Processed foods are a complicated subject. _**Sometimes**_ food processing is both necessary and good, but **frequently** processed foods are less healthy than food made from raw ingredients. **On one hand...** We wouldn't have supermarkets and our booming (historically speaking) economy without the advent of certain types of food processing. **...But on the other** We wouldn't have nearly the rates of (at least partially) preventable "lifestyle" diseases like [[Metabolic Syndrome]], [[Type 2 Diabetes]], [[Oral Health|Periodontal Disease]], and even [[Alzheimer’s is “Type 3 Diabetes”|Alzheimer's Disease]] if we didn't have such highly processed foods. # Defining There's a classification system ("NOVA") for how processed foods are: 1. **Unprocessed & minimally processed** - zero alteration, aside from washing, grinding, freezing, etc 2. **Processed Culinary Ingredients** - oils, butter, salts, etc. - things extracted from natural foods/nature by drying, pressing, grinding, 3. **Processed** - things including oils, salt, sugars 4. **Ultra-processed** - basically pulling ingredients apart to their constituent pieces, treating those pieces via whatever means, then Frankensteining them back together. - This is most of what's found in the "middle" of the grocery store and why it's a good idea to "shop the perimeter" If you want [[Good Energy]], one of the **main** principles is to avoid processed foods. Casey Means listed the following as "bad energy foods" - note what they all start with: 1. _Refined_ added [[Sugar]] 2. _Refined_ industrial vegetable and seed oils - note: does **not** refer to Olive Oil 3. _Refined_ grains Thanks to food processing, it's generally a good idea to have use a select few [[Dietary Supplements]], which is ironic because most all of those are, themselves, the result of high levels of processing. **** ## Source - [[Good Energy (book)]] - [[Huberman Labs]] episode with Dr. Staci Whitman ## Related