[joesb]

What is this article's obsession with things being "processed" food? Is "processed" the new "chemical"?

It's like the article trying to keep repeating the words "processed", "ultra-processed", "hyper-processed" as if it's some scary boogey man.

[helsinkiandrew]

> ... as if it's some scary boogey man

In a way processed food is a scary boogey man - whether animal or plant based, processed foods are bad at providing nutrients to our bodies and can be packed with excessive amounts of salt and other substances.

https://www.lhsfna.org/the-many-health-risks-of-processed-fo...

[danuker]

The patties themselves are packed with fat and heme iron (which is an unhealthier form of iron).

[ars]

Agreed: "made from processed ingredients such as pea protein, potato starch and potassium chloride"

Since when is potassium chloride a processed ingredient? I think the author just doesn't know enough chemistry. And you can make potato starch by shredding a potato and drying the resulting water - that's not really what I think of by "processed".

[qqqwerty]

"Processed" as in, this food has been altered from its original state. i.e. Peas = not processed, pea protein = processed. The exact cutoff of how much processing is allowed is kinda up to the individual, but generally when you hear people talking about processed foods being bad, they are talking about almost anything that isn't a "whole" food, i.e. vegetables, whole grains, etc... So things like homemade pasta sauce, even if made with simple ingredients, would be a processed food.

The advice to avoid processed foods isn't necessarily to avoid nasty chemicals, it is to avoid high calorie, high salt, high fat foods that often strip out the healthiest parts of the constituent components during processing. For example, the healthiest part of a potato is the skin, but very few "processed" foods made from potatoes will keep the skin on as part of the processing. You can make a pretty healthy french fry by using organic potatoes and air frying instead of deep frying, but at the end of the day, you would have been better off just eating the whole potato. That is the argument that is generally being made when people talk about processed foods.

I personally like the new plant-based meats and hope they succeed, but I definitely consider them processed food and limit my consumption to every once in a while. But I also consider normal burgers to be processed food, because of the bun and sauces, and in many cases the patty. Using really good pasture raised meat to make a burger patty is way more expensive than any of the plant-based patties. And the cheap meat based patties are probably made from factory farmed animals full of antibiotics. So I am fine paying a little more for a non-meat patty that kinda mimics the real thing. Even if I consider it a processed food, I think I would rank it above the cheap meat patties in terms of health risks.

[kzrdude]

Agreed. The pea protein though. All the food chemistry technology that enables such proteins to make deep fried nuggets, or vegan ice cream, and so on, that fits the definition of processed food. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7399967/

[bloppe]

It's mostly laziness. People don't care enough to find more specific words. Also it does evoke a reaction which is silly but can be effective.

[alvah]

There are many millions of people who believe that, generally, the less processed, ie the closer to it's natural state any food item is, the better it is for you (or the less bad it is for you). Are you not aware of this?

[gernb]

and their are billions of people who like cooking and pounding vegatables into goo and then adding 10 to 30 spices to make yummy curries

[blitzar]

Which step do they throw some high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated fats and yellow #5 into their curries?

[Nursie]

Where's that in impossible mince?