processed food -- the scoop

Fast foods, tinned food, ice cream, frozen food, all these are processed. Processed food are foods that have literally been processed and not in their natural state. Like tinned fruit with syrup, when the fruit, eg. lychee, longan, pineapple are no longer fresh. Most tinned food have a long shelf life but it means nutrients have been sucked out of the fruit when it was being processed. With reference to longans in heavy syrup, ( I eat these every like one month - a sinful snack) The vitamin C content of longans is about 60.1 mg/ 100 grams, and consuming 12 - 14 longans can already meet the daily requirement of 75 - 90mg of vitamin C. But tinned longans vitamin C content is about 4% of the daily requirement per 100 grams, and eating these( along with the syrup), you have to eat almost 50 of them! I reckon the vitamin C was washed out when the fruit are washed.

Processed foods are bad for us and sadly I eat somewhat a lot of them. I eat cornflakes as a snack whether sugary or not. I also love puff pastry. Occasionally I eat sausages. OK I guess but after reading this article on the Internet, quoting from: http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/processedfoods.htm
"Processed meats might be some of the worst of these foods. Eating these meats may increase your risk of colorectal, kidney and stomach cancer. Processed meats include hot dogs, bologna, sausage, ham and other packaged lunch meats."

Oh crap I'd better improve my diet.

Although most processed foods are bad, milk is an exception. Technically it is also a processed food, as fat has been skimmed of in the low fat or skimmed version, and the milk has been pasteurized. Also frozen vegetables may be good. While most frozen stuff, like meat lose flavour the more it is kept in the fridge, vegetables retain freshness and vitamins, making it convenient. The same goes with juices.