5 Reasons To Stay Away From Processed Food

By Vegan Victoria, Certified Nutrition Consultant

I get it.  Processed food is easy, it’s tasty and it’s often designed to look like it’s good for you.  Sadly, this is far from the truth.  And I'm not just talking about obvious junk food like candy and soda, but also frozen dinners, crackers, yogurts, even many energy bars.

But knowledge is power and once you start learning how bad this food is for you, it might be easier to resist.  There are hundreds of reasons to stay away from processed food. Here are 5 to start:

1) “Fat free” or “low fat” really means “chemical #$%^ storm”.  Processed food is full of chemicals, preservatives and pesticides. The body struggles to get rid of these unwelcome intruders and that takes energy and resources away from our energy level

2) The goal of food giants is NOT to make you healthy.  It’s to get you hooked on their food so you keep buying.  That’s why they stuff their food with the 3 items that are addictive: salt, sugar and fat. For a great read on this topic, check out "Salt, Sugar, Fat" by Michael Moss.

3) Refined sugar feeds cancer, according to many research studies.  So experts recommend you should do everything you can to stay away from added processed sugar.  It also promotes inflammation in our body and virtually every human disease involves inflammation.

4) Eating empty calories only increases our hunger since our body is starving for real nutrients.  My favorite line from the book “Eat to Live” by Dr. Joel Fuhrman (pictured above) states, “The best way to guarantee health is to eat food that’s high in nutrients and low in calories."

5) With homemade meals, you control what is and is not in the food you put in your body. You can adjust the flavorings to your own taste.  Plus there are many easy quick and inexpensive recipes to make at home that are actually less expensive than fast food/frozen meals.