alt Hacker NewsPeople who complain about “processed foods” generally have a basic misunderstanding of chemical/biochemical processes and energy gradients or activation energies.
Ultimately, everything is highly processed or we’d be eating rocks. The magnificent manufacturing line in animal or even plant cells is one of the most processed things at the finest molecular level that we know!
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In what sense is an ear of corn highly processed? Is the same sense in which a hot dog is highly processed?
And yet we find that the foods that most people can intuitively label as "processed" come with lower satiety per calorie, unfavorable effects on blood sugar, and lower micro nutrient density per calorie. There are definitely outliers, but obvious ones are Wonderbread vs Whole grain high fiber breads (like Daves 21 grain or ezekiel bread), American cheese vs Sliced medium cheddar, even things like Sweetened apple sauce vs an Apple, White rice versus brown or "wild rice"
That's not really what we're talking about here though. An apple isn't the same as an apple juice which isn't the same as an apple flavored candy, even you can appreciate the difference of processing in these simple examples.
A slab of beef isn't the same as a "burger patty*" where the meat is coming from 54 different pigs, including cartilages, tendons, skin &co and contains 12 additives coming from the petrochemical industry.
The same applies to vegetarians/vegan stuff, you can make a patty from beans at home with like 3 ingredients, or buy ready made patties containing hydrogenated trans fats, bad additives, food coloring, &c.