What foods are classified as being processed foods? Are cold breakfast cereals like Kellogg's processed foods?

Question

I'm trying to eat a mainly whole foods diet and wanna cut out almost all processed foods, but I like to eat alot of cold cereals, specifically Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats (the maple syrup & brown sugar kind). I eat it almost every day for breakfast (but not every day, sometimes I have homemade pancakes or scrambled egg burritos, french toast etc). So what type of foods are considered to be "Processed Foods"?

Answer 1

Great question. "Processed" can be a relative term. The more a food is like its original state, the more unprocessed it is. For example, lets look at Oatmeal...
1) In its near original form, it might be a 'groat', which takes a long time to cook and is relatively inconvenient to make.
2) A steel-cut oatmeal, is a groat that has been cut into 2 or 3 pieces. This is relatively more convenient and takes about 15 minutes to make and retains most of its whole grain benefits.
3) Regular Rolled Oats is the next level of processing. They are steamed and flattened several times. It takes only a few minutes too cook, but you already begin to lose its whole grain benefit. At this level, it can be considered glycemic to some.
4) Instant Oats is the next level...cooks in a minute but has the least amount of whole grain benefit retained.

As for frosted mini-wheats, I would guess the cereal itself is somewhere in the middle to highly processed range; however, I am not aware of what they are adding to it (whether the sugars are processed or not). The benefit of mini-wheats is that they don't add as much sugar as some of the other processed cereals.

In general, the whiter and finer the food, the more processed. For example, white breads and white rice are more processed than whole-grain bread or brown rice. Quinoa is a great alternative to rice if you are concerned about glycemics.

Juice is a processed version of a whole fruit. It is better to eat the whole fruit than to drink the juiced version because of the disproportionately high sugar to dietary fiber ratio.

Raw or almost raw vegetables is less processed (if you consider cooking to be a process). Most vitamins and fiber benefits are retained with less cooking. Microwaving might be better than boiling. Buying fresh is best, but next would be frozen...canned might be worst.

In general, the 'convenience' foods tend to be processed. But there are some very convenient foods that are not processed (e.g. bananas).

My brother-in-law pointed out an interesting statistic: for every one calorie of food we eat, it takes 7-10 calories of fossil fuel to get it to our plate. If this alarms you, favor your local farmers (go to farmer's markets) and keep eating whole foods.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

There is an easy and FUN way to look at this. Imagine you are relaxing in a beautiful little cottage out somewhere distant and not industrialized in about the year 1680. If it was available then, it's not super processed!

Veggies, fruit, fresh poultry and meats, perhaps some low-processed foods like cold pressed olive oil, cheese, honey, coffee, roasted unsalted nuts.

Stated in the opposite, if it wasn't available then (your box of cereal, your frozen veggies, your pizza) then it probably is quite processed.

As for your cereal, here are some good alternatives:

- quinoa with fresh fruit
- yogurt with fresh fruit
- flourless whole grain bread with nut spread, fresh berries
- egg white omelet
- a warm tasty broth with maybe some miso
- nuked chopped broccoli tossed with olive oil and pine n uts (a GREAT breakfast)

Have fun!

Answer 4

Any food that is cooked for you, or that has been processed in any way is a processed food. Cereals are all processed foods, because they have been broken down from their whole grain state into a paste, then dried, extruded and reconstituted. At which time sugars, salts and other agents are introduced to ensure "freshness" and protect against spoilage. Whole oats, whole corn or corn meal, rice and wheat or whole wheat flour are processed, in that they are hulled, ground, and packaged but are not given additives. However generally any food that is prepared in advance of your cooking, or otherwise remanufactured are processed. It is always best to by fresh, and prepare yourself, usually it tastes better, is better for you, because you control the salt, sugar and other compounds.

Answer 5

yes..with the exception of cereals like porridge, whole oatmeal (not the instant variety), etc. that are whole grains all cereals are processed foods.

the easiest way to determine how healthy a food item is by looking at the label for the list of ingredients. whole foods only contain one ingredient that food item. I try to stick to items that contain 5 or less ingredients on the label.