Another food thread: What do you consider processed food?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

i ask this because i often think people have varying ideas on what is processed food?

to some cooked is processed to others bottled is processed etc

So what is your idea of fresh vs processed?

Can i please ask that we be civil? Food is a good subject to raise awareness on. However shaming people is not the way to raise awareness.

[KitchenWitch]

1. If it comes out of a box, it is processed.

Also I do consider most flours to be processed, as well as packaged pastas.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. packaged plain pasta or like a mac n cheese package? or both?

[Locrian]

4. Im with KitchenWitch

If it has some multi-syllable chemical in it. Usually in a box - but yeah, also highly refined stuff like white flour, etc.

Usually stuff in the "center" of the supermarket, because is has longer shelf life (ie processed).

[hippywife]

10. They are but if

you take the list of ingredients into consideration, and buy the most minimally processed, I can consider some of them raw ingredients. :hi:

[flvegan]

3. That's an excellent question, La Lioness.

Great topic, as some folks I'm sure feel that anything pre-made or pre-packaged will be processed. Some will stick to the ingredients. Some may have never even considered what carries the "processed" label.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. thank you. now, you answer the question! :P

[flvegan]

18. You know, I really don't have a proper answer.

"Processed" is a pretty broad term. When I hear the term, in the wag-of-the-finger manner, I think of the obvious worst of the worst examples, like Kraft's mac n cheese. However, quite honestly, anything that comes in a box, bottle, can or other package by some form of mass-production, is most likely in some fashion processed.

My definition of processed is more in concern with the ingredients and how much they've been modified from their original state in nature and what's been added that isn't "natural" in the least.

See, not a very good answer.

[hippywife]

24. No, it's a very good answer

as is Rabrrrr's. (Did I get enough r's in there? LOL)

[guitar man]

5. only if it comes out of a drive through window

:D

:hide:

[hippywife]

14. I know you're joking

but sadly people do believe that's the only stuff they need to avoid rather than reading the label on the things the big corporations have led them to believe are good food.

How you guys holdin' together? :hi:

[guitar man]

21. I agree

My daughter having a fructose intolerance, especially to high fructose corn syrup has mad the wife and I even more avid label readers than we were before. It is tough finding affordable food in the supermarket that doesn't have that poison in it :(

We're holding together ok these days, times are rough all over but we're managing :hi:

[geardaddy]

7. I guess I think of processed food in two ways:

One way is anything that requires preservatives to keep it "fresh" and is pre-prepared like TV dinners, etc.

But then I kind of agree with Kitchen Witch that flours and packaged pasta can be considered processed.

I guess it's really more of a continuum of how processed something is. Butter is processed, but how it's processed determines if I'll buy it or not (is it organic, is it local, etc.)

[Inchworm]

8. Thanks for this

I've been bouncing hippywife's process vs fresh thread in my head since last night.

I have been consciously working on my diet. I only recently found out that canned food is pretty much worthless. I was told by several after the fact, "duh." Hec, I didn't know.

Frozen vegetables are better, everyone tells me. Well, I go and look only to find "steamables" and pre-fabricated brocolli and cheese. That's processed; I guess.

Ok, back to cleaning :)

:thumbsup:

:hi:

[LeftyMom]

11. Some canned foods are okay.

I buy canned beans for convenience, tomatoes when they're not in season, pumpkin for baking, and black olives. Oh, and coconut milk, which doesn't exactly grow fresh around here.

Just don't get too many of your vegetables from cans, they can lose some of their vitamins into the surrounding water, and watch for added salt and sugars. It's amazing how many different cans of tomatoes I check and then put back on the shelf because they have high fructose corn syrup in them. In canned tomatoes I want the ingredients to be as close to "tomatoes, water, salt" as possible.

[Inchworm]

26. It was canned beans that caught my eye

I started doing dried just because it seemed the canned beans had no (relatively) nutrirional value.

I'm down with the tomatos too. That was another thing I noticed. I have a tomato-based diet :D

This year I'm going to use most of my garden space for tomatos. I HOPE I get a big enough yield to where I can learn to can come fall.

:hi:

[LeftyMom]

29. When I remember, I crock pot my beans and then freeze them in their juice

in roughly recipe-sized portions. Way cheaper than cans, even with organic beans, and not much more effort. Plus that way I can control the salt, added seasonings, and use obscure heirloom beans if I want.

