Take sausages. These have been around for ages but are, technically, processed. Are these now bad? They seem to pass the lindy test.
Not a great example to make your point because processed meats (specifically, cured meats) are carcinogenic. [0]
> Are these now bad?
Colorectal cancer has always been bad. The difference is that we have more data now.
If you don’t change your assumptions and biases with new data, you will be stuck in the past. Blood letting would have passed the lindy test throughout the 18th century.
[0] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/03/repo...
Your linked source claims processed meats can cause a 18% increased incidence of colorectal cancer. The CDC [0] says rates of those cancers are 36.5 per 100,000, or 0.03%. Since some of those people undoubtedly eat processed meat, lets assume the cancer rate is 0.025% for people who don't eat processed meats.
For me, those numbers really dont move the needle - its highly unlikely to get colorectal cancer and abstaining from processed meats doesnt really change the rate much at all. There are probably other good arguments in favor of not eating these foods, but cancer doesnt appear to be one of them.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/colorectal/statistics/index.htm
high salt and/or sugar content foods, whether processed or not, is probably not great for you.
It's just that "processed foods" usually have extra flavourings added (such as salt) to enhance it, for sale purposes.
So instead of targeting processed foods, the targeting for healthy eating should be portion size and amount, followed by freshness.
The vitamins may have leached into the water, but toss that water into a soup and you're good.
I don't think freshness matters much at all. Flour certainly doesn't need to be fresh to make good bread.
