What classifies as a processed food?
Anything prepared from the original state
Washing, milling, freezing, heating, pasteurizing, irritating, blanching, packaging..
Blended, cooked, fried, chopped, diced, put on the stove, in the oven.. etc.
Fermented, preserved
And then there is a whole stage of things that are done in a lab, like flavour blending and testing, adding preservatives, salt, sugar, fat, isolated synthetic nutrients.
See, the processing scale can be as simple waxing an apple to remain fresh longer at the supermarket, but it can also extend to the preparation of making that apple into applesauce, fruit leathers, fruice juices, or taking it home and preparing it into a homemade pie.
Most of the time when I think "processed food" I associate some kind of negative energy to it, which is not necessarily a fair thing to do. Pretty much everything sold in a supermarket has been processed in one way or another, and pretty much every day when we prepare ourselves food, we are processing it too!
The degree to processing matters.
There is a difference between commercially processed foods and home-prepared processed foods.
We can process foods without refining nutrients out of the food.
We can process foods naturally without chemicals and added preservatives.
We can choose fresh foods to begin with.
According to Ayurveda it is important to consume foods that still contain vital energy.
And from the moment of harvest, food begins to deteriorate.
Thus why we process our food- to preserve, extend shelflife, for added convenience and to maximize profits.
Everything in moderation right?
According to a Harvard Health article, foods can be classified into 4 processing categories:
Unprocessed or minimally processed foods
Processed culinary ingredients
Processed foods
Ultra-processed foods
What we do most of the time reflects in our health. Obviously we don't have access to the best of the best, all of the time.
However as we become more conscious of our health, things become more transparent to us in our surroundings, making our everyday decisions easier, and the things that serve us well- more obvious.
Thanks for reading,
Samantha
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