We make the vast majority of our own food these days. I guess that makes us bad “consumers” but we’re generally trying to avoid store bought “processed” foods. When some people hear the term “processed foods” they wonder what that really means? Does it mean you can’t use machines to sort your apples and peaches? No, not really. Processed food is food that is made in a factory and includes a lot of ingredients that you’d never use in your own kitchen.
To get an easy comparison between homemade foods and their store-bought processed counterparts, check out Ingredient Overload: Store-Bought vs. Homemade. What you’ll see is that the factory-made “food” typically contains twice as many ingredients (often more). And, if you spend a few minutes and try to actually read the labels and identify the additives, you’ll realize that you don’t know what most of them are–let alone why they’re there.
Most of them are there to increase shelf-life and make food easier to transport. Some of them are there to artificially enhance the food’s flavor (either so you’ll eat more or to cover up the lack of flavor present without the additives).
Which would you prefer? Which is going to be healthier for you in the long run?