A secular debate about eating meat.

[Coito ergo sum]

Nothing inherently wrong with processed food. I have a food processor at home that I use a lot.

Processing of food has been a boon to the health and safety of food, generally speaking. And, it allows more people to eat better food around the world than would otherwise be possible. The benefits of food processing include toxin removal, preservation, easing marketing and distribution tasks, and increasing food consistency. In addition, it increases seasonal availability of many foods, enables transportation of delicate perishable foods across long distances and makes many kinds of foods safe to eat by de-activating spoilage and pathogenic micro-organisms. Modern supermarkets would not be feasible without modern food processing techniques. Processed foods are usually less susceptible to early spoilage than fresh foods and are better suited for long distance transportation from the source to the consumer. When they were first introduced, some processed foods helped to alleviate food shortages and improved the overall nutrition of populations as it made many new foods available to the masses.

Processing can also reduce the incidence of food borne disease. Fresh materials, such as fresh produce and raw meats, are more likely to harbour pathogenic micro-organisms (e.g. Salmonella) capable of causing serious illnesses. The extremely varied modern diet is only truly possible on a wide scale because of food processing. Transportation of more exotic foods, as well as the elimination of much hard labour gives the modern eater easy access to a wide variety of food unimaginable to their ancestors.

Processed food freed people from the large amount of time involved in preparing and cooking "natural" unprocessed foods. The increase in free time allows people much more choice in life style than previously allowed. In many families the adults are working away from home and therefore there is little time for the preparation of food based on fresh ingredients. The food industry offers products that fulfill many different needs: From peeled potatoes that only have to be boiled at home to fully prepared ready meals that can be heated up in the microwave oven within a few minutes.

Modern food processing also improves the quality of life for people with allergies, diabetics, and other people who cannot consume some common food elements. Food processing can also add extra nutrients such as vitamins.

There are, of course, drawbacks to food processing. However, it would be essentially impossible to feed the world today without it, and it would certainly be impossible for most of us to live our modern lifestyles without processed food.

Is all this totally your own words? Nevermind.

No. Noted above, I forgot to add the link. I always include links when I have them, as I am often mockingly reminded by some.

[Sisifo]

Nothing inherently wrong with processed food. I have a food processor at home that I use a lot.

Processing of food has been a boon to the health and safety of food, generally speaking. And, it allows more people to eat better food around the world than would otherwise be possible. The benefits of food processing include toxin removal, preservation, easing marketing and distribution tasks, and increasing food consistency. In addition, it increases seasonal availability of many foods, enables transportation of delicate perishable foods across long distances and makes many kinds of foods safe to eat by de-activating spoilage and pathogenic micro-organisms. Modern supermarkets would not be feasible without modern food processing techniques. Processed foods are usually less susceptible to early spoilage than fresh foods and are better suited for long distance transportation from the source to the consumer. When they were first introduced, some processed foods helped to alleviate food shortages and improved the overall nutrition of populations as it made many new foods available to the masses.

Processing can also reduce the incidence of food borne disease. Fresh materials, such as fresh produce and raw meats, are more likely to harbour pathogenic micro-organisms (e.g. Salmonella) capable of causing serious illnesses. The extremely varied modern diet is only truly possible on a wide scale because of food processing. Transportation of more exotic foods, as well as the elimination of much hard labour gives the modern eater easy access to a wide variety of food unimaginable to their ancestors.

Processed food freed people from the large amount of time involved in preparing and cooking "natural" unprocessed foods. The increase in free time allows people much more choice in life style than previously allowed. In many families the adults are working away from home and therefore there is little time for the preparation of food based on fresh ingredients. The food industry offers products that fulfill many different needs: From peeled potatoes that only have to be boiled at home to fully prepared ready meals that can be heated up in the microwave oven within a few minutes.

Modern food processing also improves the quality of life for people with allergies, diabetics, and other people who cannot consume some common food elements. Food processing can also add extra nutrients such as vitamins.

There are, of course, drawbacks to food processing. However, it would be essentially impossible to feed the world today without it, and it would certainly be impossible for most of us to live our modern lifestyles without processed food.

