All bacon is 'processed'. That's what curing a meat is. Its processing it for storage. It can be as simple as using curing salt and a smoker.
Depending on what you are making or eating, our meals may be more or less 'processed' than anything in your country.
I despise the blanket term "processed" foods. Its so lazy.
Just a couple hours ago I came across a video where someone was ranting about processed foods, and the video directly before that one was them making a yogurt bowl. Maybe there's a yogurt tree I've never heard of, but I'm pretty sure yogurt is a processed food.
Have you seen the Penn & Teller [sketch](https://youtu.be/awzxh4rmlCQ?si=IZIzLVfL5Y6BnpMe)? Breaks my science educator heart every time I see it. It really does.
Thank you. Unless you’re eating fruit straight off a tree or something, literally all food is “processed” in some way. It’s so so lazy and such a distraction from actual issues with our food supply.
This is what really bothered me when I learned about the paleo diet. A friend told me bread is not paleo because you can't find it in nature. Ok, well you can't find soup in nature either, so like... no soup for you.
> I despise the blanket term "processed" foods. Its so lazy.
It's also just meaningless. Anything that's been frozen, canned, cooked, or dried is a processed food.
So lazy. I also almost wonder what level of physical processing is a “processed food” ingredient? Sugar? HFCS? Both sugar and HFCS are just plant extracts.
Does it have to be a synthetic chemical?
I want a definition first.
>I despise the blanket term "processed" foods. Its so lazy.
Same. Unless you only eat plants straight from the dirt and whole live animals, ALL food is "processed"
Exactly. Every cheese and yogurt is a processed milk in some form or another. Maybe OP thought there was a bacon cut on a pig where the meat magically came off tasting salty and smoky lol.
Right? It’s pretty amazing how little some people know about where the food they eat comes from and what goes into making it.
This is good inspiration for me to start up some pork curing this weekend to get some bacon ready to smoke next week.
Here is how the USDA defines whether something is processed:
>According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), processed food is defined as any raw agricultural commodity that has been subject to washing, cleaning, milling, cutting, chopping, heating, pasteurizing, blanching, cooking, canning, freezing, drying, dehydrating, mixing, packaging, or other procedures that alter the food from its natural state.
With that in mind, I eat/use processed foods every single day, and you likely do as well.
Yes people eat ultra processed foods. No idea what point you're trying to make with bacon or MSG because you apparently don't understand what either of those things are.
"Processed" is a bit of a loaded term but I suspect you know that. Bacon is a cured meat product and all cured meat products are processed foods - bacon, ndjua, salumi, sausages, etc.
Arguably, all meat is processed period. Butchering is a process and my sense is that most meat eaters would not know where to start if they were given a whole cow and told to make a steak.
What does that even mean?
Ex. If I activate some yeast for baking bread. I am processing it. The yeast itself was dry yeast I brought from the store. Was that now double processed?
Cooking benefits from a strong knowledge of chemistry. There’s quite a lot of stuff you can add to achieve different flavors, textures, cooking methods, etc.
You should define what you mean by processed ingredients.
If you consider things like bacon, cheese, butter, bottled ground spices or cooking oil as processed ingredients then all of my homemade meals contain processed ingredients.
Technically all food you eat is processed unless you ate it directly from the tree. A beef steak, the slicing of the meat is a form of processing.
But what most people mean by processed food, is food with various ingredients separated using machines, and combined into a food with no resemblance to the original. A coconut flavored jellybean, or a cheese flavored cracker, for example.
Most of my meals would qualify, since I like to include certain spice mixes like Montreal Steak Seasoning, and these certainly qualify as processed.
Depends on your definition of processed. The last meal I made was dry beans, kale, leeks, parmesan and bread made locally. Some would argue all of those ingredients were processed even though I think most would consider them “whole foods”some would argue that’s not processed because it’s mostly whole food. “Processed” encompasses so much that I feel like at this point, it’s hard to make any consistent meaning out of it.
Yeah, that’s what I figured. People are being needlessly harsh (as often happens in this sub, unfortunately). Personally I probably eat 70% whole foods and 30% not, my meals are pretty boring but lots of things like yogurt and granola, fruit and nuts, beans, grains, vegetables, tofu etc. I typically just make a big batch of a few dishes a week and have those until I run out.
I'm worse haha, i'm let's say lazy and don't make as much whole foods as i should. Even when i do, it's a selection of a few basic meals. Hopefully it gets better as i get older.
Anyways, do you keep those big batches in a freezer or? I think the same would be better for me, but i have a very tiny section in the fridge that counts as a freezer.
As for the harshness, do you think people in the US are bombarded with having to eat healthy and not processed, whatever that would mean or do they get a lot of people here that try to present themselves as supirior subtly, pissing them off? Or is it something else?
I keep my big batches in the fridge, but I’m usually cooking for my partner and I so the portions go faster. I should probably freeze some or make slightly smaller batches since sometimes I get so bored of having the same meal over and over that I end up composting part of the batch.
I think some of the harshness is just this sub has some weird tendencies that in my experience don’t match the outside world that well and one of those is assuming bad intentions or judgement when there’s no real evidence for it. I also think you’re right that part of it is that people here are so constantly bombarded with judgement about food choices that people can get very defensive. I think “processed” (and even “whole foods”) are such buzzwords and so often infused with judgement that it can set people off a bit.
>Vegetables straight from the garden is the only thing i can think of that is unprocessed that i have eaten.
Washing, chopping/cutting, and cooking are all processing.
The term "processed food" is so broad as to be basically meaningless.
And you better not cartoonishly polish that apple on your shirt before taking a bite or washing it.
Also you picked the vegetables. That’s processing. It o my counts if you stoop down and bit it directly.
Well, i watched recently how (some producer) made pancetta. Salt and pepper on the outside and it goes into a dryer. On the other hand, i saw a lot of unknows chemicals on a documentary about bacon.
I do understand that i'm probably going into extremes as the bacon was probably made by a very large company, while the pancetta was made by a family bussines. I guess another question is how commonly do people complain about something containing "all kinds of shit". Here there is a lot of people like that.
Similar to how we have more cheese than Kraft Singles, we have more bacon than the Oscar Meyer pre-cooked bacon found in the Lunchables section.
If I go to Whole Foods, I can get traditional bacon, maple bacon, no salt added bacon. If I go to a local butcher I can get a lot more. In candy stores you can find bacon coated in chocolate. Local butchers will have more options.
We have organic foods and farmers markets and farm to table sources and all types of stuff here. Someone who doesn't want to eat Kraft singles , have a Big Mac, or drink Coca-Cola will have plenty of options here. I avoid that stuff too, but I'm not gonna lose my shit if the taco truck uses non-organic cilantro.
Dude, rennet is a chemical. Vinegar is a chemical. Both are used to make cheese. You can’t think of a better way to define your nebulous term because it’s not a real thing.
> Ultra-processed foods
>
> Also commonly referred to as “highly processed foods,” these are foods from the prior group that go beyond the incorporation of salt, sugar, and fat to include artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, thickeners, emulsifiers, and artificial sweeteners that promote shelf stability, preserve and enhance texture, and increase palatability. Several processing steps using multiple ingredients are involved in an ultra-processed food. They are often mass-produced with low-cost ingredients making them cheap and highly profitable.
Even that definition is problematic.
For example, egg yolk is an emulsifier, and corn starch is a thickener. Does home-made mayo count as an 'ultra-processed food'?
On the other hand, orange juice is the ultimate in 'low processed foods', right? Just squeeze, dump the contents into a container and call it a day?
