[TheSpiceIsLife]

Give it a more charitable reading, perhaps.

We all know what is meant by "processed foods" - we're talking about packets of chips, soda, biscuits (both sweet and savoury), most 'breakfast cereals'.

When people refer to "processed foods" they don't mean to include all packaged food. Many packaged foods and long shelf life products, are fine so long as your also eating at least some fresh food.

Putting 5 apples in a plastic bag with a barcode on it a processed food does not make.

[JoeAltmaier]

I'm not so sure. That phrase is bandied about with no definition ever advanced. None is given here either - just 'we all know'.

Well, folks have been eating cooked food for 40,000 years or more. Been threshing/separating grain from chaff for nearly that long. Does that make it all 'processed'? Probably not. Then what does? We've certainly become adapted to any processing that started that long ago. So what is the issue with it?