Processed foods are bad, aren't they? Then the highly processed "vegetable meat" - is it generally horror? Don't jump to conclusions, the author advises, because it is the added ingredients that give the processed foods a bad name. Think about this: Not all processed foods are harmful, but all harmful foods are processed.
You and I became who we are thanks to processed foods, because our ancestors learned how to cook meat and bake bread and, perhaps more importantly, brew beer. In accordance with this, our brain has grown, and the intestines have changed. But the phrase “processed foods” is terrifying in this age of organic, local, farm-based, cage-free, free-range, free-range, “I-want-to-know-the-chicken-I-eat” food.
In this spirit of culinary Puritanism, the "plant-meat" movement is merrily joining in, offering alternatives to beef that are as processed as possible. For example, the Impossible Burger is designed to replicate the taste, aroma and texture of ground beef - even as bloody as real. KFC restaurants are testing plant-based chicken nuggets and wings. But some chains, such as Chipotle, are protesting, claiming the raw materials are too processed for their sophisticated taste. (This is Chipotle, after all: a stronghold of healthy living in which a standard meal contains over a thousand calories, along with a hefty dose of salt and saturated fat.)
It's time to finally get a real look at processed foods. First, processed foods are not necessarily unhealthy, and it is only because of certain processed foods that people around the world actually get the nutrition they need. Second, processed foods are better preserved by reducing food waste. And third, if we expect to feed the world's growing population with a limited amount of arable land, we need to develop new sources of food, in particular protein.
The confusion surrounding processed foods is mostly about definition. According to the Institute of Food Technologists, processing - be patient - is “one or more series of operations including rinsing, grinding, mixing, cooling, storing, heating, freezing, filtering, fermenting, extracting, shaping, pressing, frying, drying, thickening, pressing, ionization, microwave baking and packaging."
So … practically everything that goes into your mouth is processed. “Highly refined products like yogurt, olive oil and bread go through many processing steps and are not at all like the original raw materials from which they were made,” says Connie Weaver, nutritionist at Purdue University (Purdue University).
Processed foods may be essential for human health. For example, iodized salt helps people around the world to get iodine, which is essential for the body's functioning. “There’s a really messy belief system that’s formed, based on the idea that food can be categorized as healthy or unhealthy based on how much it’s processed,” said Ruth MacDonald, nutritionist and board certified nutritionist at Iowa State University.). "It doesn't make any sense from a nutritional or scientific point of view."
When people say processed, they rather mean ingredients. To make any bread requires chopping, mixing, fermentation, and heating. But white bread goes through an additional stage, in which flour is bleached, and along the way, some natural nutrients are lost, which are later added back to make the bread fortified. And some Twinkie cupcakes take processing to a whole new level when corn syrup is added and, to be sure, high fructose corn syrup is added.
Promotional video:
It is the added ingredients that give processed foods a bad name because while not all processed foods are harmful, all unhealthy foods are processed. Putting in more saturated fat, sugar, or salt for flavor can be easy, but unhealthy if it goes too far.
This means that we, as consumers, should not think so much about processing as about ingredients. The Incredible Burger and The Ultimate Burger from Beyond Meat are clearly not what you call healthy food. For every 4 ounces (113 grams), you get 14 grams of fat from the Incredible Burger patty and 18 grams from the Beyond, compared to 23 grams from 80 percent lean ground beef (percentages are meat to fat - editor's note). In terms of calories, 240 are found in Incredible, 250 in Beyond, and 288 in Ground Beef. But on the other hand, in terms of salt content, vegetable substitutes are far ahead: 370 mg - in "Incredible", 390 mg - in "Beyond", compared with some 75 mg in real meat. In fairness, we addthat, thanks to the plant-based basis, "Beyond" and "Incredible" contain fiber, which is not found in natural beef at all, and are enriched with vitamins and minerals.
But the controversy surrounding The Incredible Burger has sparked over one particular ingredient: soy leg hemoglobin, a vegetarian version of heme that gives blood its color and metallic flavor. Soy leg hemoglobin is usually found in the roots of legumes, but Impossible Foods uses genetically modified yeast to make this substance. Soy, potatoes, and other plant-based ingredients are added to soy leg hemoglobin to create a compelling copy of ground beef.
Soy leg hemoglobin is a new ingredient in the food industry; in nature, it is found only in the roots of soy plants, which no one eats. Therefore, in 2014, the company filed a request with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the product to be "generally recognized as safe." A year later, the agency replied that it doubted the safety of soy leg hemoglobin. Incredible Products then resubmitted the request, and the FDA had no further questions in 2018, which means FDA considers this component to be "generally safe."
The key point here is that the FDA is not concerned with how the ingredient was made - in this case with genetically modified yeast - but how the ingredient might affect human health. That is, processed food is not necessarily unsafe just because it is processed. Processed food can be unsafe because it contains some harmful ingredient.
“Are these foods processed?” Asks McDonald's. “Yes, they've been heavily processed: Incredible Burger has a ton of processed ingredients. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's much more processed than ground beef.”
When you decide to order an "Incredible" or "Outrageous" burger, in fact, you should consider whether its ingredients fit your diet. Of course, don't eat The Incredible Burger if you're allergic to soy, and take note of how much sodium it contains if your doctor has advised you to cut back on salt.
The idea behind The Incredible Burger and The Ultimate Burger is not to give vegans a guilt-free meal of “meat”, but to wean meat-eaters off the real thing. And of course, these substitutes are much more processed than lentil and mushroom burgers combined. “It's great, very tasty, and probably very nutritious, but it probably won't replace meat and keep meat eaters from ditching it,” says Sue Klapholz, vice president of nutrition and health at Incredible Products. …
This is important because this new era of food science can help us cope with the growing challenges facing the world's food supply. It is clear that our food production is ugly and almost as damaging to the planet: we waste a quarter of the food we produce, while the global food supply accounts for up to 37% of greenhouse gas emissions. Cows emit methane, and one goby uses up to 11,000 gallons of water a year. The promise of “plant-based meat,” as well as meat grown from cow cells in the laboratory, is that these technologies could provide a more sustainable alternative to beef, chicken and pork. In any case, while this is only a prospect, we need to collect much more data on the energy footprint of these technologies.
Humanity still has one way out from the days when we learned to dry meat for long journeys: to process food, making it more nutritious, durable and sustainable. If you don't like that, well, enjoy the fresh kale and crickets for the rest of your life.
Matt Simon