What are Processed Foods and Are All of Them Bad For You

Processed foods are blamed for obesity, heart disease and a host of other physical and emotional ailments. But what is processed food? Are all processed foods bad for you?

In the broadest of terms, processed food is any foodstuff that has been altered from its original state. Take a raw filet mignon, throw it on the grill and the meat undergoes a process, the process of cooking. But that's not what the term "processed foods" means in the contemporary culinary lexicon.

Food that has been frozen, freeze-dried, cooked then frozen or otherwise altered from its fresh and natural state may be considered processed. Under this definition, frozen vegetables are a processed food. But again, that's not what people have in mind when they hear the term "processed foods."

The International Food Information Council Foundation defines food processing as "any deliberate change in a food that occurs before it's available for us to eat". This could be anything from frozen hamburger patties to bread to frozen and packaged pre-cooked meals. Popcorn is a processed food.

Foods, or rather a combination of ingredients that have been treated with preservatives and loaded up with sugar, salt and fat fit the more common definition of processed foods. Bagged cookies and boxed cereals fall into this category. People know there's flour, sugar, salt and other familiar ingredients in these foods, but they also see on the list of ingredients a host of substances the likes of which are unseen in their own pantries.

Foods of unknown or ambiguous origins, such as hot dogs and cheese curls, are considered the worst of the worst in terms of processed foods. The list of ingredients on these kinds of foods read like formuli the likes of which only a post graduate in chemistry would understand.

It's not only the chemical additives, excess of salt, fat and sugar that define processed foods, though. It's the stripping of nutrients, the alteration of the basic ingredients that turn a natural food into a culinary aberration. But even here, the definition gets murky. Refined flour is processed; the nutrient rich hulls are stripped from the grains to make a finer flour, a flour used in making bread and baked goods. Breads made from refined flour then make the "bad for you because it's processed" list. But breads made from whole grain flours, in which hull and all are milled, make the "eat this instead because it's good for you" list.

 In both instances, though, the bread is a processed food. Because you aren't going to sit in a farmer's field and chew on a stalk of wheat, even if that is the quintessential definition of unprocessed -or whole- food.

How do you know which packaged foods are processed for consumption and which are processed foods?

Frozen or canned foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, are foods that have been processed before consumption, but are not processed foods. If the ingredient list lists only that food you would expect to be in the package, its food that has been processed for consumption.

If the first or second ingredient listed is lard, sugar or fructose corn syrup, it's a processed food. If sodium is listed second or third, it's a processed food. If any of the ingredients remind you of high school chemistry class, it's a processed food.