Understanding The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Processed Foods

The foods you consume daily are more or less processed. These altered foods go through cleaning and eliminating unwanted or inedible parts, fermentation, refrigeration, freezing, and pasteurization to make them wholesome.

This permits food to be saved longer and stays safe to consume. Diced ham which you add to your potato dishes, your favorite ketchup and noodles as well as the cheese which you love to pair with dried fruits or nuts and the chilled soft drinks are all processed foods. 

Types of Processed Foods Listed

The NOVA food classification procedure lists food based on the extent, nature and objective of industrial processing. It lists 4 categories of processed food: 

1. Processed culinary ingredients 

2. Unprocessed or least processed foods

3. Ultra-processed foods 

4. Processed foods

Unprocessed foods comprise edible parts of plants and animals that are normally available. For instance, plant seeds, stems, animal milk, roots, fruits, and eggs.

Minimally processed foods go through gentle processing steps primarily for preservation purposes. The dietary content of food stays mostly unchanged.

Processed culinary ingredients are sourced from both minimally processed and unprocessed foods that go through different processing steps, like pressing, drying, grinding, milling, and refining. The products include oil, whole grain flour, salt, butter, and sugar.

Processed foods are made from category 1 or 2 food products by incorporating additional ingredients, like sugar, salt, and fats. A few instances of processed foods comprise canned vegetables, cheese, canned meat, and bread. These are usually ready-to-consume food products.

Highly-processed or ultra-processed foods (chips, soft drinks, ready-to-use meals, cookies, and reconstructed meat products) are mainly prepared industrially from ingredients gotten from additives and foods.

Apart from salt, fats, and sugar, ultra-processed foods include artificial flavor and color, preservatives, and optional energy sources and go through multiple processing steps. The ultimate product lacks nearly all the dietary advantages of category 2 foods.

The primary purpose of ultra-processing is to prepare branded, convenient, hugely profitable, and appealing food products that can substitute almost entire unprocessed or least processed food from daily diet.

Advantages of Processed Foods

Food preservation helps to preserve edibles for an extended period. In the absence of these methods, the foods cannot survive for a long duration and most probably have to be discarded

The processing delivers health benefits, like pasteurization, as by heating foods at a specific temperature for a definite period, removes bacteria injurious to human health.

Some products have added minerals or vitamins that help meet the recommended daily intake (IDR).

In foods having minimal processing, the nutritional content is not affected.

1. Durable with Longer Shelf Life

Among the reasons for foods to be processed is to extend their effective life and to better preserve them.

Due to this there is no haste to eat the food before a specified time, so it can remain for several days, till you get an appetite. Additionally, canned, frozen or similar food is required during emergency like floods or earthquakes, as its storage and duration make it fairly practical.

2. Apt for Working People

When you are too busy to cook, or you simply don’t know how to do it, there are multiple packages that are marketed with processed food that is pre-cut or that just needs to be warmed. Due to this reason they are an excellent option when you are hard pressed for time.

3. Forever Available

By virtue of the changes that are enforced, vegetables or fruits that ordinarily would not thrive in specified seasons can be gotten practically throughout the year. This also results from the foods being preserved better and though they would be away from their normal cycle, they would yet be in healthy condition.

4. Fortified

Besides the chemicals utilized to promote the breakdown of food, substances that secure food from bacteria are also included. They are strengthened with a greater range of vitamins and also supplements are prepared for people who cannot consume certain things, like with vegetarians.

There are numerous examples of advantageous effects of fortified or processed foods. For instance, baby foods strengthened with vitamin B12 and iron can prevent anemia; milk carrying vitamin D can stop rickets; salt carrying iodine can stop goiter, besides more.

Disadvantages of Processed Food

Some processes of food preservation require including salt, fat, or sugar to achieve improved conservation which raises the content of salt, fat, and sugar in the diet of people.

There are numerous processed foods that carry an abundant amount of calories from fat and carbohydrates, but slight protein, minerals and vitamins.

1. Nutrients eliminated

Although they can be fortified, in the ensuing process sometimes greater nutrients are wasted than they are included. Due to this, although identical amount as the normal food is taken, the proteins, minerals or vitamins gained will be much less.

2. Sugar and Salt

These products generally include specific amounts of sugars and salts to change their flavor. Due to this, when they are consumed repeatedly and the concentrations on the labels can cause liquid retention within the system or complications with glucose.

3. Harmful Fat

Numerous foods carry fats, and the case with processed foods is quite similar, but they carry Trans fats, which are among the most harmful and serve to raise the cholesterol levels.

4. Contain Additives

It is believed that processed foods include multiple additives to achieve a specific purpose, whether it is dyes to impart a definite flavor or preservatives to avoid easy decomposition. The difficulty is that you can get side effects or a few people may get allergic responses to these chemicals if their labels are not read carefully, to know precisely what they contain.

5. Different Taste

Since they hold numerous changes, in some instances it can be observed that their flavor is not similar to the usual versions. Canned food is typical in this instance, as in return for keeping an extended preservation time, the flavor is decreased, altered or practically vanishes.

Most of the processed foods are harmful for health as they incorporate a huge quantity of salt, sugar, saturated fats, and an incomparable amount of calories.

Various scientific studies have asserted that intake of an abundant amount of processed food can raise the chance of cardiovascular disorder, coronary heart disease, metabolic disorders (diabetes and obesity), and cerebrovascular ailments.

It has been revealed that ultra-processed foods impact cardiovascular and metabolic functioning by changing the glycemic response and satiety process of the body. Further, various substances that are created by way of ultra-processing of foods perform crucial roles in stimulating the initiation and advancement of cardio metabolic disorders.

For instance, acrolein (a compound created during warming of fat products) and acrylamide (an adulterant generated during the heat processing of food) can substantially raise the chance of cardiovascular disorders.

A few packaging substances (bisphenol A), along with additives (carrageenan, sulfite, and glutamate), can too have harmful effects on cardiovascular well-being.

Another downside of ultra-processed food involves indirectly impacting cardiovascular system by lowering, if not wholly substituting, the intake of unprocessed or least processed foods, which are extremely nutritious as a result of greater content of dietary fibers, minerals, vitamins, and other helpful nutrients.

The list enumerating damaging side-effects of ultra-processed foods is unceasing. A statistically important correlation has been discovered between high consumption of processed food and elevated risk of irritable bowel syndrome and cancer. 

Further, the intake of certain ultra-processed foods like sweetened beverages, red meat, and processed meat is believed to be linked to a higher mortality rate.

Wrapping Up

The food processing techniques have brought innovation in the production, distribution and storage of food. So we can profit considerably with the benefits that it delivers, but it is extremely essential that our diet does not depend specifically on processed foods. It is vital to uphold a natural diet or minimal processing. The present lifestyle situations prefer processed foods, so scrutinizing labels constantly will assist us make improved decisions to keep health risks at bay.