There's a distinction between processed and ultra-processed (or highly processed). For example, canned fish is processed (added salt and oil), while a frozen TV dinner is ultra-processed (many ingredients added, some of which you probably don't have in your kitchen).
Processed food is fine assuming you're aware of what's in it, how it's processed, and make sure you're not overeating any of it.
Sure, but OP said ban all processed food. That's what I'm responding to, not "ban all ultra-processed food." That said, I do find your categorization to be troubling. Just because something is a frozen dinner doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad for you. Whether or not something is good or bad for you is based entirely on its chemical composition; it has absolutely nothing to do with how it has been put together or what form factor its being distributed in.
It may sound like I'm being pedantic, but I think these kinds of short cuts are actually genuinely harmful. I've known many people who have thought "cheeseburgers from McDonald's are unhealthy not because cheeseburgers are unhealthy but because they are processed" and then gone right ahead and made themselves cheeseburgers that have three to four times the calories, fat, and salt of the McDonald's counterpart.
Does that make McDonald's a healthy option? Absolutely not. But why is McDonald's unhealthy? It's because the food they serve is unhealthy. It's not that the food that is served at McDonald's is unhealthy because McDonald's is unhealthy.
> Processed food is fine assuming you're aware of what's in it, how it's processed, and make sure you're not overeating any of it.
s/Processed//
If people want to eat healthier, they need to pay attention to the ingredients in the things they're eating. If we're going to regulate something, we need to regulate the ingredients that go into things people eat. Using buzz words like "processed" and "ultra-processed" with definitions that are, at best, not well understood by the general population just leads to people working around personal/social rules/regulations.
Just because your t-bone steak is local organic grass-fed whatever does not make it good for you. That food is just not healthy, even if it is the only ingredient. We did not evolve eating food like that with any kind of regularity. If you want to be healthy, you need to just not eat it.
A lot of non-technical people get hung up on the marketing terms than actually thinking through the fundamentals.
For e.g. "Handspun ice-cream! OMG!". Uhh..what difference does it make if it is hand-spun or machine-spun? It is not tool of spinning ice-cream, but what the process is. To majority of non-techy people, processed or machined or anything to do with automating a method is highly repulsive - thanks to the hipster marketing.
The general take away is - "Automated machines will never replace the touch of the hand"... oh really? then how come we can make insanely precise things called semiconductors in almost a completely automated fashion. Some fabs don't even have operators inside, just technicians or engineers. This is an extreme example just to make a point.
I think it is a bit meaningless to talk about the merits or demerits of particular ingredients (other than the obviously bad such as rancid fats, pollution by heavy metals, or high in toxins) Humans evolved to eat a varied diet and the more variety of nutrient dense food you have the better off you will be. The main issue with nutrition is how can we teach people to eat better while keeping the production costs down.
I recognize I'm bloody lucky to be able to afford the food I get to eat every week, but just thinking of the resources required to have everyone eat this way is very hard. How sustainable would it be for everyone to eat fresh seafood every weekend or constantly import oranges to northern latitudes? Part of the problem is that people choosing processed food leads to an increasing divide in costs between the processed and the freshly prepared, only due to economies of scale. And it will only keep getting worse. My parents' generation all had fresh milk delivered daily at their homes (relatively affordable even for the middle class), today how many people could afford something like that? It took only a little time when cheaper options appeared for it to become uneconomical and nowadays even if you wanted to pay a premium, how big would it be?
A big mistake is to only focus on macronutrients when micronutrients are as important. Even then, it is a relatively unexplored field, how many chemical species you think an apple has? We have explored relatively few classes and particular examples of vitamins and it would be misleading to just go by the RDA of a few classes of chemicals which were explored because of simplicity, technical development at the time? How many vitamin E analogues are in a kernel of wheat? When did we stop doing this basic research into food and nutrition? There are millions of different molecules in natural food, how much is destroyed by processing? Like the homogenization of milk, which is practically very vigorous stirring and yet it destroys lactoferrin.
Exactly. Approximations are good, because they allow you to start doing things now, rather than procrastinating because you need to do proper research first.
You don't need to research the best exercise in the world before you start exercising. Just start exercising, and don't hurt yourself.
You don't need to do the nutrition research. Eat lots of vegetables, cut down on sugar and salt.
...and of course, you can still do the research later, if you want to. But if the proper research will take you say 10 years, it is better to spend those 10 years already exercising and eating vegetables and avoiding sugar.
It sounds to me like this is the crux of your argument.
I think I'd agree and hopefully add some clarifying points.
1. Processing
Processing doesn't necessarily make things less healthy. It depends on the type of processing and what is being processed.
If you blend a steak, it isn't less good for you (although it is more susceptible to food poisoning). Adding heat to things like meat can actually make them more bio-available since they're easier to digest. Adding heat to vegetables can break down certain vitamins and make the result less healthy.
Additionally, heating food in certain ways can make it less healthy because of the cooking process. Anything that chars the food or introduces partially combusted hydrocarbons (burned cooking oil, grilling/smoking, etc.) adds carcinogens to the food.
2. Macro-nutrient profile
Food satiety is relatively well understood: protein, water and fiber are all appetite suppressants. People need a certain amount of fat and probably desire at least a small amount of carbs (although the last part can be overcome in some people).
For a sedentary person, a diet high in carbs and fat is probably not good, as it will result in weight gain.
For someone with higher energy needs - say someone building a trail through the woods with a mattock - they may need to eat 6000 Calories per day just to maintain their body weight.
For a sedentary person, a diet high in protein will be distasteful and probably wasteful.
For professional athletes competing in strength sports, they may eat over 2g / kg of body mass of protein as part of a diet tailored to their goals.
Broadly speaking, in order to promote the health of a person, the macro-nutrient profile of their food should match their body and their activity levels.
3. Micro-nutrients
Eating vegetables are good for you. The more raw the vegetables are, the better they are for you (probably). There is often a trade-off that needs to be struck between palatability and optimum health benefit.
There is also a wide array of micro-nutrients that can come from eating meat of various sorts.
There are many conflicting opinions here, without a broad consensus, so I'll leave it at that.
4. Weird stuff
Often times people will bring up ingredients in processed food that they don't know what it is, or even how to pronounce it.
I don't think people are bad to want to avoid stuff like that.
But for the most part, I have real doubts that this is the cause an health problems in even a small fraction of consumers.
Sure, as long as you use similar ingredients.
> I was under the impression that their food is loaded with sugar and strange additives.
It's not. The beef patty really is just beef. The bun is white bread, just like you can buy at the grocery store. And the condiments are self-evident. It's just that that they've nailed the production process so precisely that what you get tastes almost exactly the same, every time.
A lot of people have this warped, black and white view of "healthy" and "unhealthy", but the reality is that it's a spectrum, and you can get reasonably healthy food at McDonalds but eat like crap at home.
Yeah, modern food is terrible.
