Processed Food Question

elyse0210

Does anyone have any good web sites or information on processed foods? I've heard so many people saying they are going to eliminate these foods from their diets and I have a basic understanding of what these foods are, but I would like a little more information if anyone has any. Thanks!

StarryEyedGirl

google "clean eating" and you will find many.

barbiecat

:flowerforyou: :flowerforyou: I agree that if you read about "clean eating" you'll understand.....what started moving me away from processed foods was first that they contain much more sodium than I wanted to consume and I started noticing when i was restricting my calories that processed foods didn't satisfy me as long as the same number of calories of unprocessed stuff.
:bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

questionablemethods

The most basic way to think of it is to ask yourself the question "Is this how this food was made by nature?" If yes (for example, it is plain strawberry). If "no", then if you are striving to cut back on processed foods, you either want to not eat it OR, probably more realistic for most, is to think about how much processing has gone into it. So, peanut butter obviously doesn't grow out of the ground as peanut butter, but the kind that I get is just roasted and ground peanuts. Nothing else has been done to it.

Aim to buy foods with one ingredient, basically. Or, at least as few ingredients as you can. Also ask yourself "Is this a food that my great grandparents would recognize as food?"

BlueLikeJazz

A couple great books on the topic:
The Omnivore's Dilemma
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
(both by Michael Pollan)

Also, check out the movie Food, Inc. if you have Netflix (it's on Netflix Instant Play, too)

david1956

I'm definitely moving more and more to getting processed food out of my diet. It began when I moved from white rice to brown, and the more I thought about processes that strip food of what naturally ocurs in it and adds back in sythetic stuff the more I questioned whether I needed processed food in general. They usually have added sugar (which in my opinion is totally unnecessary), they almost always have higher glycemic indexes, and a lot of people are beginning to feel that the problems caused by modern eating (an explosion of diabetes and obesity) is not simply obvious "fat" and "suger", rather a modern very processed-carbohydrates oriented way of eating. I would imagine that for many families, everything they eat comes out of bottles, jars, boxes. Something now intuitively makes me think, is that the way we are designed? I don't think the "eat natural" idea is a fad anymore, I think it is in fact the modern convenience of supermarket shelves full of stuff in all it's gleaming marketed glory that is a bit odd if you stop and think about it.

Anecdotally, the very cut and lean strong folk I meet at the gym, I mean the truly healthy and fit ones, more often than not have diets devoid of processed stuff.

jbwegner

Tosca Reno's books and Jillian Michael's Master Your Metabolism are both great resources on whole, clean eating. When I cut out processed foods (no fake sugars, colors, preservatives, white carbs. boxed meals, etc), I feel so much better, and the cravings go away!