<p>I am not sure I know what “highly processed” foods should be avoided. Potato chips have been mentioned. Seems to me there is not much processing—just sliced, fried and salted. So would a baked potato be healthier? With or without the butter or cream cheese? Some of the unhealthiest looking food I have seen has been cooked at home from scratch. Good old southern favorites like fried chicken or ham hocks with black eyed peas come to mind.</p>
<p>Plain old potato chips aren’t too bad other than the industrial oils/transfats they use to fry them and the fact that potatos are straight carbs. </p>
<p>There is nothing particularly unhealthy about fried chicken, unless it is fried in Crisco or some other transfat shortening. As long as it’s fried in lard it’s reasonably healthy. Fresh peanut oil or canola oil probably won’t kill you. The breading is the worst part, but classic southern fried chicken is just dredged in flour and not that much actually sticks to the chicken. It’s certainly better than a plate of pasta.</p>
<p>The really big culprit in processed food is that added sugar. It’s in everything, often hidden under harmless sounding misleading names like “evaporated cane juice” or “fruit juice concentrate”. If you can stay away from the sugar, you’ll be way ahead of the game over time.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, What kind of tomatoes do you buy? I’ve worried about BPA from canned tomatoes, but have not seen much in the way of alternative packaging. I do see BPA-free cans of beans, for example, but not tomatoes. </p>
<p>idad, what do you think of brown rice pasta?</p>
<p>mathmom, I agree about Mark Bittman. I have his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and I often tear his recipes out of the NY Times Magazine. His approach makes it easy to cook.</p>
<p>So is vegetarian cooking healthier?</p>
<p>I have noticed a lot of vegetarian dishes contain cheese. Sorry, but when you think of cheese, in you mind just substitute LARD. Cheese, butter, and lard are about equivalent when it comes to calories and saturated fat. Somehow lard got a bad name but cheese is supposed to be good stuff. Go figure.</p>
<p>CARBS. That is another bad word. Unfortunately carbs includes any products with rice, potato, wheat, grains, and of course the nasty high fructose corn syrup. Sorry but they are all carbs; i.e., they digest to sugars. Don’t fool yourself into believing “starches” or “complex carbohydrates” are somehow healthier than sugar. Our digestive enzymes are really efficient into rapidly breaking down complex carbs and turning them into sugar. It sounds good to eat an apple rather than a sugary snack. Unfortunately there is not much difference. Both are rapidly digested carbs. The apple contains virtually no vitamins or minerals or anything else that is better for you, except for fiber. In this case mainly cellulose. So next time you have a choice you can eat an apple or a candy bar. If you eat the paper wrapper the candy bar came in, the nutrition will be about the same.</p>
<p>Unfortunately most of us are just dealing with myths and incorrect information when it comes to nutrition.</p>
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<p>I think that there is mounting evidence indicating that complex carbs (those with a lower glycemic index) can be healthier than simple sugars, particularly in maintaining stable blood sugar levels, especially for people at risk for diabetes.</p>
<p>Good for you, Jeannemar. The science of nutrition is on your side. I’m a bit of a shill for Dr. Gundry and his book “Diet Evolution.” He goes through the current research and gives a good analysis of the studies being done and the different diet strategies. An apple and a candy bar are not equivalent, and he does a good job of explaining why.</p>
<p>My tip: figure out a bunch of ways to spice up salads and make that the new “base” for a variety of meals.</p>
<p>While I’m at it, I also disagree with this–</p>
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<p>A gram of fat has 9 calories. A gram of protein or carbohydrate has 4. Cheese contains a substantial amount of protein (maybe 25%?) and a small amount of carbohydrate so the calorie count is lower than that of lard or butter. In addition to the protein, cheese also contains a significant amount of calcium (esp. important for women). Cheese can contribute to a healthy diet, particularly for vegetarians. Lard and butter not so much.</p>
<p>edad:</p>
<p>You are half-right on the sugar. Table sugar (or the nearly identical high fructose corn syrup) is approximately half glucose and half fructose. The glucose half is, in fact, the same as eating bread or pasta or rice or potato. Those carbs are immediately broken down to glucose in the stomach. Glucose raises the blood sugar and triggers an insulin response. There’s no difference between getting the glucose from sugar or from pasta.</p>
