Day 33: On Food Processing
Can someone in this modern world avoid eating processed food? I doubt it. But we always hear people say, “To stay healthy, you must avoid processed foods.”
Unless you plant your grain and eat them off the fields or eat live chicken from your backyard, you actually consume processed foods all the time.
When you make preserves and bottle them, you process them. When you churn butter from milk, that’s processing. When you make a smoothie, you put it in a food processor or blender. That’s processing in a sense.
To address this confusion about food processing, the NOVA food classification was developed. This supports the United Nation’s initiative that declares 2016-2025 as the Decade of Nutrition (part of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals).
Why this initiative?
From the report on Food Systems and Diets: Facing the Challenges of the 21st century, we read:
“If the direction of current policies remains the same, then estimates suggest that by 2030, the number of overweight and obese people will have increased from 1.33 billion in 2005 to 3.28 billion, around one-third of the projected global population. This is a major concern as no country to date has successfully reversed growth in obesity once it has been allowed to develop.”
From the NOVA classification, we find one food group that contributes to this global pandemic of obesity.
First, we look at the four food groups according to the NOVA classification:
1) Group 1 - the unprocessed or minimally processed foods
- these are foods that closely resemble their natural state as Mother Nature made them like the edible parts of plants and animals and their fruits and by-products.
- minimally processed foods include those that have been harvested and cleaned up, with inedible parts removed and stored to preserve freshness through processes like crushing, filtering, grinding, roasting, boiling, refrigeration, freezing, vacuum-packing, fermentation, and pasteurization.
2) Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients
- these are foods from group 1 that have been pressed, refined, ground, milled and dried like oils, butter, sugar, and salt. They are meant to combine with group 1 foods to become dishes and drinks.
3) Group 3: Processed foods
- these are a combination of groups 1 and 2 food processed to preserve or enhance durability like bottling or canning food and adding syrups, or adding salt, oil, or sugar to bread and cheese. This also includes non-alcoholic fermentation.
4) Group 4: the Ultra-processed foods
- these are soft drinks, sweets, or savory snack, food products reconstituted to barely resemble the original animal meat or grain they came from, then prepped and frozen, ready to cook or blitz in the microwave. On top of the ingredients from group 2, other ingredients are added that have been extracted from food like lactose, whey, gluten, or casein. Worse are the adulteration of oil products from their cis-configuration to trans-configuration, or hydrogenation, rendering it more shelf-friendly but heart-deadly. Yup, you guessed it—you see them on the label not as saturated fats but as trans-fats and hydrogenated oils, interesterified oils, hydrolyzed proteins, soy protein isolate, maltodextrin, invert sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup. There are also various additives like dyes, artificial food colors, flavor enhancers, firming, bulking, anti-caking, humectants, etc. Ultimately, these foods are packaged as highly palatable because of their crisp texture, their highly addictive sweetness or saltiness, and, yes, their convenience and low cost.
What happens is that we consume more of these highly calorie-dense products that are low in fiber and nutrients, high in sodium and sugar.
Some question the fructose from fruits and compare it with the fructose from the bottled drinks. What makes the fruit fructose better for the body is the amount of fiber that goes with it and the energy expended in biting and chewing a whole fruit compared to drinking fruit juice that goes straight to the gut.
We wonder why it’s easy to gain weight now than stone ages ago. We fail to realize that our forefathers had to exert more energy in securing their food, probably have to run miles to bring home a rabbit to feed a family of four. Whereas now, we get fish devoid of scales and bones. We consume prepped animal products and finish it faster, freed from the need to debone or fillet a whole fish from our plate meticulously.
Can we avoid ultra-processed foods? It has become a global concern that spans global issues, from politics to economics and even planetary balance. Imagine the amount of waste from food manufacturing, packaging, storage, and delivery and the pollution caused by mass production.
Global leaders call for public policies and urgent actions to address this issue that contributes to Earth’s precarious position in the universe.
The WHO Director-General Margaret Chan explains, “A powerful corporation can sell the public just about anything… Not one single country has managed to turn around its obesity epidemic in all age groups. This is not a failure of individual willpower. This is a failure of political will to take on big business.”