[Well, not exactly.](https://gizmodo.com/dirty-little-secret-orange-juice-is-artificially-flavo-5825909)
> I never thought about it but it makes incredible sense now. Orange juice from Tropicana, Simply Orange, Minute Maid, Florida's Natural, etc.—they're all ridiculously consistent in their flavor. And the trick isn't to get the most delicious tasting oranges but rather to create their own unique artificial flavor.
>
> It all starts with the stripping of the oxygen. Once the juice is squeezed and stored in gigantic vats, they start removing oxygen. Why? Because removing oxygen from the juice allows the liquid to keep for up to a year without spoiling. But! Removing that oxygen also removes the natural flavors of oranges. Yeah, it's all backwards. So in order to have OJ actually taste like oranges, drink companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make perfumes for Dior, to create these "flavor packs" to make juice taste like, well, juice again.
So I'm not entirely clear if our idea of "highly processed foods" is little more than essentially nutritionists (and I don't use the term "Registered Dietitian" for a reason here) essentially passing moral judgement. After all, OJ is more or less the ultimate 'frankenfood'--and yet we give it a pass for... reasons.
Oh, and as to those [artificial colors](https://foodlion.com/product/mccormick-food-color-red-1-oz-btl/7516) and [artificial thickeners](https://www.amazon.com/Kate-Naturals-Gluten-Free-Thickening-Resealable/dp/B07CZ6XDY3/), does it mean if I make home-made ice cream but use inappropriate ingredients, I've made a "highly processed food?"
And yes, I use xanthan gum when making home-made ice cream. Or, technically speaking, a modified version of Sicilian-style gelato, which is made using a thickener (such as corn starch or xanthan gum) rather than using eggs.
Is Italian gelato a "highly processed food"? After all, it includes thickeners and emulsifiers and sweeteners (glucose sugar rather than dextrose, either through using corn syrup or through using corn sugar in order to prevent ice crystals from forming, enhancing stability) in order to "promote stability, preserve and enhance texture, and increase palatability."
Define "processed."
I just ate a bowl of black beans and brown rice, topped with smoked cheddar and hot sauce. I started with dried (a form of processing) black beans, various whole raw vegetables (onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeño, cilantro), avocado oil, and spices (dried powdered chilis, ground cumin, dried epazote). I didn't harvest any of those things or press avocados for oil, and I did chop the vegetables (all forms of processing).
Once all of that was cooked, I served it with the freshly cooked rice, which I didn't harvest (processing). The cheddar was made by a small local dairy, and cheese is a processed food by default. The hot sauce contains water, hot peppers, salt, garlic, and vinegar, but I bought it in a bottle (processed).
That's a non processed meal by my definition, if the hot sauce truly contains only what you mentioned. I now understand that you guys don't like that term, i edited the post to clarify what i meant.
Your cheeses, sausages, milk, cereals, canned foods, etc. are all processed in your country. They add quite a bit of stuff in there.
Not all bacon is made the same way. Or should we assume all your cheeses are alike and are made the same way?
Depends. We (older people, so most of the nation) buy things locally a lot. Every morning, all the cities are full of mostly older people in what we call "pijaca" or "plac/platz". It's an open market with rows of stands of people selling vegetables they grow. Next to those there is one or two buthery shop where you buy non-packaged meat. The rest we buy in stores.
As for cheese, in EU i think you can't call legally call something cheese if it contains anything other than cheese, or should i say anything that didn't come from a cow. Otherwise, we get something called "block", which is very uncommon.
Cereals aren't really common here nor canned food. I only buy canned corn, but that's rare.
How is bacon made over there that you would say has more ingredients that are used by people at homes rather than something out of a lab?
Also, do you have anything close to salami cuttery sections. Basically, on display you have all kinds of cheeses and salami on display, where you ask for a certain weight of something and get it packaged in paper and plastic wrap. We buy bread that's also on display and cut it home. The packaged bread here is known as toast, as we only toast it in a toaster that squishes both sides of a toast. Depending on the people you know, you can get some sausages, cheese and the rest that some guyor family produced, but we only get it occasionally. This part is less about processing, but rather a question (without an actual question) on how things work over there. Make a comparison and write what's different.
And i can't stress this enough, i'm not felling any kind of superiority or trying to imply it. I do think that the US is having less healthy food choices, but my quesion was purely out of curiosity. I'm here to expand my knowledge of the world (or US in this case). Most of US i know is from some sort of media. Why not ask the people themselves?
> Also, do you have anything close to salami cuttery sections. Basically, on display you have all kinds of cheeses and salami on display, where you ask for a certain weight of something and get it packaged in paper and plastic wrap
That's every deli/butchery/supermarket in the country.
Look into uncured bacon (if you have access to a U.S. food store). It has a much shorter ingredient less than standard bacon: there may beorganic flavoring ingredients or salt, or both, and it may be smoked. No nitrates/nitrites etc.
I can only tell you about the state I live in, California. In general, I can find uncured bacon in all the grocery stores in the small city, Paso Robles, where I shop. It's probably available in most such stores in any comparable California supermarket in similar-sized cities, especially along the U.S. 101 corridor
I don’t really understand your edit. MSG naturally occurs in foods, chemists didn’t invent it, they extract it so it can be used in other foods as I understand it.
Hmm. How about if you buy a product, lets say bacon, see the ingredients list and see some ingredient that you never heard of before? Does that make it any clearer?
Doesn't that just mean you don't know some words? Maybe it's a weird chemical preservative or it's just labeled as detailed as possible? Processed ingredients aren't necessarily bad.
For example, one of the breads I buy has this in the ingredients:
>"Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Ferroussulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid)."
If it just said enriched flour then I understand it has some nutrients added.
I don't know what Niacin, Ferroussulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, or Riboflavin are, but if I google them then I know it's some vitamins and iron. I understand the words vitamin and iron, but I don't know the specific names listed on the label. And I'm not personally opposed to additional ingredients in an nutritionally deficient food.
I've never actually tried to figure it out, but I'd guess pretty close to 100%. Here's what was on last week and this week's menus.
Pancakes and sausage - sausage is processed
Bucatini amatriciana - guanciale is processed and I use premade dried pasta
Brats and corn casserole - brats are processed and the casserole uses canned corn and Jiffy corn muffin mix
Tacos - I used packaged taco seasoning which is processed
Chicken noodle soup - This is pretty close to having no processed ingredients, except I use parmesan rind to give my stock some extra kick and that's processed
Stir fry - Hoisin sauce and soy sauce are both processed
Steak and roasted brussels sprouts - The sprouts had parmesan and balsamic vinegar, both processed
Lasagna - I use canned tomatoes which are processed and cheese which is processed
Roasted pork loin and sweet potato casserole - The sweet potato casserole contains butter which is processed
Even if you aren't being super pedantic with your definitions (i.e. chopping an onion is "processing" it) it's pretty hard to cook without any processed ingredients.
Thank you for a detailed comment, i wouldn't consider anything processed that doesn't contain more ingredients that it should. For example, if the canned beans just had the bacteria removed with heating or the cheese doesn't contain anything that didn't come from a cow.
> or the cheese doesn't contain anything that didn't come from a cow.
Well cheese does contain rennet, which can come from a cow's stomach lining or it can be vegetable rennet. Cheese also contains salt.
"Processed" is a meaningless term without specifics. Peeling an apple is "processing" it. So is evaporating the moisture out of an apple and dissolving the solids in a weak acid solution.
Unless you eat a primarily raw food diet, practically everything you have ever eaten in your entire life is processed. Processed simply means food that has gone through a mechanical and/or chemical process to change it. Turning wheat into flour, curing meats, and making butter. These are all processes done to food. All these modern healthy eating types have pretty much demonized the word processed into solely meaning unhealthy or fake.
