• Processing food removes all its fiber and destroys nutrients. • Processed food has preservatives and other dangerous chemicals. • Processed foods are created with GMO ingredients. • Processed foods are too acidic. • Processed foods have too much sugar. • Processed foods have too much gluten. • Our bodies can’t handle unnatural ingredients. The number of these theories scientists actually agree on: zero. Any or all of these factors may contribute to the unhealthfulness of processed foods, but none of them alone can explain why processed foods are so unhealthy. I have good news for you, though: To be healthy, you don’t need to know the exact reason. While scientists argue about what makes you fat and sick and collect new data in support of their individual theories, you can still eat clean. Because in order to eat well, you don’t need to understand the science behind what makes processed foods unhealthy—you just need to know that they are unhealthy. Diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension, arthritis, tooth decay, and some cancers appear across populations as countries become industrialized and people start consuming more processed foods and fewer whole foods. When people shift away from processed foods and back to real food, health improves. The science is certainly interesting and may one day lead to more enlightened nutrition recommendations. But in the meantime, you don’t need a PhD to tell you to eat more vegetables.Darya Rose, Ph.D. is the author of SummerTomato.com.
