What are Processed Foods?

Understanding Processed Foods: Are They Always Unhealthy?

Processed foods are items that have been altered from their original, natural state for convenience, safety, or shelf life. This can involve methods like cutting, cooking, freezing, canning, or adding preservatives, flavours, salt, and sugar.

While some processed foods are minimally changed, others are highly processed and may contain additives that impact nutritional value and overall health when consumed frequently.

What Are the Different Types of Processed Foods?

We can categorise processed foods based on how much they are processed. Let’s start with the least processed category:

1. Minimally Processed Foods

This type of food includes the edible parts of animals or vegetables. Manufacturers slightly alter these types of foods from their natural state to store, prepare and then eat. Minimal processes, such as removing inedible parts, fermentation, grinding, or freezing, do not change the nutritional value of the food.

It makes the food accessible easily. Many foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, meats, tea, coffee, and pasta. etc. are in this category.

2. Processed Culinary Ingredients

This category involves ingredients that cook, or chefs use in the kitchen to cook or prepare other food items. These typically include ingredients like butter, oils, sugar, salt, vinegar, and honey. We do not eat them on their own but prepare other food items or add them to other foods for seasoning.

3. Processed Foods

This category involves foods with added ingredients for flavour, preservation, or texture, such as canned fish, yoghurt, cheese, and bottled vegetables, etc. Manufacturers usually make these foods with few ingredients, and people can consume them with little to no further preparation.

4. Highly Processed Foods

Highly processed foods, also called ultra-processed foods, go through extensive industrial processing and contain many added ingredients. These include types of foods by adding salt, sugar, fats, artificial colours, sweeteners, preservatives, etc. People are meant to eat highly processed foods right away. These foods generally do not need any or minimal preparation. During the processing, the texture, appearance and nutritional value of the food change. Examples of these foods are soft drinks, packaged snacks, cookies, instant noodles, frozen pre-cooked meals, etc.

Why Do We Process Food?

Here is a detailed look at the reasons for food processing:

● For Preservation

Processing methods such as pasteurisation, sterilisation, or canning help destroy the growth of harmful bacteria and other microorganisms that can cause food poisoning. Processing methods like freezing, drying, and adding preservatives prevent spoilage and allow people to store and consume foods for longer periods.

● For Convenience

Processing helps to create a wide range of foods, from ready-to-eat meals to specialised food items. These foods do not need preparation or only need very little preparation, which saves a lot of time.

● For Taste Enhancement

Processing helps to improve food taste, texture, and appearance. There are certain food processing methods that add more nutrients to foods to reduce potential deficiencies in a diet.

Are All Processed Foods Unhealthy?

No. Not all processed foods are necessarily unhealthy. However, there are many ultra-processed items that contain high levels of saturated fat, salt, or sugar, and researchers link them to increased risks of health conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The effects of processed foods on our health

We can add some slightly processed foods to our daily diet, but highly processed foods pose serious health risks. Processed foods contain high amounts of sugar, salt and fat. These ingredients make the food more appealing, often leading us to eat more than we realise.

Due to the high amount of these unhealthy ingredients, these foods contain more calories, and people end up eating more than they expect. Some processed foods don't give our bodies the nutrients we need. During the processing, foods go through a lot of processes that break down their nutritional values.

Processed foods are low in vitamins, minerals and other healthier ingredients. Regular consumption of ultra-processed foods is linked to obesity due to their high calorie and sugar content, heart disease from excessive salt, trans fats and added sugars and digestive issues due to low fibre content.