What is it about processed food that’s so bad for you? The slicing? The smashing? The pressing? The freezing? The drying? The boiling? The canning? The conveyor belts? Is it simply filled with malice by the people who create it?
Slicing, smashing, pressing, etc. increase the glycemic index. Processing typically includes adding salt and sugar.
Imagine that your kids told you: “If you want me to eat the broccoli, could you at least put some sugar on it to make it taste better?”. You would probably say: “Are you crazy? Sugar on broccoli? Stop saying nonsense, and eat what’s on your plate.”
But if a CEO of a food producing company heard that, his first reaction would be: “Hmmm, I wonder if there is a right amount of sugar we could add to the broccoli, enough that the customers would go ‘hey, I don’t know why, but this broccoli just somehow tastes better than the broccoli from other brands’, but not enough that they would go ‘ewww, broccoli with sugar, wtf’.”
Even worse, first only one company does it, but if it succeeds, other companies start doing the same thing. Soon a generation grows up that considers that taste of broccoli to be normal. Then one company tries adding a little more sugar to get an advantage over the competitors, and the whole cycle happens again. Five generations later, all food are disgustingly sweet (for a foreigner, but normal for locals), and people wonder what makes them fat.
Slicing, smashing, pressing, etc. increase the glycemic index. Processing typically includes adding salt and sugar.
Imagine that your kids told you: “If you want me to eat the broccoli, could you at least put some sugar on it to make it taste better?”. You would probably say: “Are you crazy? Sugar on broccoli? Stop saying nonsense, and eat what’s on your plate.”
But if a CEO of a food producing company heard that, his first reaction would be: “Hmmm, I wonder if there is a right amount of sugar we could add to the broccoli, enough that the customers would go ‘hey, I don’t know why, but this broccoli just somehow tastes better than the broccoli from other brands’, but not enough that they would go ‘ewww, broccoli with sugar, wtf’.”
Even worse, first only one company does it, but if it succeeds, other companies start doing the same thing. Soon a generation grows up that considers that taste of broccoli to be normal. Then one company tries adding a little more sugar to get an advantage over the competitors, and the whole cycle happens again. Five generations later, all food are disgustingly sweet (for a foreigner, but normal for locals), and people wonder what makes them fat.