[Broken_Hippo]

We've eaten processed food for generations, though - and lots and lots of very questionable food that could literally be poison.

Sausages are processed foods, but they kept us alive over the winter. Salt pork anyone? Dried fish? Weevil-filled grains that hopefully stay dry during the winter and foods in root cellars.

I'll add that plenty of processed food is an absolute miracle. Frozen vegetables, for example. You weren't simply eating processed food. You were eating low-quality food that wasn't exactly healthy.

[kls]

I would add Pickles, Kimchi, Sauerkraut, Soy Sauce, Worcestershire, pretty much any preserved or fermented food is going to be processed food and was the norm before refrigeration. Some of it is really good for you some of it is not so good.

As well there is a lot of misinformation and pseudoscience miracle cure babble in nutrition. For a long time now, we have been sold that preserved/processed foods = bad. But we where also sold that butter was bad and to eat margarine. Come to find out, trans fats where worse and butter and olive oil are actually pretty healthy for us. We were sold that all fat are bad and to eat more grains and carbs, then we got an explosion in diabetes, heart disease and various other related ailments.

These, examples don't even get into the pseudo science "cure cancer with body ph diets" type snake oil being sold, as well as the other multitudes of quackery that exist to sell a book. The fat, sugar dynamics was considered settled science and was pushed hard by the American Heart Association, and the Cancer Foundation for decades. In my opinion, nutritional science and the big tobacco science debacle that was raging at the same time, did more to damage "sciences" credibility with the uniformed public than anything else.

The reality is there are processed and preserved foods that are really good for us, there are processed and preserved foods that are really bad for us. Just as there are fresh foods that are really not so good for such as Asparagus for women.

Honestly short of a a few really bad things, such as slim-jims, modern processed candy and candy bars, soft-drinks and processed juices, the real trick is balance and moderation. Food variety, calorie restriction and fasting will do more to preserve health than eliminating a certain type of food, because it has been deemed "unhealthy" by the current regime of nutritional pseudoscience.

[forgotmypw17]

No.

You're talking about preserved food.

Processed food is made in giant boiler vats, with chemicals which we have not had in our environment for more than 50-80 years. Chemicals which were approved as "generally recognized as safe" several years before the same agency even admitted that tobacco was harmful to health. Which are proven carcinogens, mutagens, and irritants. If you compare this to salted sausage or sauerkraut, you're a fool.

[Broken_Hippo]

No.

Sausage is a highly processed food and definitely not good for you. Same for bacon. You can have highly processed food without chemicals: You can make processed cheese at home without the vats [1]. Not all "chemicals" are unnatural things that we didn't eat before, and some of the "chemicals" are preservatives, basically making them preserved foods.

We didn't really have frozen foods before refrigeration became common.

Bread in the 1800's wasn't very pure if you were buying the cheap stuff [2]. We weren't really eating "pure and natural" stuff before, and have been experimenting with different chemicals and things for eons. Some were fine (I'm guessing lutefisk isn't really bad for you despite the lye, same with pretzels), others weren't (lead whiteners, for example).

Just because one agency sees things as generally safe and has messed up doesn't mean all agencies have done this nor does it mean they are always wrong. Just like the fact that coke will clean battery terminals doesn't mean it is bad to have occasionally. Heck, eating lemons will destroy tooth enamel, but yet the juice will help keep scurvy away.

[1] https://youtu.be/qlJ30PGUk8Y [2] http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health1.html

[jacobwilliamroy]

You know what I mean by "processed foods" and it is not frozen vegetables, salted meat, or smoked fish. The "meat stick" you get at the store is not just "salted meat". It is not a preserve, it is a processed food. Look at the ingredient label, they use a lot more than just "salt and meat" to make that stick and it is pretty sketchy to put that stuff in a person's body.

[Broken_Hippo]

The thing is: Not everything with a large, technical name is bad. Simply having preservatives isn't necessarily bad - and neither is artificial flavorings. I'm pretty sure modern "Beef sticks" aren't really bad either - I'm gonna guess you mean something like a "slim jim", whose ingredients seem pretty standard [1]. They just aren't good if you live off of them as a standard part of your diet.

And honestly, if you don't differentiate that you don't mean that stuff, there is no way for a reader to tell. Some people absolutely mean processed foods like smoked fish, canned/frozen vegetables, and the like.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Slim-Jim-Smoked-Original-24-Count/dp/....

Edited for spelling.

[forgotmypw17]

>The thing is: Not everything with a large, technical name is bad. Simply having preservatives isn't necessarily bad - and neither is artificial flavorings.

It is simply bad if the substances are proven carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disruptors, and sterilizers.

Not to mention all the poison which is produced and dumped into our air and water producing this stuff.

Your slim jim example includes the following:

Corn Syrup: proven harmful to human/animal health

Soy Protein Concentrate: proven harmful to human/animal

Spices: what is this? nobody knows

Dextrose: proven harmful to human/animal health

Paprika Extractives: nobody knows how this happens

Flavoring: flavoring is not an ingredient, this ingredient is concealed from view, and cannot be trusted

Hydrolyzed Soy: proven harmful to animal/human health

Sodium Nitrite: proven carcinogen, mutagen, and harmful to micro-biome.

[jacobwilliamroy]

I guess you can mix that stuff and be confused if you really want to. Go ahead, be frustrating and tedious. See how far that gets you in life.