List of Processed Foods
Any food that is sold in a jar, can or box is simply processed but what we refer to as the ‘List of Processed Foods’ here are the bad ones that are made with saturated fats, trans fats, a lot of salt and sugar, not the good ones.
Major food processing methods are freezing, dehydrating, refrigerating and canning and foods that come out of some of these processing methods are actually not bad for you at all and some of them may be even better for you than in their natural state.
Processed does not always mean high sugar, high saturated fat and low nutrition. Processed foods are simply changed from their original state to make them last longer or it just happens to be more convenient this way.
Pasteurizing milk means killing harmful bacteria and homogenizing means making sure fats do not separate. Natural milk may be better for you in some ways but it can come with certain bacteria and diseases too. So you may perhaps be better off with the packaged milk at the supermarket.
Frozen vegetables and fruits are maintained fresh for a longer period of time and they are still high in nutritious value- minerals and vitamins.
List of Processed Foods:
- Salty and fatty canned foods
- Baked goods- cookies, pies and cakes
- Chocolate bars and candies
- Processed fruits and fruit sauces
- Jellies
- Fruit juices that are full of sugar or artificial sweeteners
- Breakfast candies- high sugar cereals
- Sausages, hot dogs, corn dogs, salami, ham, bacon and other highly processed meats
- Packaged lunch meals made with refined white flour, salt, sugar and trans fats.
- No sugar packaged foods and drinks made with nasty artificial sweeteners- aspartame, saccharin and sucralose.
- White flour, refined corn meal, white rice products.
- Meat from animals raised in factory environment, they are generally antibiotic, hormone and GMO corn fed and not good for your health.
- Foods with a long list of ingredients, preservatives and additives.. If you can’t pronounce the name of an ingredient, you don’t know it or you know that it is not something you would use at home in your meals, keep away..
- Canola oil, soybean oil and margarine… stick to olive oil and butter
- Sugared and flavored yogurts and drinks
- Low-fat and sugar-free diet products
- Canned high sodium vegetables
- Chips
- Muesli and energy bars
- Ketchup and mayonnaise
- Peanut butter
- Ice cream
- Marshmallows
All you need to do is to make a habit of reading the food labels and see how much salt / sodium, sugar, saturated fat, trans fat, dietary fiber it contains and the list of the ingredients. The shorter the list the better that food usually is. Always go for natural or anything that is close to natural, keep away from chemicals and preservatives. Not every processed or packaged food is bad for you after all.
Sugar may be addictive and bad for you but you’re always better off eating sugar than those horrible artificial sweeteners that will not even help you lose weight, as you will develop a sweet tooth anyway and you will continue craving for sweets. Buy plain yogurt for instance and sweeten it yourself at home with home-made jam or real honey.
Return from List of Processed Foods to Glycemic Index home page
Or back to Glycemic Index Diet from List of Processed Foods
