There is a lot of snobbery around food and one of the biggest forms of snobbery is around processed food. I laugh when I hear people say ‘I don’t eat any processed foods’ or ‘I only eat clean’ – whatever that means!

I call bullshit – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t eat processed food. If you eat frozen berries, porridge oats, rice, quinoa then you eat processed foods. 

A whole apple picked off the tree is non-processed food but if anything is done to it – frozen, cooked, chopped, turned into juice, turned into a powder …its processed.

What is a processed food? 

The official definition of a processed food is ‘any raw agricultural commodity that has been washed, cleaned, milled, cut, chopped, heated, pasteurised, blanched, cooked, canned, frozen, dried, dehydrated, mixed, packaged, fermented or had anything done to them that basically alters their natural state’. (1) 

As everything in life, nothing is absolute and everything is on a spectrum. Processed foods can be minimally processed or along the spectrum you have foods that have added ingredients such as sugar, salt, fat, colours, flavourings, stabilisers, preservatives and emulsifiers and then at the end of the spectrum you have ultra processed foods. 

The general consensus is that the further along the spectrum you go and the more ultra processed the food is the less beneficial for us. These are foods that are so far removed from the original food it’s not even recognisable as a food (e.g. Twisties).  

It can be argued that frozen fruit and vegetables can be more beneficial than fresh unless eaten immediately because the longer they are left after picking the more nutrients degrade. In some cases cooked foods (a form of processing) will actually increase nutrients such as lycopene found in tomatoes.

In some instances processing can actually change the structure and therefore benefits of a food – steel cut oats is a very different food from oat bran or oat milk. 

This is because of something called the ‘food matrix’, which is basically the structure which holds together the nutrients and non-nutrients. It directly affects how the food is broken down, the release of nutrients and how they are absorbed. It also influences how certain non- nutrients such as fibre are fermented by our gut bacteria resulting in the beneficial short chain fatty acids. In the example of oats – whole oats is much more beneficial that oat bran or oat milk which due to the grinding almost to a powder and then soaking and straining actually changes those benefits and actually will increase blood sugar when eaten. 

Therefore it is not just the nutrients in the food that is important to health but also how it is processed which can either be beneficial or not. 

Here are some examples:

• Fruit juice is a good source of vitamin C and other plant nutrients but rich in sugars and therefore energy (60-80kcal/150mL) but a fruit smoothie with blended fruit would increase the fibre and also release many of the antioxidants. (2) However, there is an even greater synergy between the fiber and flavonoids when eating a whole apple,which may be mediated by the gut microbiota. (3) which means that there is less of a dumping of sugar in the blood after eating in comparison to a smoothie and especially in comparison to a fruit juice. So a whole apple (or any whole fruit) is more benefical for us that in a smoothie or juice.   
• Fermented foods contain something called EPS which is made by bacteria (Lactobacillus spp.) the EPS changes the structure of the fermented food and in doing so can protect the gut from chronic inflammation (gastritis) by sticking to the gut lining. EPS has also been shown in some studies to protect against tumour, decrease cholesterol absorption and support immune function. (4 – 5) Fermented foods have probiotic activity and also allow for an increase in the absorption of nutrients.  In fact cheese and yoghurt and kefir have far more health benefits than milk which have shown to be protective of cardiovascular disease.  So fermentation as a form of processing makes the food more beneficial to us. 
• In the case of lycopene, a plant nutrient found in tomatoes, cooking transforms the lycopene to a more bioavailable and active form. (6) Therefore cooking as a form of processing can be beneficial for us and in some instances can be better than eating raw forms of foods. 
• Soaking and cooking of grains, tubers and legumes produces a softer texture and increases the digestibility by breaking down the food matrix and can also remove chemicals such as alkaloids and lectins which are considered anti-nutrients e.g. tomatoes, grains. The cooking and then cooling of potatoes and rice creates resistant starch which is hugely beneficial to our gut bacteria and thus us. 
• Some studies suggest that eating finely ground almonds, may increase the absorption of fats (contained within the nut) than eating them whole. Important to know if you need to be careful about fat consumption.
• Cooking carrots and adding butter may make the carotenoids (pre-vitamin A) more available for absorption

 

So as you can see ‘processed foods’ are not ALL unhealthy for us and in some situations the processing actually increases the health benefits and accessibility to the nutrients contained with the food. It really depends on the type of processing and where on the processing spectrum it is. One of the best ways to know if it’s a healthy form of processing is to consider how much the processing changes the structure of the whole food.  Then look at the added ingredients – if there is added, salt, sugar and fat its not going to be great and next if there are ingredients you can’t say or recognise or there are any numbers then it’s ultra processed and it’s best to keep away. 

                  Whole food —————Processed—————–Ultra Processed 

References

1. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5691699/
3. https://eurofir.eu/bacchus/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/10/TIFTS-Nicola-P.-Bondonno-Catherine-P.-Bondonno-Natalie-C.-Ward-Jonathan-M.-Hodgson-Kevin-D.-Croft.pdf
4. https://www.longdom.org/open-access/food-and-health-applications-of-exopolysaccharides-produced-by-lactic-acid-bacteria-2329-888X-1-107.pdf
5. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321250232_Food_and_Health_Potentials_of_Exopolysaccharides_Derived_from_Lactobacilli
6. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/87559129.2011.563392
7. https://college.agrilife.org/talcottlab/wp-content/uploads/sites/108/2020/01/Quality-1.pdf

If you would like to to look at your diet and give you tips on how to make it healthier then email me at admin@sarah-brenchley.com or book a free discovery call to discuss how I can help you. I offer a 1:1 nutritional analysis session. Go to https://sarah-brenchley.com/links for information and free resources and join the best Facebook Group ever  – Women’s WellBeing Circle. 

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