Do you love fast-food burgers, fries, chips, and pizza? Who doesn’t?
If so, you are eating overly processed foods. When you take a bite out of an apple or eat a banana, you enjoy food that is free of processing (as long as the apple is not dipped in caramel, and the banana is not found in banana cream pie). LOL As far as your health is concerned, limiting the number of processed foods you eat is better for your body in the long run.
Let’s look at:
The Truth About Processed Foods
What Is a Processed Food?
The International Food Information Council Foundation defines processed food as:
“Any deliberate change in a food that occurs before it’s available for us to eat.”
In that definition, simply chopping up vegetables before you eat them qualifies for the processed description. In most cases, however, processed food means “any food other than a raw agricultural commodity and includes any raw agricultural commodity that has been subject to processing, such as canning, cooking, freezing, dehydration, or milling.” That is the definition from the United States Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
So simply by cooking your food, you are technically processing it. But know this, the more processes your food goes through before it gets into your body, the less nutrition it provides.
What Makes Processed Food so Bad?
Looking at the above definitions, you can see that the foods you eat at restaurants, desserts or baked goods, sodas, and many of the “ready-to-eat” meals you purchase at your grocer are heavily processed. Food manufacturers use refined sugar, salt, monosodium glutamate, preservatives, steroids, trans-fats, and other unhealthy additives to extend the shelf life of the products they sell.
Unfortunately, most heavily processed foods deliver little nutritional value.
The more processes you do to a natural ingredient like a fruit or vegetable, the further you strip it of its nutrients, minerals, and vitamins. When all the nutritionally poor ingredients mentioned above are added to that product, it becomes even unhealthier.
This leads to what are called “empty calories”.
That is why you can eat an overabundance of processed foods, and your brain will still send a hunger signal. It notices you have received little or no nutrition, so it tells you to eat more. Since processed food in many cases is extremely addictive, you reach out for the nutrient-poor food you just ate, and create an unhealthy eating cycle.
This is also why it is tough to break that cycle. Your brain is screaming that you are hungry. Your tummy is growling, and yet you ate 4 hours ago. Nutrition at it core is missing from your diet.
So how do you break the cycle?
You have to dump the processed foods and cook your own fresh foods. Wholesome foods that are as close to natural as possible. Your body will start healing itself from the inside out. Your body will start dumping the chemical buildup. Foods will taste better. Processed foods will taste unnatural, salty, and just nasty. Soon you will only want to eat whole foods.
You will start to see other changes. Your skin will look better and healthier. Weight will come off. You will have energy and clearer thinking. It is amazing how good you will feel when you limit and/or remove processed foods from your diet.
Give it a try. Clean out your cupboards. Plan your meals for the week to include fresh foods. Then share your results with me!
You can do it! Dumping processed foods can only improve your life!
Hi! I’m Chris! Just a Midlife Wife sharing about life’s journey; screaming and kicking through it while supposedly aging gracefully…
Focusing on healthy living, low carb & keto, things I am loving right now, and life in general.