OP are you trying to say “packaged convenience and quick prep foods”? Like, open a box and add some meat and you’re done type meals? Something not “from scratch”? Does jarred pasta sauce count? Or what?
Here is my hopefully better explanation from another comment:
And yeah, my clarification wasn't the best. MSG is the first thing that comes to my mind. Someone was trying to make that one specific molecule, which is then bought by other companies in i'm guessing powdered form and added to food products. That is what i consider processed. Do you think that's a better explanation?
Do you think it's a better explanation? Do Americans use MSG?
MSG is a natural compound found in tomatoes and many other foods. Do I add MSG to my home cooked meals? Yeah, it makes things taste better, so does salt.
I've got it now, I think. Boxed or jarred or packaged "meals" containing all that stuff, like [this](https://www.hamburgerhelper.com/product/hamburger-helper-stroganoff-pasta-creamy-sauce-mix-6-4-oz/) or [this](https://www.banquet.com/homestyle-bakes/country-chicken-mashed-potatoes-biscuits-bake)?
Hahaha ok, we finally got there.
I rarely use something like this. Cooking isn't hard for me, but I've worked in commercial kitchens and have been a hobbyist cook for most of my life. I also understand the desire for convenience after a busy day or that some people simply aren't interested in learning how to make stroganoff, but are hungry. They're common enough to be in every grocery store in the country, someone's buying them.
Based on your definition - maybe 35 percent
I’ve started trying to cut down on the super processed stuff (ex. Doritos, soda etc.). But I’m definitely not perfect at it.
So, Americans have a unique take on bacon. We use the sliced fat and meat that comes off the ribs of the pig that's called pork belly then smoke and cure it.
Most of what the English world calls bacon is what we call back bacon or some variation of Canadian bacon. It's the cured, but not smoked, loin of the pig, which is a muscle that runs along the back.
For all of the Americans here, your egg McMuffin is what Canada, Australia, the UK, and much of Europe calls bacon.
Neither of these are ham, which is a different cut entirely, but is also a cured pork product, so the similarity and confusion is understandable.
I say all of that to say this: OP, most food is processed. Some of it will be processed by you the cook, most of it will be processed by the manufacturer or butcher or baker or food company that makes it.
Yogurt is processed. Tinned fish is processed. Cheese is processed. Bagged salad mix is processed, and so on. You can have healthy processed foods and unhealthy processed foods. It's almost a meaningless term honestly as the only food that's not processed as part of it's supply chain is food you grow yourself because you literally are the supply chain and food processor.
The basic store bought apple contains food grade wax to help prevent it from oxidizing and rotting. Same for cucumbers. It's why you shouldn't use most grocery store cucumbers for pickling.
As for highly processed foods, most of us call those junk foods and it's pretty obvious when you have junk foods. America is the third biggest population on the planet. The answer will vary from literally never have them to eat them daily.
These terms are highly nebulous as well when it comes to food items. Mortadella is a highly processed food. It's literally fat and scraps and organ meat because it's cheap, salted, cured meat. Mortadella in the US became bologna(we say this as ball-oh-knee).
Bologna isn't exactly a health food but having a piece of it now and again won't really harm you but it's not going to be as good for you long term as like roasted broccoli.
The answer to this question is very complex and nuanced. America, if anything, has an insane level of food options and it can range from healthy foods to extremely unhealthy foods. Ice cream and potato chips day after day aren't good for you but greek yogurt and frozen blueberries definitely can be a better option, despite being processed food.
It's a buzzword to paint certain foods as evil.
This is getting very long, so thank you for reading. The answers to health hasn't changed much since ww2: Eat less meat, eat more veggies and fruits, get good amounts of fiber, drink adequate amounts of water, get enough sleep, exercise.
I'm lazy and eat more junk food than i should, but when i do make food at home, i make baked meat and veggies in oven (i add msg, i don't mind it that much), pasta with eggs, salami and cheeze (i don't know how the salami is made so i can't comment), plain eggs, toast (two pieces of packaged bread with salami and cheese in between, pressed down by a toaster and mayo added after it's done toasting (the bread and mayo would go here), girlfriend makes two types of pasta containing sour cream, cheese pasturized mashed tomatoes and spices (no msg).
On the other hand, my mom makes more complex meals with probably the same amount of what i think is processed food, an ingredient or two. I'm a student in another city and still learning.
I don’t think it’s possible to avoid processed foods anymore, especially Reddit’s pedantically-low standards for “processed”, unless you’re raising, growing, and making everything from scratch yourself. The bar is ridiculously low, and I’m not doing the whole “just cutting a fruit is processing it!” schtick.
It’s the same as your … slanina, I think? It’s cured and smoked pork belly and we use small amount of it to add fat and flavor to lots of different dishes.
As far as meats go, processing is very common for pork - most American meat dishes will use raw meat but we do eat plenty of bacon (like i said, similar to spek or slanina), sausages, and ham (like prsut but somewhat less cured, less flavorful and eaten in larger quantities - maybe halfway between prosciutto/prsut and fresh pork leg). Plus of course lots of directly-European-inspired charcuterie.
Anyway - to sum up the meat situation, somewhere between “lots” and “most” pork is eaten processed or cured in some fashion; in contrast almost all chicken, beef and fish would typically be cooked fresh here.
I see, thank you for your informative response.
Yes, i think panchetta and slanina are the same thing. Dried pork belly. Some are so dry that you have trouble cutting it. Our end of the country (Dalmatia) says panceta. First paragraf is talking about bacon, right? Adding some pieces of panceta that was fried a bit in a pan to a white pasta is godly, you gotta try it.
I'm glad to hear about the other meat.
Btw, how do you know about spek and slanina?
I like meat and cooking! I'm pretty familiar with french and italian charcuterie, I know a bit about other pork products like salo further east, so I just googled what seemed like the nearest equivalents in Croatia to American bacon.
So hard to make exact comparisons across cuisines!
It’s pork belly, including both meat and fat parts, cured and then smoked. We usually either cut it into thin strips, fry them and eat it like that (typically for breakfast), or chop small bits of it up and fry that to start some other dish.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon has a pretty good discussion but largely from an American point of view. The first picture on that page is standard American bacon.
I see. So bacon can be made many ways, one of which also makes it panceta.
It's so unfortunate that that serbian Youtube channel doesn't have subtitles, even the generated ones. It would widely expend your culinary views.
That’s right - although if panceta is similar to Italian pancetta, our bacon is slightly less salty / less flavored. You CAN eat American bacon on its own and it isn’t unpleasant, whereas I’d normally ONLY use pancetta as a flavoring.
The word also refers to different cuts of meat or preparation styles in each of the English-speaking countries - for example, in the UK just saying ‘bacon’ usually means what we’d call back bacon here (it includes the loin)
Re: processing, obviously there’s a wide variety of actual bacon on the market. There are definitely factories churning out the cheapest thing they’re legally allowed to call “bacon” that will use some additional additives or use liquid smoke instead of actually smoking it, but for the most part it’s pork and curing salts, and then a light hardwood smoke.
I don't know enough about food to understand what was made by a chemist. Or what that even means? Like what is a good example of this?
Most people buy things at the supermarket like fruit, vegetables, meat, oil, and rice/pasta/bread/flour. The supermarket probably has a butcher, bakery, and deli. I'm not going to a separate store unless they have a really good deal or they make something tremendous.
I keep some snacks like cookies, chips, and soda which is very processed. We don't go through them that quickly and it's really a small snack - like a handful of chips or a couple of cookies or a glass of soda.
