vacuousness of modern processed food
"Processed". The ultimate food non-term.
The terms "processed", "refined", etc., are ephemeral and bereft of objectivity. They mean nothing without specification or context. They are purely subjective descriptions without meaning to anyone except the utterer, reflecting no direct criteria of nutritional value. They are terms used to conjure a mental image. Nothing more. Tagging a to a food as "processed" without specifics or context is no different than applying the term "assault" to a rifle simply because of its appearance. It objectively describes nothing. Pulling a radish out of the ground is a process. Vegetable steaming is a process. Broiling your chicken is a process. Pureeing fruits is a process. All the term means is that an action has been applied which results in a change from the item's previous state. It does nothing to describe the action, or to address any inherent benefits/detriments.
Therein lies my beef (pun intended)... The use of pop-culture nutritional terms that do not convey objective nutritional data. They only serve to inflame emotions or divert attention away from real nutritional importance and its effects on your particular lifestyle and dietary needs. They are terms dealt up by nutritional doomsdayers which have, unfortunately, been bandied about to the point they have taken on the veil of legitimacy.
I'll use sugar as an example. I constantly hear people extolling the virtues of raw sugar over white sugar. One is an all-natural breath of life, the other will kill you dead, Dead, DEAD!! Reality is that both are the same thing, a simple carbohydrate consisting of a combination of glucose and fructose. The difference, the
only difference, between raw and white sugar is a spin and rinse. Raw sugar is placed in a centrifuge where the molasses is spun out and a water rinse applied. What emerges is white sugar. Same nutritional content. Same fructose/glucose ratios. If you really get nitpicky about it, you can legitimately say that raw sugar is
worse for you than white sugar because some of the things that makes it taste good are, in high enough concentrations, carcinogenic. In real life all this means is that you should watch your simple carbohydrate (sugar, in any form) intake and use it in limited measure as the calorie-dense foodstuff it is, maintaining a healthy balance against the remainder of your diet.
Look, I'm not knocking your dietary choices. If it works for you, go for it. I only ask that references be nutritionally objective, not pop-culture.
Brad