Processed foods have come about to allow our food supply to have more safety for perishable items and convenience for obtaining food. However, they are now the majority of the calories consumed in America.
How to identify a processed food
The easiest way is to look at the label. When the label has a laundry list of ingredients, especially if the ingredients are complicated names or unrecognized as food, it is very likely processed.
But are processed foods bad?
First many of the processed foods are high in salt, sugar and/or fat – all of which when in high amounts are known to be a problem for health. Beyond those issues, many processed foods have a lot of additives through chemicals to do three things – improve taste, texture and extend the shelf-life.
The health (actually illness) issues that have been connected to processed foods include: Obesity, Metabolic Syndrome, Cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Autoimmune diseases, Colorectal Cancer, and even Anxiety and Depression.
How does processed food cause these illnesses?
- Anxiety and Depression – the theory is that added sugars impacts the gut and the majority of the neurotransmitter serotonin is produced in the gut. The chemicals in processed foods are thought to impact the ability of the body to keep normal levels of serotonin.
- Colorectal Cancer has been linked to processed meats (hot dogs, sausage, bacon), with an increase risk with red meat.
- Autoimmune disease has over 100 different autoimmune diseases. Again the gut is the key as approximately 70% of the immune system is found in the gut. There are common additives found in processed foods that damage the lining of the intestine and is thought to allow toxins that can harm the immune system.
- Metabolic Syndrome (including CV disease and Diabetes) rates are increased with high consumption of processed foods possibly due to high levels of sugar in processed foods. Insulin resistance occurs due to the sugar exposure and then an increase in triglycerides occur. This then raises the development of heart disease and diabetes.
- Obesity has the same issues with sugar and metabolic syndrome. There is clear association in the literature about processed food and obesity. It is less clear if this is due to the processing of the food or the nutrient content (or lack there of) of the processed foods.
One more item
All thetalk about sugar may have you think you only need to look for that word. But there are 50 different words that areactually a form of sugar. Examples ofsome of those words are syrup, fructose, glucose, sucrose, caramel, fruit juiceconcentrate, honey, molasses, and maltose.
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