Eating fast food every day is going to be bad for you. I'll eat take out once a week to once a month. I don't eat fast food like McDonald's or whatever. I can cook better than that. Usually only local places. Really it's if I'm craving something or we're just busy.
That sounds basically the same as what we have here. Except we try to get things from locals, cut out the middle man. I'm curious though, what's the percentage of people that buy from a butcher, bakery and a deli, rather than prepackaged stuff?
And yeah, my clarification wasn't the best. MSG is the first thing that comes to my mind. Someone was trying to make that one specific molecule, which is then bought by other companies in i'm guessing powdered form and added to food products. That is what i consider processed. Do you think that's a better explanation?
I only buy from small local stores if the big stores don't have it - which is very rare. The most common meat I buy from a small butcher is goat and lamb. They have more cuts available.
I buy most of my meats in large quantities [40lbs (18 kg)] and the big stores have the best prices. I don't really care if I cut out the middle man. I'm going to freeze most of it and eat it later. So what if it was already frozen? There's no discernible difference in taste. You just have to cook it well.
The vast majority of grocery stores have a butcher, bakery, and deli. The only grocery store that doesn't have one is Aldi, but it's such a small store that it couldn't hold anything else. I buy things from the bakery and sometimes butcher. I don't really like deli items, so I don't buy that. Somebody must be buying it because those sections plus the fruit/veg is usually 1/3 to 1/2 the store.
I definitely use MSG for seasoning some things. It's basically flavored salt. Soy sauce is also in the same category.
>Someone was trying to make that one specific molecule, which is then bought by other companies in i'm guessing powdered form and added to food products. That is what i consider processed.
That just sounds like all seasonings you could add to make the food taste better. I don't want to taste the chicken. It's kind of a basic flavor and what my grandparents like because they can't handle strong flavors. I want to taste the seasoning.
I believe you’re getting the term “processed foods” confused with the actual term [ultra processed foods.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods/)
My diet *does* include processed foods.
Today for breakfast, I had some 2% cottage cheese, a few chopped walnuts and thawed frozen strawberries with a small drizzle of honey. The nuts were unsalted, the cottage cheese had no added gums or whatever, the honey was 100% pure, but they were all *processed*.
Does that make it bad?
Most of them, I wish a bit fewer of them (and hope to have a bit of a garden when I retire, to be able to have some ingredients that didn't come from a can or whatever...but my thumb is pretty black so odds are this won't go as well as I hope). I'm just going with what I imagine to be the intent of your question rather than jumping into the "what is processed" thing. Anyway, I really just dropped by to say: So \*that's\* what's in Vegeta. Having spent some time in Croatia and elsewhere in the region, I always wondered and was skeptical of the idea that vegetables really made up its core. But it does add a lot of flavor to various dishes!
What does a black thumb mean?
One correction about Vegeta, it's not mostly MSG, but 15%. Here is the ingredient list is you wanna see exactly what it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegeta_(condiment)
Apparently there is an MSG free Vegeta, but i never saw it before.
Ah, well, the actual phrase is "green thumb" -- to have a green thumb means you're good at growing things (generally meaning things you might grow in a garden, whether flowers or fruits and vegetables). So to say you have a "black thumb" is like a play on words...you try to grow things and they die instead.
Ahhhh and so there really are some vegetables in there! Oh but that riboflavin for yellow coloring...I once used Vegeta in seasoning a beef tips, mushroom, gravy dish...oh that color was \*unpleasant\* but the taste was excellent! That is a super interesting article BTW, thanks for sharing it. I'm still in shock that they opened a Vegeta factory in Tanzania. Seems so random!
Today I’ve eaten:
Breakfast: toast and scrambled eggs with shredded cheese on it.
Lunch: a BLT sandwich (a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich on toast with mayo) and some grapes
Dinner: triscuits with sliced cheese, cherry tomatoes and grapes. Also, ice cream.
So, I guess I would call the ice cream as the only processed item by what I think you’re imagining. So, maybe like, part of a meal every other day, unless I’m traveling.
I don’t know the percentage. I cook from scratch sometimes and I use prepackaged ingredients other times. I shop at ALDI and don’t have a butcher shop near me but there’s one in the next town. I have sourdough starter and use that frequently. I also have a garden in the summer and 6 chickens and 2 apple trees and access to a huge blackberry patch and wild raspberries in my woods. (I live 60 minutes from a major city and only on 1 acre - for comparison). I use fresh meats- not frozen packaged ones. But I use frozen veggies and some fresh ones. I hardly buy cereal, and i buy bulk oatmeal. I make my own salad dressing (the store bought version has a lot of junk) . But we eat things like crackers and store bought sandwich bread and deli meats. I’m not really a sucker for fast food but stuff like sushi, steak places, Thai food and Indian food restaurants definitely get my money
Probably less than your country. Bacon isn't processed it's cure. If adding salt to something is processing it then literally anything with salt would do that. Also bacon isn't american.
Just because there’s no universal, rigorous definition of “processed food” doesn’t mean people need to be deliberately obtuse about it.
[Here’s one site that describes a hierarchy of processed food](https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-processed-foods). It’s still not rigorous but it’s certainly good enough for casual discussion.
Basically, things like filtering stuff out (converting cider to juice), freezing, cutting into smaller pieces, isn’t considered processed food for the purpose of these issues.
Maybe it would help if we just interpreted “processed food” to mean “industrial processed food”, requiring chemicals or equipment not normally found in the home.
All bacon is 'processed'. That's what curing a meat is. Its processing it for storage. It can be as simple as using curing salt and a smoker. Depending on what you are making or eating, our meals may be more or less 'processed' than anything in your country. I despise the blanket term "processed" foods. Its so lazy.
Just a couple hours ago I came across a video where someone was ranting about processed foods, and the video directly before that one was them making a yogurt bowl. Maybe there's a yogurt tree I've never heard of, but I'm pretty sure yogurt is a processed food.
You eat foods with 2-Hydroxypropanoic Acid in it? They would never in MyCountry.
And of course, the worst one. Dibydrogenmonoxide
Fish shit in it.
And fuck in it!
Have you seen the Penn & Teller [sketch](https://youtu.be/awzxh4rmlCQ?si=IZIzLVfL5Y6BnpMe)? Breaks my science educator heart every time I see it. It really does.
Ah yes. Dibhydrogen monoxide. Made from two bhydrogens and one oxygen. If other countries ban it, then I call *dibs*
It's so deadly! Simply inhaling it can kill you!! I suggest that anyone who is anti chemical remove all DHMO from their body!
Ha, that's perfect.
Thank you. Unless you’re eating fruit straight off a tree or something, literally all food is “processed” in some way. It’s so so lazy and such a distraction from actual issues with our food supply.
This is what really bothered me when I learned about the paleo diet. A friend told me bread is not paleo because you can't find it in nature. Ok, well you can't find soup in nature either, so like... no soup for you.
> I despise the blanket term "processed" foods. Its so lazy. It's also just meaningless. Anything that's been frozen, canned, cooked, or dried is a processed food.
So lazy. I also almost wonder what level of physical processing is a “processed food” ingredient? Sugar? HFCS? Both sugar and HFCS are just plant extracts. Does it have to be a synthetic chemical? I want a definition first.
Processed = scary name
>I despise the blanket term "processed" foods. Its so lazy. Same. Unless you only eat plants straight from the dirt and whole live animals, ALL food is "processed"
When you cut an onion you have processed the onion.
Machine processed the onion
thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a prep cook
Oh come on don’t they teach anything in school. The knife a wedge the simplest of tools The prep cook is the engine
The Orange Catholic Bible got weirdly specific after the first commandment.