What’s your take on this issue?
Unless you plant your grain and eat them off the fields or eat live chicken from your backyard, you actually consume processed foods all the time.
When you make preserves and bottle them, you process them. When you churn butter from milk, that’s processing. When you make a smoothie, you put it in a food processor or blender. That’s processing in a sense.
To address this confusion about food processing, the NOVA food classification was developed. This supports the United Nation’s initiative that declares 2016-2025 as the Decade of Nutrition (part of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals).
Why this initiative?
From the report on Food Systems and Diets: Facing the Challenges of the 21st century, we read:
“If the direction of current policies remains the same, then estimates suggest that by 2030, the number of overweight and obese people will have increased from 1.33 billion in 2005 to 3.28 billion, around one-third of the projected global population. This is a major concern as no country to date has successfully reversed growth in obesity once it has been allowed to develop.”
From the NOVA classification, we find one food group that contributes to this global pandemic of obesity.
First, we look at the four food groups according to the NOVA classification:
1) Group 1 - the unprocessed or minimally processed foods
- these are foods that closely resemble their natural state as Mother Nature made them like the edible parts of plants and animals and their fruits and by-products.
- minimally processed foods include those that have been harvested and cleaned up, with inedible parts removed and stored to preserve freshness through processes like crushing, filtering, grinding, roasting, boiling, refrigeration, freezing, vacuum-packing, fermentation, and pasteurization.
2) Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients
- these are foods from group 1 that have been pressed, refined, ground, milled and dried like oils, butter, sugar, and salt. They are meant to combine with group 1 foods to become dishes and drinks.
3) Group 3: Processed foods
- these are a combination of groups 1 and 2 food processed to preserve or enhance durability like bottling or canning food and adding syrups, or adding salt, oil, or sugar to bread and cheese. This also includes non-alcoholic fermentation.
4) Group 4: the Ultra-processed foods
- these are soft drinks, sweets, or savory snack, food products reconstituted to barely resemble the original animal meat or grain they came from, then prepped and frozen, ready to cook or blitz in the microwave. On top of the ingredients from group 2, other ingredients are added that have been extracted from food like lactose, whey, gluten, or casein. Worse are the adulteration of oil products from their cis-configuration to trans-configuration, or hydrogenation, rendering it more shelf-friendly but heart-deadly. Yup, you guessed it—you see them on the label not as saturated fats but as trans-fats and hydrogenated oils, interesterified oils, hydrolyzed proteins, soy protein isolate, maltodextrin, invert sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup. There are also various additives like dyes, artificial food colors, flavor enhancers, firming, bulking, anti-caking, humectants, etc. Ultimately, these foods are packaged as highly palatable because of their crisp texture, their highly addictive sweetness or saltiness, and, yes, their convenience and low cost.
What happens is that we consume more of these highly calorie-dense products that are low in fiber and nutrients, high in sodium and sugar.
Some question the fructose from fruits and compare it with the fructose from the bottled drinks. What makes the fruit fructose better for the body is the amount of fiber that goes with it and the energy expended in biting and chewing a whole fruit compared to drinking fruit juice that goes straight to the gut.
We wonder why it’s easy to gain weight now than stone ages ago. We fail to realize that our forefathers had to exert more energy in securing their food, probably have to run miles to bring home a rabbit to feed a family of four. Whereas now, we get fish devoid of scales and bones. We consume prepped animal products and finish it faster, freed from the need to debone or fillet a whole fish from our plate meticulously.
Can we avoid ultra-processed foods? It has become a global concern that spans global issues, from politics to economics and even planetary balance. Imagine the amount of waste from food manufacturing, packaging, storage, and delivery and the pollution caused by mass production.
Global leaders call for public policies and urgent actions to address this issue that contributes to Earth’s precarious position in the universe.
The WHO Director-General Margaret Chan explains, “A powerful corporation can sell the public just about anything… Not one single country has managed to turn around its obesity epidemic in all age groups. This is not a failure of individual willpower. This is a failure of political will to take on big business.”
What’s your take on this issue?
GREEN CHALLENGE
For one day or one week, fast and abstain from ultra-processed food.