[beloch]

Not all "balanced" diets are created equal. You can read the labels on all food you buy and balance the amount of protein, fat, and carbs you get according to the latest science, but you'll likely do far better by eating food that doesn't come with labels.

This article highlights one of the many possible reasons why this is so. Refined fructose is absorbed by the body almost instantly and hits your liver like a freight train. The same amount of fructose eaten in the form of raw fruit takes longer to absorb and trickles into your liver, giving it time to cope. The same nutrients ingested in different forms have different health impacts. Never mind that it's also easier to eat far more sugar when it's refined! e.g. A 590 mL bottle of coke contains about the same amount of sugar as a half dozen apples.

What's the lesson learned? Try to let your body do some of the processing itself. That's what it has evolved to do. We will most probably continue finding ways in which highly processed foods are bad for us. Perhaps it's not a good idea to let industrial processes pre-digest your food for you. We are finding out that how we get our nutrients is as important as what those nutrients are.