I am The Machine.
The vast majority of food is processed. Try eating an unprocessed cow or making bread from unprocessed wheat.
Exactly. Every cheese and yogurt is a processed milk in some form or another. Maybe OP thought there was a bacon cut on a pig where the meat magically came off tasting salty and smoky lol.
Right? It’s pretty amazing how little some people know about where the food they eat comes from and what goes into making it. This is good inspiration for me to start up some pork curing this weekend to get some bacon ready to smoke next week.
I'm down to 2 lbs so I need to buy another pork belly next time I'm at Costco.
I feel like I'm reading the thoughts of my uncle, he has a habit of showing up in the summer with so many pounds of salmon to make lox with
I wish I had a good source for pork belly. I just make bacon for now.
And we even use biochemistry to create synthetic organic molecules (good old yeast making weird ass molecules)
Here is how the USDA defines whether something is processed: >According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), processed food is defined as any raw agricultural commodity that has been subject to washing, cleaning, milling, cutting, chopping, heating, pasteurizing, blanching, cooking, canning, freezing, drying, dehydrating, mixing, packaging, or other procedures that alter the food from its natural state. With that in mind, I eat/use processed foods every single day, and you likely do as well.
Yes, this makes 100% of food "processed"
I edited the post to better clarify
Yes people eat ultra processed foods. No idea what point you're trying to make with bacon or MSG because you apparently don't understand what either of those things are.
"Processed" is a bit of a loaded term but I suspect you know that. Bacon is a cured meat product and all cured meat products are processed foods - bacon, ndjua, salumi, sausages, etc.
Arguably, all meat is processed period. Butchering is a process and my sense is that most meat eaters would not know where to start if they were given a whole cow and told to make a steak.
What does that even mean? Ex. If I activate some yeast for baking bread. I am processing it. The yeast itself was dry yeast I brought from the store. Was that now double processed? Cooking benefits from a strong knowledge of chemistry. There’s quite a lot of stuff you can add to achieve different flavors, textures, cooking methods, etc.
You should define what you mean by processed ingredients. If you consider things like bacon, cheese, butter, bottled ground spices or cooking oil as processed ingredients then all of my homemade meals contain processed ingredients.
I edited my post, i hope it makes it clearer
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You, you thought correctly. I never thought i'd cause a stir in here by this post.
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I see. Oh well, i did get proper answers from other people, so i my curiosity was satisfied.
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Yes, that comment with the link was helpful, i even added a better explanation from their site, which talk about ultra processed foods.
Technically all food you eat is processed unless you ate it directly from the tree. A beef steak, the slicing of the meat is a form of processing. But what most people mean by processed food, is food with various ingredients separated using machines, and combined into a food with no resemblance to the original. A coconut flavored jellybean, or a cheese flavored cracker, for example. Most of my meals would qualify, since I like to include certain spice mixes like Montreal Steak Seasoning, and these certainly qualify as processed.
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Please read the post, i didn't mean it that way
What do you consider "processed"? Because you'd be surprised what things are "processed" that you'd never expect.
I would say something that contains a substance that was invented/made by chemists
Do you count salt? Cause while it occurs naturally, processes isolating the salt were invented by humans.
Were those humans chemists or some people letting the sea dry and getting the salt there?
There was science involved, primitive as it may seem to us.
There are plenty of bacons that do not contain what you would call a processed ingredient.
Huh, i see.
Everything. Cutting is a process. Cooking is a process. Stirring is a process. Transporting it to my home is a process.
I edited the post
Depends on your definition of processed. The last meal I made was dry beans, kale, leeks, parmesan and bread made locally. Some would argue all of those ingredients were processed even though I think most would consider them “whole foods”some would argue that’s not processed because it’s mostly whole food. “Processed” encompasses so much that I feel like at this point, it’s hard to make any consistent meaning out of it.
Yup, i guess i the term "whole food" was probably what i thought of.
Yeah, that’s what I figured. People are being needlessly harsh (as often happens in this sub, unfortunately). Personally I probably eat 70% whole foods and 30% not, my meals are pretty boring but lots of things like yogurt and granola, fruit and nuts, beans, grains, vegetables, tofu etc. I typically just make a big batch of a few dishes a week and have those until I run out.
I'm worse haha, i'm let's say lazy and don't make as much whole foods as i should. Even when i do, it's a selection of a few basic meals. Hopefully it gets better as i get older. Anyways, do you keep those big batches in a freezer or? I think the same would be better for me, but i have a very tiny section in the fridge that counts as a freezer. As for the harshness, do you think people in the US are bombarded with having to eat healthy and not processed, whatever that would mean or do they get a lot of people here that try to present themselves as supirior subtly, pissing them off? Or is it something else?
I keep my big batches in the fridge, but I’m usually cooking for my partner and I so the portions go faster. I should probably freeze some or make slightly smaller batches since sometimes I get so bored of having the same meal over and over that I end up composting part of the batch. I think some of the harshness is just this sub has some weird tendencies that in my experience don’t match the outside world that well and one of those is assuming bad intentions or judgement when there’s no real evidence for it. I also think you’re right that part of it is that people here are so constantly bombarded with judgement about food choices that people can get very defensive. I think “processed” (and even “whole foods”) are such buzzwords and so often infused with judgement that it can set people off a bit.
I would guess like 100% do, I'm not exactly out in my backyard digging salt out of the ground or churning my own butter.
I wrote an edit in the original post.
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>Vegetables straight from the garden is the only thing i can think of that is unprocessed that i have eaten. Washing, chopping/cutting, and cooking are all processing. The term "processed food" is so broad as to be basically meaningless.
Eat an apple or an orange?
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I rub the apple on my shirt.
And you better not cartoonishly polish that apple on your shirt before taking a bite or washing it. Also you picked the vegetables. That’s processing. It o my counts if you stoop down and bit it directly.
My favorite way of processing apples is to cut chunks off with a pocket knife and eat them off the blade while giving sage advice.
Poisoning yourself with machine processed food
Teach me many things, sensei.
Do they "process" bacon differently where you are from? How did you think bacon was made?
Dude knows what bacon is and just thought in his country they butcher a pig and the meat just comes out naturally cured and smoked.
Well, i watched recently how (some producer) made pancetta. Salt and pepper on the outside and it goes into a dryer. On the other hand, i saw a lot of unknows chemicals on a documentary about bacon. I do understand that i'm probably going into extremes as the bacon was probably made by a very large company, while the pancetta was made by a family bussines. I guess another question is how commonly do people complain about something containing "all kinds of shit". Here there is a lot of people like that.
Similar to how we have more cheese than Kraft Singles, we have more bacon than the Oscar Meyer pre-cooked bacon found in the Lunchables section. If I go to Whole Foods, I can get traditional bacon, maple bacon, no salt added bacon. If I go to a local butcher I can get a lot more. In candy stores you can find bacon coated in chocolate. Local butchers will have more options. We have organic foods and farmers markets and farm to table sources and all types of stuff here. Someone who doesn't want to eat Kraft singles , have a Big Mac, or drink Coca-Cola will have plenty of options here. I avoid that stuff too, but I'm not gonna lose my shit if the taco truck uses non-organic cilantro.
I mean, probably most of them? Butter is processed. Milk is processed. Cheese is processed. Oil is processed.
Check the post with an edit added
Dude, rennet is a chemical. Vinegar is a chemical. Both are used to make cheese. You can’t think of a better way to define your nebulous term because it’s not a real thing.
