6 Reasons to Avoid Processed Food

6 REASONS TO EAT LESS PROCESSED FOODS

1. PROCESSED FOODS ARE DRUGS!!!

One time I was talking to a woman about why it would be best to not eat processed foods, and she told me, "But you don't understand, I would die if I could never eat "Eggo Waffles" again!" I had to laugh when she said that, but the scary truth is that she wasn't trying to be funny.

Processed foods are designed to be so addicting that people can't imagine being able to live without them, and one of the reasons that so many of the ingredients in processed foods these days are chemicals is that chemists are hired by major processed food companies to get consumers chemically addicted to their products.

In the documentary "Super-Size Me", a man lived on nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days, and he said that whenever he was eating McDonald's food he would feel happy, but then between meals, he would start to feel down for no apparent reason, and as soon as he started eating the McDonald's food again he would feel happy again. (That's a drug!)

IT'S NOT JUST PEOPLE WHO GET ADDICTED

Anyone who has ever given their pets processed foods knows that they can become addicted to them as well...

There are quite a few videos online of seagulls in touristy areas "robbing" tourists by taking junk food away from them, and there are even videos of clever seagulls who have learned how to "shoplift" junk food from stores like in THIS VIDEO.

A lot of people will find pictures and videos of animals who are addicted to processed foods "funny" and will make memes out of them. But these kinds of images also demonstrate the serious effects of addiction.

Just like a drug addict who will lie, cheat, and steal to get their fix, animals who get addicted to processed foods will also resort to these same kinds of behaviors to get their fix, and the sooner that people can admit that processed foods are "drugs" and that they are addicted to them, the sooner they will have taken the first step towards breaking this addiction.

2. THEY WILL WEAKEN YOUR TASTE BUDS

Our taste buds are naturally designed to seek out sweet, salty, and fatty foods, and processed food companies take advantage of this by adding OUTRAGEOUS amounts of sugar, salt, and fat to their products to make them more addicting, and by using artificial flavor enhancements.

If you eat processed foods long enough, your taste buds can become so desensitized from all of this unnatural stimulation that they will no longer be sensitive enough to appreciate the taste of natural foods.

But the good news is that our taste buds are alive, and they only have a lifespan of about a month before they get replaced with new ones. So if you can avoid eating processed foods for a month, your "new and improved" taste buds will be sensitive enough that you will start to notice the following changes...

- The natural sugars in fruit will taste sweeter, and fruit will start to taste like candy.

- The natural sodium in vegetables will taste saltier, and vegetables will start to taste like they have added salt.

- The natural fats in avocados will taste richer, and avocados will start to make a good substitute for butter and cheese.

3. OBESITY

Below are some old photos that serve as a reminder that before processed foods became so common in our society, obesity was rare...

Believe it or not, the man in the picture above used to be the "World's Heaviest Man", and people would actually pay money just to see him in person because they had never seen anything like that before.

It used to be common to see large groups of kids and not be able to find a single obese kid among them.

If you wanted to take a picture of a beach full of lean and fit people today, you would likely need to put out advertisements saying that you needed lean and fit models for a photoshoot, because most people today aren't built like that.

Recently, there was a man in America who became so overweight that he could no longer fit through the front door of his house, and firefighters ended up having to come and break down his living room wall just so he could get out.

Meanwhile, in Africa, thousands of children die every day due to starvation, and what's mind-blowing to think about, is that the children in Africa who die from eating too little and the overweight man in America who became trapped in his house due to eating too much are actually both suffering from the same problem. (Malnourishment)

The starving children are malnourished because they simply aren't getting enough to eat, and the overweight man in America was malnourished because he was eating lots and lots of processed junk foods that were high in calories, but they were "empty calories", so even though he was over-eating and overweight, he was always hungry.

The calories (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) in processed foods are often referred to as "empty calories" because they are usually "refined" and stripped of all the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that would naturally come with them, and consuming large amounts of "empty calories" like this can easily lead to overeating and weight gain.

4. LOVE

Imagine that you were about to walk into a restaurant to eat, but right before you walked in you saw that all of the chefs were outside taking a "smoke break" and complaining about how much they hate their jobs.

Would you still want to eat there?

Many adults swear that their mom's food is the best food they've ever eaten (even if their mom would be the first to tell you that they are far from being the "World's Greatest Chef") and this is because their mom's food was made for them by someone who loves and cares about them.

It might sound a bit "esoteric" to some, but eating foods that were made with love does make a big difference.

Processed foods certainly aren't made by companies who care about our health, so if you are going to eat processed foods or feed them to your children, please make them yourself using "minimal processing" (like blending) and use the healthiest ingredients you can find. (And make one of the ingredients that you use "love".)

And remember that even though processed foods might taste good, they aren't good for you, and choosing to avoid processed foods and eat healthy foods instead is a form of "self-love".

5. TOO MANY RANDOM INGREDIENTS

Below is a typical example of a day's worth of food if you are following a "Standard American Diet", as well as all of the ingredients that are listed in the processed versions of these foods from some of the most popular brands...

My spell checker didn't even recognize a lot of these ingredients, and I seriously doubt that our bodies will recognize or know what to do with them either.

This is a ridiculous number of ingredients, and keep in mind that companies don't always list every single ingredient that is in their product, and they get away with this by taking several different ingredients that are similar and calling them one generic name. (Like "artificial flavors", which could be dozens of different chemicals that have no place in the human body.)

If you look at an ingredient list and there are ingredients that you can't pronounce, or if there are so many ingredients that it would take more than a few seconds to read them, then it would be wise not to eat it, and the wisest choice of all would be to stick with the foods that don't come with an ingredient list because they are "whole foods".

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