats are more likely to adversely affect your health.

I think the key is how much the "expected" recipes can be stretched while the food can still be called <whatever> i.e. how many additives & preservatives you can mix in and still call it a sausage.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/07/are-sau...

While fibrous fruits are healthier than just drinking sugary juice, it depends a lot on the fruit, some are naturally high in sugar.

Again, it's more on the actual details of the food (e.g sugar density) rather than labels like "fresh".

> Meat is ok but not processed like sausages

Why, what's wrong with sausages? Does mincing a steak and putting it in a case make a difference?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/07/are-sau...

From the same article:

  Is there anything I can look for on the label that will lead me to a healthy sausage?

Implying sausages are not blanket "unhealthy", i.e #NotAllSausages

Is peanut butter that is nothing but blended peanuts considered processed?

You may have peanut butter with 7-10% of hydrogenated oil. In my local stores in Switzerland we only find those, we ended up making it ourself.

The local grocer has a machine with a hopper full of peanuts. Push the button and it squirts out peanut butter into your container. It's cheaper, too, than the jarred peanut butter. No downsides there!

Gray area. Peanut butter that is not from 100% peanuts is definitely processed food.

Yeah it's too broad a term, to the point where it becomes a weasel word like "toxins".

Read the labels.

If it has more than 2g of sugar per 100g serving, it’ll make you fatter.

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