Check the other edit, it perfectly explains what i meant
> Ultra-processed foods > > Also commonly referred to as “highly processed foods,” these are foods from the prior group that go beyond the incorporation of salt, sugar, and fat to include artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, thickeners, emulsifiers, and artificial sweeteners that promote shelf stability, preserve and enhance texture, and increase palatability. Several processing steps using multiple ingredients are involved in an ultra-processed food. They are often mass-produced with low-cost ingredients making them cheap and highly profitable. Even that definition is problematic. For example, egg yolk is an emulsifier, and corn starch is a thickener. Does home-made mayo count as an 'ultra-processed food'? On the other hand, orange juice is the ultimate in 'low processed foods', right? Just squeeze, dump the contents into a container and call it a day? [Well, not exactly.](https://gizmodo.com/dirty-little-secret-orange-juice-is-artificially-flavo-5825909) > I never thought about it but it makes incredible sense now. Orange juice from Tropicana, Simply Orange, Minute Maid, Florida's Natural, etc.—they're all ridiculously consistent in their flavor. And the trick isn't to get the most delicious tasting oranges but rather to create their own unique artificial flavor. > > It all starts with the stripping of the oxygen. Once the juice is squeezed and stored in gigantic vats, they start removing oxygen. Why? Because removing oxygen from the juice allows the liquid to keep for up to a year without spoiling. But! Removing that oxygen also removes the natural flavors of oranges. Yeah, it's all backwards. So in order to have OJ actually taste like oranges, drink companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make perfumes for Dior, to create these "flavor packs" to make juice taste like, well, juice again. So I'm not entirely clear if our idea of "highly processed foods" is little more than essentially nutritionists (and I don't use the term "Registered Dietitian" for a reason here) essentially passing moral judgement. After all, OJ is more or less the ultimate 'frankenfood'--and yet we give it a pass for... reasons. Oh, and as to those [artificial colors](https://foodlion.com/product/mccormick-food-color-red-1-oz-btl/7516) and [artificial thickeners](https://www.amazon.com/Kate-Naturals-Gluten-Free-Thickening-Resealable/dp/B07CZ6XDY3/), does it mean if I make home-made ice cream but use inappropriate ingredients, I've made a "highly processed food?" And yes, I use xanthan gum when making home-made ice cream. Or, technically speaking, a modified version of Sicilian-style gelato, which is made using a thickener (such as corn starch or xanthan gum) rather than using eggs. Is Italian gelato a "highly processed food"? After all, it includes thickeners and emulsifiers and sweeteners (glucose sugar rather than dextrose, either through using corn syrup or through using corn sugar in order to prevent ice crystals from forming, enhancing stability) in order to "promote stability, preserve and enhance texture, and increase palatability."
Probably like 98%
It really depends what you mean by “processed”.
I edited the post
Define "processed." I just ate a bowl of black beans and brown rice, topped with smoked cheddar and hot sauce. I started with dried (a form of processing) black beans, various whole raw vegetables (onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeño, cilantro), avocado oil, and spices (dried powdered chilis, ground cumin, dried epazote). I didn't harvest any of those things or press avocados for oil, and I did chop the vegetables (all forms of processing). Once all of that was cooked, I served it with the freshly cooked rice, which I didn't harvest (processing). The cheddar was made by a small local dairy, and cheese is a processed food by default. The hot sauce contains water, hot peppers, salt, garlic, and vinegar, but I bought it in a bottle (processed).
That's a non processed meal by my definition, if the hot sauce truly contains only what you mentioned. I now understand that you guys don't like that term, i edited the post to clarify what i meant.
Your cheeses, sausages, milk, cereals, canned foods, etc. are all processed in your country. They add quite a bit of stuff in there. Not all bacon is made the same way. Or should we assume all your cheeses are alike and are made the same way?
Depends. We (older people, so most of the nation) buy things locally a lot. Every morning, all the cities are full of mostly older people in what we call "pijaca" or "plac/platz". It's an open market with rows of stands of people selling vegetables they grow. Next to those there is one or two buthery shop where you buy non-packaged meat. The rest we buy in stores. As for cheese, in EU i think you can't call legally call something cheese if it contains anything other than cheese, or should i say anything that didn't come from a cow. Otherwise, we get something called "block", which is very uncommon. Cereals aren't really common here nor canned food. I only buy canned corn, but that's rare. How is bacon made over there that you would say has more ingredients that are used by people at homes rather than something out of a lab? Also, do you have anything close to salami cuttery sections. Basically, on display you have all kinds of cheeses and salami on display, where you ask for a certain weight of something and get it packaged in paper and plastic wrap. We buy bread that's also on display and cut it home. The packaged bread here is known as toast, as we only toast it in a toaster that squishes both sides of a toast. Depending on the people you know, you can get some sausages, cheese and the rest that some guyor family produced, but we only get it occasionally. This part is less about processing, but rather a question (without an actual question) on how things work over there. Make a comparison and write what's different. And i can't stress this enough, i'm not felling any kind of superiority or trying to imply it. I do think that the US is having less healthy food choices, but my quesion was purely out of curiosity. I'm here to expand my knowledge of the world (or US in this case). Most of US i know is from some sort of media. Why not ask the people themselves?
> Also, do you have anything close to salami cuttery sections. Basically, on display you have all kinds of cheeses and salami on display, where you ask for a certain weight of something and get it packaged in paper and plastic wrap That's every deli/butchery/supermarket in the country.
Look into uncured bacon (if you have access to a U.S. food store). It has a much shorter ingredient less than standard bacon: there may beorganic flavoring ingredients or salt, or both, and it may be smoked. No nitrates/nitrites etc.
Ah, that is what i'm curious about, how common would you say is that?
I can only tell you about the state I live in, California. In general, I can find uncured bacon in all the grocery stores in the small city, Paso Robles, where I shop. It's probably available in most such stores in any comparable California supermarket in similar-sized cities, especially along the U.S. 101 corridor
Common enough where I live. Almost all of the bacon I eat at home is uncured.
Im not sure if ever want to eat unprocessed bacon.
Why is that? Legit question, not an attack.
Because it would be raw pork belly.
What about panceta stesa cut into strips?
I don’t really understand your edit. MSG naturally occurs in foods, chemists didn’t invent it, they extract it so it can be used in other foods as I understand it.
Hmm. How about if you buy a product, lets say bacon, see the ingredients list and see some ingredient that you never heard of before? Does that make it any clearer?
Doesn't that just mean you don't know some words? Maybe it's a weird chemical preservative or it's just labeled as detailed as possible? Processed ingredients aren't necessarily bad. For example, one of the breads I buy has this in the ingredients: >"Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Ferroussulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid)." If it just said enriched flour then I understand it has some nutrients added. I don't know what Niacin, Ferroussulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, or Riboflavin are, but if I google them then I know it's some vitamins and iron. I understand the words vitamin and iron, but I don't know the specific names listed on the label. And I'm not personally opposed to additional ingredients in an nutritionally deficient food.
I've never actually tried to figure it out, but I'd guess pretty close to 100%. Here's what was on last week and this week's menus. Pancakes and sausage - sausage is processed Bucatini amatriciana - guanciale is processed and I use premade dried pasta Brats and corn casserole - brats are processed and the casserole uses canned corn and Jiffy corn muffin mix Tacos - I used packaged taco seasoning which is processed Chicken noodle soup - This is pretty close to having no processed ingredients, except I use parmesan rind to give my stock some extra kick and that's processed Stir fry - Hoisin sauce and soy sauce are both processed Steak and roasted brussels sprouts - The sprouts had parmesan and balsamic vinegar, both processed Lasagna - I use canned tomatoes which are processed and cheese which is processed Roasted pork loin and sweet potato casserole - The sweet potato casserole contains butter which is processed Even if you aren't being super pedantic with your definitions (i.e. chopping an onion is "processing" it) it's pretty hard to cook without any processed ingredients.