<p>The other half of sugar is fructose, which is a completely different animal. It is nearly all metabolized by the liver in a process that is virtually the same as metabolizing alcohol (without the buzz). It does not increase blood sugar and does not trigger an insulin response. However, large amounts and/or chronic consumption are horrible for your health:</p>
<p>a) Fructose that cannot be immediately stored as liver glucogen is converted to triglycerides (fat) by the liver and sent to the bloodstream for storage by fat cells</p>
<p>b) High levels of triglycerides are an indication of metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and certain types of cancer). The ratio of triglycerides to HDL is one of the better markers for insulin resistance and for coronary risk. Some experts believe that chronic over-consumption of fructose is a major cause of insulin resistance.</p>
<p>c) The production of excess triglycerides (either from fructose or alcohol consumption) causes fatty liver disease.</p>
<p>The leading crusader on this topic is [Dr</a>. Robert Lustig](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig]Dr”>Robert Lustig - Wikipedia), an endocrinologist at UCSF medical school</p>
<p>[Robert</a> Lustig on sugar (YouTube version)](<a href=“AHS12 Robert Lustig, MD — Sugar: No Ordinary Commodity - YouTube”>AHS12 Robert Lustig, MD — Sugar: No Ordinary Commodity - YouTube)</p>
<p>[Robert</a> Lustig on sugar (book version)](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/dp/159463100X]Robert”>http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/dp/159463100X)</p>
<p>[Robert</a> Lustig on sugar (Univ. of California TV version)](<a href=“The Skinny on Obesity (Ep. 3): Hunger and Hormones- A Vicious Cycle - YouTube”>The Skinny on Obesity (Ep. 3): Hunger and Hormones- A Vicious Cycle - YouTube)</p>
<p>[Robert</a> Lustig on sugar (New York Times version)](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html]Robert”>Is Sugar Toxic? - The New York Times)</p>
<p>In a nutshell, Lustig’s argument is that chronic overconsumption of fructose causes insulin resistance. Because the insulin doesn’t work as well in lowering blood sugar, an insulin resistant person releases more and more insulin when eating carbs/glucose. The elevated level of insulin increases fat storage, prevents fat burning, and causes a wide range of health problems including type 2 diabetes and some major cancers that go crazy in the presence of elevated insulin. In short, the fructose and resulting insulin resistance makes all the glucose carbs you eat a problem. Non insulin resistant folk can eat carbs and process them normally (short, effective, brief spikes in insulin). Insulin resistant people cannot (big, long, spikes in insulin). An insulin resistant person eating 55% of their diet as carbs (per public health recommendations) is swimming in elevated insulin levels all day, every day.</p>
<p>BTW, the fiber in the apple is what makes it better than a candy bar. Yes, the apple is high in fructose, but the fiber slows the absorption rate so that the liver is not hit with a massive load of fructose at once, as it is when you consume that same amount of fructose in, say, a glass of orange juice or Coca Cola.</p>
<p>Many years ago I went on a no sugar, no wheat eating plan for 4 weeks. I was surprised how much sugar (in ALL it’s forms esp. the fake sweetners) and wheat (in all it’s hidden forms) is in just about everything not bought in the fruit/veggie/meat isle of the grocery store. And I found that this pretty much eliminated the ‘bad’ stuff. I felt great and lost weight-even though that was not the intended goal.</p>
<p>Once I retooled the pantry it was really easy to follow.</p>
<p>I find that even healthy processed foods, like guacamole and hummus, are very high in salt. I don’t particularly avoid salt, but some foods made outside the house are too salty for me. </p>
<p>I was happy when a Chipotle opened in the next town. Healthy Mexican food, how wonderful. Their food is extremely salty.</p>
<p>And I love salty food, bring on the pretzels and chips.</p>
<p>As pointed out by interesteddad and others, I was exaggerating when I compared a apple to a candy bar or cheese to lard. I did want to make the point that many foods we think are healthy are very similar to other foods we think are bad. And it is true that most fruits have lots of sugar and some like apples provide little in the way of other nutrients. And yes cheese is a really bad food except for the calcium content. You are still probably better off to give up or go light on the cheese and supplement your calcium by other means.</p>
<p>NYMomof2, in the summer when I am exercising and sweating heavily I often salt my food and also use “lite” salt (potassium chloride). Most of the year I use little or no added salt. When I go to almost any restaurant, I spend the next several hours guzzling water. That tells me my body is trying to flush out all that excess salt that it does not need or want. I know the issue of excess salt is still controversial but I try to avoid it.</p>