[M155Y_A1CH]

25. Store brand sensitive?

The bird brand and the big green guy brand have to compete with the fact that peas is peas.

The store brand, most often, is just as good.

They have to dress up their veggies to justify the difference in price.

That's what all the special bags and sauces are all about.

Check out some generic vegetables, they're delicious.

[Inchworm]

27. That's what I ended up doing

Buying store brand.

I just wanted broccoli and I'd make my own cheese sauce. That was a chore hehe.

:hi:

[hippywife]

9. I do buy flours and pastas

and I will buy canned tomato products but most canned things usually don't make it into my cart. I consider the raw ingredients and consider the brands when I'm deciding which ones to buy. I shy away from the big corporate brands which does almost take a score card since the mega corps have bought up so many of the smaller brands.

When I think of processed food-like products, I'm primarily thinking of things with long lists of unpronounable ingredients, no matter how wholesome and nutritious the labeling makes them sound. I never buy things that are considered to be an ingredient but are not, like canned pie filling. They also tend to have a list of unpronouncable ingredients. If I want something like that, I make it myself.

I like to buy food as close to whole as possible when I can. I do buy a lot local natural and organic foods and ingredients from our local coop and make whatever I can from scratch.

I usually feel that if people can't afford to do that and stick with Pollan's guidelines, they'll be doing okay.

If your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it.
Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce.
Eat food (real food). Not to much. Mostly plants.

If they can't get it whole and fresh, frozen is the next best, altho sometimes a poor substitute, and then finally canned but the nutrition in them is usually very poor and watch those ingredients.

:hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. i do keep frozen peas. i use flours (mostly for dessert) and we rarely eat pasta

i think organic is great if you can afford it for vegggies but sort of a necessity when it comes to meat.

[hippywife]

20. It's important with some fruits and veggies, too.

Check out this list and it will help you determine where it's important to spend the money on organic and where it's less so. Helps budgeting for these things.

http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php

They seem to be in the midst of redoing their website. They usually have a link to the full data set so you can see the number of pesticides that are found on each type.

:hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Ingeneral usage, I think processed means any food that's been changed significantly from its natural

state.

So, freezing peas and putting them in a bag is not "processed".

Mixing peas with butter and salt and, quite likely, preservatives - that's processed.



Tomatoes in a can without any chemical preservatives are not processed (even if they're chopped or skinned or seedless).

Tomatoes in a can with garlic, sausage, mushrooms, and chemicals, labeled "pasta sauce" for instance, is processed.



Dried pasta in a box is not processed.

Dried pasta in a box with an envelope of cheese powder mix is processed.


I think of "processed" as being any process that one could not, or would not, be able to do at home without going to the chemical store or owning a big-ass piece of machinery; a process that takes a factory to do.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. i think that is a great defintion to go by...

"I think of "processed" as being any process that one could not, or would not, be able to do at home without going to the chemical store or owning a big-ass piece of machinery; a process that takes a factory to do."

[HopeHoops]

16. The asparagus I canned myself last season was processed ;}

Damn is that stuff yummy! Beats the hell out of the stuff you buy in metal cans!

[LeftyMom]

17. If its not in it's raw, whole form it is processed to some extent.

Many foods would be inedible without processing, others need to be processed to be maximally nutritious. The problem isn't processing, it's excessive processing that leads to loss of nutritional value.

[SacredCow]

19. There's surely some grey area with this.....

But I wouldn't consider all packaged foods as "processed." They're packaged in such a way as to make it to the warehouses and grocery stores and have a reasonable shelf life.

When I think "processed," the first thing that comes to my mind is the likes of the Chicken McNugget- parts (probably most of which I don't want to know about) are brought together in such a way as to make a food item that wouldn't exist otherwise. Granted, this is probably one of the more extreme cases.

[PVnRT]

22. Things laden with preservatives

I think that's the big difference to me - dried pasta in a box isn't really "processed," but the Chef Boyardee ravioli definitely is.

[Lucian]

23. If it comes in a box or a can, it's processed.

Examples include mac & cheese and Spaghetti-O's.

And if it's full of preservatives, it's processed.

[Rosie1223]

28. It's probably easier to say what isn't processed

Practically everything in your grocery store has gone through some process between the farm and the shelf. Even fresh produce is washed and/or disinfected.

If it came from your garden, picked by you -- not processed.