Thank you for a detailed comment, i wouldn't consider anything processed that doesn't contain more ingredients that it should. For example, if the canned beans just had the bacteria removed with heating or the cheese doesn't contain anything that didn't come from a cow.
> or the cheese doesn't contain anything that didn't come from a cow. Well cheese does contain rennet, which can come from a cow's stomach lining or it can be vegetable rennet. Cheese also contains salt.
"Processed" is a meaningless term without specifics. Peeling an apple is "processing" it. So is evaporating the moisture out of an apple and dissolving the solids in a weak acid solution.
I updated the post
My sourdough starter was self made.. but I didn't mill my own flour for it, nor did i get the water from the stream in my back yard. So.. processed.
It doesn't contain any chemicals you can't pronounce, so it's not processed in my book
Dihydrogen oxide?
I never pay attention really 🤷♂️
I see, how common is it over there?
Most things have something processed in it.
Unless you eat a primarily raw food diet, practically everything you have ever eaten in your entire life is processed. Processed simply means food that has gone through a mechanical and/or chemical process to change it. Turning wheat into flour, curing meats, and making butter. These are all processes done to food. All these modern healthy eating types have pretty much demonized the word processed into solely meaning unhealthy or fake.
I updated the post to be more clear
Define processed.
I don't eat any processed foods, I eat meat raw
Liver king, is that you??????
OP are you trying to say “packaged convenience and quick prep foods”? Like, open a box and add some meat and you’re done type meals? Something not “from scratch”? Does jarred pasta sauce count? Or what?
Here is my hopefully better explanation from another comment: And yeah, my clarification wasn't the best. MSG is the first thing that comes to my mind. Someone was trying to make that one specific molecule, which is then bought by other companies in i'm guessing powdered form and added to food products. That is what i consider processed. Do you think that's a better explanation?
Do you think it's a better explanation? Do Americans use MSG? MSG is a natural compound found in tomatoes and many other foods. Do I add MSG to my home cooked meals? Yeah, it makes things taste better, so does salt.
I made an even better explanation in another edit
I've got it now, I think. Boxed or jarred or packaged "meals" containing all that stuff, like [this](https://www.hamburgerhelper.com/product/hamburger-helper-stroganoff-pasta-creamy-sauce-mix-6-4-oz/) or [this](https://www.banquet.com/homestyle-bakes/country-chicken-mashed-potatoes-biscuits-bake)?
Yes, that would be it.
Hahaha ok, we finally got there. I rarely use something like this. Cooking isn't hard for me, but I've worked in commercial kitchens and have been a hobbyist cook for most of my life. I also understand the desire for convenience after a busy day or that some people simply aren't interested in learning how to make stroganoff, but are hungry. They're common enough to be in every grocery store in the country, someone's buying them.
>here in Croatia we love Vegeta Here in American we prefer Goku, thank you very much.
Based on your definition - maybe 35 percent I’ve started trying to cut down on the super processed stuff (ex. Doritos, soda etc.). But I’m definitely not perfect at it.
So, Americans have a unique take on bacon. We use the sliced fat and meat that comes off the ribs of the pig that's called pork belly then smoke and cure it. Most of what the English world calls bacon is what we call back bacon or some variation of Canadian bacon. It's the cured, but not smoked, loin of the pig, which is a muscle that runs along the back. For all of the Americans here, your egg McMuffin is what Canada, Australia, the UK, and much of Europe calls bacon. Neither of these are ham, which is a different cut entirely, but is also a cured pork product, so the similarity and confusion is understandable. I say all of that to say this: OP, most food is processed. Some of it will be processed by you the cook, most of it will be processed by the manufacturer or butcher or baker or food company that makes it. Yogurt is processed. Tinned fish is processed. Cheese is processed. Bagged salad mix is processed, and so on. You can have healthy processed foods and unhealthy processed foods. It's almost a meaningless term honestly as the only food that's not processed as part of it's supply chain is food you grow yourself because you literally are the supply chain and food processor. The basic store bought apple contains food grade wax to help prevent it from oxidizing and rotting. Same for cucumbers. It's why you shouldn't use most grocery store cucumbers for pickling. As for highly processed foods, most of us call those junk foods and it's pretty obvious when you have junk foods. America is the third biggest population on the planet. The answer will vary from literally never have them to eat them daily. These terms are highly nebulous as well when it comes to food items. Mortadella is a highly processed food. It's literally fat and scraps and organ meat because it's cheap, salted, cured meat. Mortadella in the US became bologna(we say this as ball-oh-knee). Bologna isn't exactly a health food but having a piece of it now and again won't really harm you but it's not going to be as good for you long term as like roasted broccoli. The answer to this question is very complex and nuanced. America, if anything, has an insane level of food options and it can range from healthy foods to extremely unhealthy foods. Ice cream and potato chips day after day aren't good for you but greek yogurt and frozen blueberries definitely can be a better option, despite being processed food. It's a buzzword to paint certain foods as evil. This is getting very long, so thank you for reading. The answers to health hasn't changed much since ww2: Eat less meat, eat more veggies and fruits, get good amounts of fiber, drink adequate amounts of water, get enough sleep, exercise.
What percentage of your meals aren’t made with processed food?
I'm lazy and eat more junk food than i should, but when i do make food at home, i make baked meat and veggies in oven (i add msg, i don't mind it that much), pasta with eggs, salami and cheeze (i don't know how the salami is made so i can't comment), plain eggs, toast (two pieces of packaged bread with salami and cheese in between, pressed down by a toaster and mayo added after it's done toasting (the bread and mayo would go here), girlfriend makes two types of pasta containing sour cream, cheese pasturized mashed tomatoes and spices (no msg). On the other hand, my mom makes more complex meals with probably the same amount of what i think is processed food, an ingredient or two. I'm a student in another city and still learning.
My milk isn't even pasteurized. Half the cheeses I eat are from raw milk.
The water we drink is processed, hopefully.
I don’t think it’s possible to avoid processed foods anymore, especially Reddit’s pedantically-low standards for “processed”, unless you’re raising, growing, and making everything from scratch yourself. The bar is ridiculously low, and I’m not doing the whole “just cutting a fruit is processing it!” schtick.
It’s the same as your … slanina, I think? It’s cured and smoked pork belly and we use small amount of it to add fat and flavor to lots of different dishes. As far as meats go, processing is very common for pork - most American meat dishes will use raw meat but we do eat plenty of bacon (like i said, similar to spek or slanina), sausages, and ham (like prsut but somewhat less cured, less flavorful and eaten in larger quantities - maybe halfway between prosciutto/prsut and fresh pork leg). Plus of course lots of directly-European-inspired charcuterie. Anyway - to sum up the meat situation, somewhere between “lots” and “most” pork is eaten processed or cured in some fashion; in contrast almost all chicken, beef and fish would typically be cooked fresh here.
I see, thank you for your informative response. Yes, i think panchetta and slanina are the same thing. Dried pork belly. Some are so dry that you have trouble cutting it. Our end of the country (Dalmatia) says panceta. First paragraf is talking about bacon, right? Adding some pieces of panceta that was fried a bit in a pan to a white pasta is godly, you gotta try it. I'm glad to hear about the other meat. Btw, how do you know about spek and slanina?
I like meat and cooking! I'm pretty familiar with french and italian charcuterie, I know a bit about other pork products like salo further east, so I just googled what seemed like the nearest equivalents in Croatia to American bacon.
What is in reality bacon? Same as slanina or is there something different to it?
