No physical contamination, like glass fragments in a Coke bottle.
No unintended chemical contamination as lead in milk because cows eat polluted grass.
No intended chemical contamination as in the long list of banned food additives because they’re harmful.
No pathogens bacteria or virus in lettuce or pork.
(Optional) no GMOs in the food product. This varies among countries.
If the food product meets the safety criteria, it is fit for human consumption. Whatever the people do with food safe for consumption, it’s the people’s problem.
The thing is even the bread you buy has stuff in it that makes one wonder.
My bread doesn’t even contain sugar albeit most recipes mention it. My yeast rises just fine without it.
When I have an urge for something I just get it and don’t check the ingredients. And that’s not often. My daily food I compose myself.
And as Axa said, I don’t believe in stressing about food. But with my system I can easily say that of course.
I think the problem is not with “processed” as such, but with UPF ( Ultra-processed food). This summer, the FT had a deep-dive into this here, which was detailing how Big Food is trying to ‘Deny, denounce, delay’ the regulation of ultra-processed foods
Switzerland’s own Nestle are one of the evil (not a word used lightly) corporations mentioned in the book.
Children as young as seven living in a remote part of the Amazon are battling obesity and diabetes after ultra-processed food was introduced to the region on a shopping barge provided by Nestle.
An alternate approach to the composition is that of its effects: Often it doesn’t really fill, the lack of lasting satiety, and oftentimes outright causing hunger and cravings after a short while. The misuse of salt, fat, sugar/sweetness purely to that end. To me, marton’s goes more towards UPF.
The typical hamburger made at home won’t suffer from those misuses. A kebab is basically a hamburger, but contrary to McD’s hamburger I consider a kebab a proper meal.
I think one issue is that ‘processed food’ has now become a ‘scare term’ and used as a label to say something is ‘bad’ without really understanding the underlying reasons for this are or having any consistent and rigorous way of defining what constitutes ‘processed food’.
I don’t agree that a kebab is a hamburger but I agree - I noticed just the other day thinking of the ingredients - it’s a actually proper meal.
The meat-balls I made today - something newish to my cooking but it worked - were basically hamburgers. I only didn’t set them up as such and they were nowhere near anything like McDonalds, that’s for sure.
After my post re even bread contains unnecessary stuff I noticed everyone came up with sliced bread. I’m talking about the regular Swiss bread in places like Migros and Coop.
Are we supposed to understand this? Or is it full of typos?
Kebab is like a cervelat. Some animal protein grind to a pulp, some veggies, salts for preservation and a few additives to glue all ingredients together.
You’re talking about one type of kebab I presume - in the middle east, Eastern Europe and West Asia there many types - some with minced meat and others with just chunks of sometimes marinated meat.
Did you not hear about the Kebab wars in Krefeld a few years back? Where the Döner vendors tried to outprice each other. There were on one road ten to twelve Dönerläden and you could get a chicken döner for 2.50 and a lamb döner for 3.50 Euros.
In the beginning it was great, really good and filling after a day on the Autobahn. I loved the chicken döner from one of the Läden, then the food caught up with prices and the quality dropped off a cliff.
In the end you just got slops and suddenly there were only two Döner-läden and I did not eat another Döner for years.
Even now it is rare that I get a Döner but when I do it is nothing like the chicken döner from that one shop in Krefeld.
- were basically hamburgers. I only didn’t set them up as such and they were nowhere near anything like McDonalds, that’s for sure.