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<p>Might be a good idea to back off that one too, edad.</p>
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<p>Indeed.</p>
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<p>The best thing for maintaining stable BG levels is to restrict carbs of ALL types. “Healthy whole grains” pushed by the food pyramid people are marginally better than non-whole grains only because there is more fiber. But eaten in the quantities they suggest, they are disastrous.</p>
<p>Yes, edad, almost any restaurant food is too high in salt. Aside from possible health effects, I don’t like over-salted food. And my threshold for salt is very high!</p>
<p>I’m a little unclear what people mean by processed food. Do they mean pre-packaged foods like soups in cans or microwave meals? Do they mean Applebee’s food? </p>
<p>I’m also unclear what the giant fridges are used for, but that’s a different story.</p>
<p>I have mustards. And hot sauces. And some hummus - and currently some eggplant salad that’s too sweet - and fish sauce, which is about as processed as it gets. I’ve made hummus. Buying this is easier and frankly better tasting than my own stuff. I have a package of uncured chicken hot dogs and a package of soy dogs, which are both processed and I’m not going to make anything like that. </p>
<p>Is the idea of cutting back on processed foods about reducing sugars? fats? salts? meat? I probably ate red meat with the last few weeks but I don’t remember. Cheese is processed food though of course American cheese is much more processed than Manchego. I don’t drink soda much at all. I don’t eat much dessert. </p>
<p>I’m genuinely curious. For me, eating is not about compromises. I don’t drink soda because I don’t like it and I don’t like it because not drinking it made me lose my taste for it. It’s too sweet. I don’t eat highly processed cheeses because they have almost no taste and what taste they have isn’t very good. I prefer brown rice to white - grown in Asia where there seems to be less arsenic, btw - but it’s not a religion. </p>
<p>If this is about packaged prepared foods, an occasional can of Progresso soup is fine as a base for adding other stuff but most prepared food doesn’t taste very good. It is on the whole designed to hit that exact spot of not so much taste that you’re satisfied and just enough taste, with salt and sweet, that you want to eat more. I prefer food that has a lot of taste so those foods are unappealing on their merits. </p>
<p>But if I’m making some soup, I don’t use all fresh tomatoes; they’re unreliable in taste and quality. A can of tomatoes, which are processed to an extent, is better. I prefer opening a can of white beans to making a pot over a long time but can’t imagine digging into cans of those sweetened baked beans. </p>
<p>So I’m not sure what is meant by processed and I think the remedy is not liking them and that you learn not to like them by eating better stuff.</p>
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<p>I think this is an excellent point, and one which people who are NOT insulin resistant almost refuse to entertain. They constantly talk the “all things in moderation” thing, which works for THEM. However, those of us who are insulin resistant just can’t necessarily do that, and must restrict carbohydrates, even those “healthy grains and fruits” people are often pushing on us.</p>
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<p>If I were taking shots for diabetes or on the verge of it, I’d be talking to a doctor, and I imagine I’d be monitoring regularly. Average Joe or Josephine may play more loosy goosy, whether or not that’s a wise thing to do, but that’s not really a great option for some.</p>
<p>Speaking only for myself, I have addressed this with my doctor. He is totally on board with a carbohydrate restricted diet, in addition to regular exercise and strength training. Carb restriction is the only way I am able to keep slim, and as long as I follow it faithfully, I don’t need to take any medicine. But if I go off it, and gain even as little as 10-15 pounds, I get metabolic syndrome. My husband, on the other hand, eats an extraordinary amount of simple carbs and seems to suffer no consequences. Time will tell if that will always be the case.</p>
<p>Along the lines of trying to reduce processed foods, or even carbohydrates like pasta, I recently had zucchini “pasta” that was fabulous. You take a julienne slicer to zucchini, which cuts it into very thin “noodles.” You sautee it in olive oil and it comes very very close to the “feel” of pasta noodles. My carb addict of a husband loved it with a no sugar added marinara sauce the other day.</p>