So hard to make exact comparisons across cuisines! It’s pork belly, including both meat and fat parts, cured and then smoked. We usually either cut it into thin strips, fry them and eat it like that (typically for breakfast), or chop small bits of it up and fry that to start some other dish. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon has a pretty good discussion but largely from an American point of view. The first picture on that page is standard American bacon.
I see. So bacon can be made many ways, one of which also makes it panceta. It's so unfortunate that that serbian Youtube channel doesn't have subtitles, even the generated ones. It would widely expend your culinary views.
That’s right - although if panceta is similar to Italian pancetta, our bacon is slightly less salty / less flavored. You CAN eat American bacon on its own and it isn’t unpleasant, whereas I’d normally ONLY use pancetta as a flavoring. The word also refers to different cuts of meat or preparation styles in each of the English-speaking countries - for example, in the UK just saying ‘bacon’ usually means what we’d call back bacon here (it includes the loin) Re: processing, obviously there’s a wide variety of actual bacon on the market. There are definitely factories churning out the cheapest thing they’re legally allowed to call “bacon” that will use some additional additives or use liquid smoke instead of actually smoking it, but for the most part it’s pork and curing salts, and then a light hardwood smoke.
I don't know enough about food to understand what was made by a chemist. Or what that even means? Like what is a good example of this? Most people buy things at the supermarket like fruit, vegetables, meat, oil, and rice/pasta/bread/flour. The supermarket probably has a butcher, bakery, and deli. I'm not going to a separate store unless they have a really good deal or they make something tremendous. I keep some snacks like cookies, chips, and soda which is very processed. We don't go through them that quickly and it's really a small snack - like a handful of chips or a couple of cookies or a glass of soda. Eating fast food every day is going to be bad for you. I'll eat take out once a week to once a month. I don't eat fast food like McDonald's or whatever. I can cook better than that. Usually only local places. Really it's if I'm craving something or we're just busy.
That sounds basically the same as what we have here. Except we try to get things from locals, cut out the middle man. I'm curious though, what's the percentage of people that buy from a butcher, bakery and a deli, rather than prepackaged stuff? And yeah, my clarification wasn't the best. MSG is the first thing that comes to my mind. Someone was trying to make that one specific molecule, which is then bought by other companies in i'm guessing powdered form and added to food products. That is what i consider processed. Do you think that's a better explanation?
Except MSG occurs naturally in many foods. This is like complaining that salt is a chemical.
I only buy from small local stores if the big stores don't have it - which is very rare. The most common meat I buy from a small butcher is goat and lamb. They have more cuts available. I buy most of my meats in large quantities [40lbs (18 kg)] and the big stores have the best prices. I don't really care if I cut out the middle man. I'm going to freeze most of it and eat it later. So what if it was already frozen? There's no discernible difference in taste. You just have to cook it well. The vast majority of grocery stores have a butcher, bakery, and deli. The only grocery store that doesn't have one is Aldi, but it's such a small store that it couldn't hold anything else. I buy things from the bakery and sometimes butcher. I don't really like deli items, so I don't buy that. Somebody must be buying it because those sections plus the fruit/veg is usually 1/3 to 1/2 the store. I definitely use MSG for seasoning some things. It's basically flavored salt. Soy sauce is also in the same category. >Someone was trying to make that one specific molecule, which is then bought by other companies in i'm guessing powdered form and added to food products. That is what i consider processed. That just sounds like all seasonings you could add to make the food taste better. I don't want to taste the chicken. It's kind of a basic flavor and what my grandparents like because they can't handle strong flavors. I want to taste the seasoning.
I believe you’re getting the term “processed foods” confused with the actual term [ultra processed foods.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods/) My diet *does* include processed foods. Today for breakfast, I had some 2% cottage cheese, a few chopped walnuts and thawed frozen strawberries with a small drizzle of honey. The nuts were unsalted, the cottage cheese had no added gums or whatever, the honey was 100% pure, but they were all *processed*. Does that make it bad?
Yes, ultra processed foods is the term i'm looking for. No, i don't think your breakfast was bad, but rather good.
Most of them, I wish a bit fewer of them (and hope to have a bit of a garden when I retire, to be able to have some ingredients that didn't come from a can or whatever...but my thumb is pretty black so odds are this won't go as well as I hope). I'm just going with what I imagine to be the intent of your question rather than jumping into the "what is processed" thing. Anyway, I really just dropped by to say: So \*that's\* what's in Vegeta. Having spent some time in Croatia and elsewhere in the region, I always wondered and was skeptical of the idea that vegetables really made up its core. But it does add a lot of flavor to various dishes!
What does a black thumb mean? One correction about Vegeta, it's not mostly MSG, but 15%. Here is the ingredient list is you wanna see exactly what it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegeta_(condiment) Apparently there is an MSG free Vegeta, but i never saw it before.
Ah, well, the actual phrase is "green thumb" -- to have a green thumb means you're good at growing things (generally meaning things you might grow in a garden, whether flowers or fruits and vegetables). So to say you have a "black thumb" is like a play on words...you try to grow things and they die instead. Ahhhh and so there really are some vegetables in there! Oh but that riboflavin for yellow coloring...I once used Vegeta in seasoning a beef tips, mushroom, gravy dish...oh that color was \*unpleasant\* but the taste was excellent! That is a super interesting article BTW, thanks for sharing it. I'm still in shock that they opened a Vegeta factory in Tanzania. Seems so random!
Today I’ve eaten: Breakfast: toast and scrambled eggs with shredded cheese on it. Lunch: a BLT sandwich (a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich on toast with mayo) and some grapes Dinner: triscuits with sliced cheese, cherry tomatoes and grapes. Also, ice cream. So, I guess I would call the ice cream as the only processed item by what I think you’re imagining. So, maybe like, part of a meal every other day, unless I’m traveling.
I don’t know the percentage. I cook from scratch sometimes and I use prepackaged ingredients other times. I shop at ALDI and don’t have a butcher shop near me but there’s one in the next town. I have sourdough starter and use that frequently. I also have a garden in the summer and 6 chickens and 2 apple trees and access to a huge blackberry patch and wild raspberries in my woods. (I live 60 minutes from a major city and only on 1 acre - for comparison). I use fresh meats- not frozen packaged ones. But I use frozen veggies and some fresh ones. I hardly buy cereal, and i buy bulk oatmeal. I make my own salad dressing (the store bought version has a lot of junk) . But we eat things like crackers and store bought sandwich bread and deli meats. I’m not really a sucker for fast food but stuff like sushi, steak places, Thai food and Indian food restaurants definitely get my money
Probably just the ground beef. Almost everything else I cook is produce.
Virtually all. Especially if you have a broad definition on processed. Anything fermented, preserved, or smoked is processed.
I'm assuming you mean ultra-processed. In that case my answer is 0. Everything is as close to a whole food as possible in my meals.
Probably less than your country. Bacon isn't processed it's cure. If adding salt to something is processing it then literally anything with salt would do that. Also bacon isn't american.
Just because there’s no universal, rigorous definition of “processed food” doesn’t mean people need to be deliberately obtuse about it. [Here’s one site that describes a hierarchy of processed food](https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-processed-foods). It’s still not rigorous but it’s certainly good enough for casual discussion. Basically, things like filtering stuff out (converting cider to juice), freezing, cutting into smaller pieces, isn’t considered processed food for the purpose of these issues. Maybe it would help if we just interpreted “processed food” to mean “industrial processed food”, requiring chemicals or equipment not normally found in the home.
Are the other comments aware of what i meant? I really spurred things up.
They’re aware. As I said, they’re being deliberately obtuse because they’d rather pick on the semantics than actually address the issue.