Blog /
One of the silliest pieces of nutrition advice I’ve ever heard is “Don’t eat anything out of a package”.
Not only is this next to impossible for most people, but it’s also unnecessary. Don’t dry beans come in a package? What about pre-washed salad greens? Demonizing all packaged food simply doesn’t make sense.
There’s a lot of confusion around processed foods, all those things we buy in boxes, bags, and cans. They can’t be lumped together, but there are some important things to know:
Almost all food is processed
Technically, processing is anything that alters a food, including chopping, freezing, or drying. So plain frozen broccoli is processed. Chopped kale is processed. So are milled whole grain flour, dried lentils, and pasteurized cheese. The only truly unprocessed foods are fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh eggs, and fresh meat. So unless you’re living on a farm and growing and raising everything yourself, you need to eat processed food.
There are three kinds of processed food
There’s a designation for processed foods that looks more at the amount of processing that foods have undergone. For instance, both canned beans and cheese puffs are processed, but obviously, one is much more than the other!
The three categories are:
- Minimally processed: These are foods that are really close to their original form, like frozen chicken, raw nuts, and plain yogurt.
- Processed: These have ingredients added to them, like salt, sugar, and fat. Examples are canned vegetables, cheese, and fresh bread.
- Ultra-processed: These tend to contain a lot of additives like dyes, emulsifiers, and preservatives, and very little intact whole foods. Think soda, chicken nuggets, and colorful breakfast cereal.
The amount of processing matters
When researchers look at diets that contain a lot of those ultra-processed foods, they see associations with things like a higher risk for heart disease and some cancers as well as higher body weights.
Why? For one, ultra-processed foods tend to be higher in fat, sugar, and sodium and lower in fiber. Many of them are also engineered to be extra-delicious, so it’s easy to overeat them. And some cooking methods, like frying, can add harmful compounds to food too.
There’s a way to be smart about processed food
I’m a realist and a busy mom, so I don’t think it’s practical to avoid all ultra-processed foods. Here’s my advice for what to do instead:
- Read ingredient labels: When possible, I choose simpler products with fewer additives, leaving room for some convenience foods that have longer lists, like frozen chicken tenders on a busy night.
- Cook when you can: Some convenience foods are a fact of life. But you can make very quick, easy meals out of unprocessed or minimally processed foods like scrambled eggs, rice and beans, or a big salad topped with chickpeas.
- Add unprocessed to processed: When you’re having something ultra-processed, see what you can add to the meal to balance it out. Like fresh fruit smoothies or salads, along with a frozen pizza. I make a shortcut fish taco from frozen fish sticks that also includes fresh cabbage, chopped mango, and mashed avocado.
- Think big picture: It’s your overall pattern of eating that matters, not an occasional donut run or trip through the drive-thru. If you’re having a meal with more processed foods one day, aim for something less processed the next. Focusing most of your meals and snacks around foods like fruits and vegetables naturally leaves less room for ultra-processed stuff too.
By Sally Kuzemchak, MS, RD