What are we defining as "processed foods"? It's not the same a box of frozen peeled shrimps, or a jar of honey than canned beef stroganoff or frozen microwave pizza or "ready to make" brownies.

With that in mind, and addressing the most elaborate ones; the ones who are truly processed and not just preserved, I find many of the points above quite inaccurate. The majority of the World's food poisoning comes from processed food, either industrially (food factories, cans, etc) or from catterings and restaurants.
Food poisoning from raw ingredients are usually limited to bacteria in the food, and pesticides in the vegetables. Both are easily manageable by proper hygiene and cooking.
On the other hand, processed foods have the same -or bigger, as they are further in the decompotition process- risk of microbiotic infection than the raw ingredients. To that you have to add the health issues that the processing carries: Botulism from anaerobic fermentation in canned foods, and the break of the Cold Chain are big health issues in many countries. Salmonella is mainly a food hygiene risk and it can be passed into processed foods from an infected point in the factory or the restaurant as much as in any open place. Air conditioning systems in factories and restaurants are salmonella paradise as much as still water in the open. With the difference that the raw ingredients are to be cleaned and cooked which it's the best bacteria cleaning you can find. But processed foods are not often subject to such long and high temperature treatment.

About the nutritional variety, that's arguable. Frozen ingredients aside, one of the ways of making the shelf life longer in foods it's to decrease its nutritional attractiveness to bacterias and pests: refining the cereals, the sugars, or just extracting the bacteria-resistant part and leave the rest (like fruit juices). Apart of that whatever the variety of flavors, the food industry ingredients are truly not so many, as not many ingredients are resistant enough and cheap enough for industrial processing. Soy protein and corn carbs are taking over previous more diversified protein and carbs sources.

I find the role of processed foods for allergics and diabetics the opposite of the one marked above. I don't want to go for almost-conspiracy theories, but I would like to raise the idea that processed foods increase the overall rates of allergics and diabetics, and obeses, and absolutele not that they are a relief for them!
I cannot provide except my anecdotal experience of seeing the availability of processed foods go hand by hand with those conditions in any developping country I have been.

I think that there is a historically developped science of proper nutrition and food safety depurated by try and error: It's called gastronomy. How to cook the ingredients, and how long, how to prepare them, clean them, mill them, and when, and what to accompany them with it was not only a matter of taste, it was also a matter of how to get more nutrition and less sicknesses.

Processed food is economically more attractive, and easier both for the retailer and the lazy houseworker, but I don't accept that they are better neither in terms of food safety nor in nutritional value. Quite the opposite.

[Clinton Huxley]

I had some of that unprocessed wine last night. Well, grapes.

[Aos Si]

I like eating meat and my body's designed to run on it as part of a balanced diet.

The meat industry is a totally different issue. Morally, it's easy to argue against its' very existence. On the other hand, could individuals within society function if they had to hunt or keep their own animals for food?

hmm funny, I don't like eating meat and my body is not designed to run on it as a part of a balanced diet.

Actually it is. You can survive easily enough without it in more developed countries true, but many developing nations would suffer from starvation and or malnutrition without it. We are perfectly adapted to eat both meat and vegetables, that's just biology. You can chose not to eat meat for ethical or religious reasons, but that has nothing to do with balancing vitamin concerns, which is much easier to do with meat.

[maiforpeace]

Nothing inherently wrong with processed food. I have a food processor at home that I use a lot.

Processing of food has been a boon to the health and safety of food, generally speaking. And, it allows more people to eat better food around the world than would otherwise be possible. The benefits of food processing include toxin removal, preservation, easing marketing and distribution tasks, and increasing food consistency. In addition, it increases seasonal availability of many foods, enables transportation of delicate perishable foods across long distances and makes many kinds of foods safe to eat by de-activating spoilage and pathogenic micro-organisms. Modern supermarkets would not be feasible without modern food processing techniques. Processed foods are usually less susceptible to early spoilage than fresh foods and are better suited for long distance transportation from the source to the consumer. When they were first introduced, some processed foods helped to alleviate food shortages and improved the overall nutrition of populations as it made many new foods available to the masses.

Processing can also reduce the incidence of food borne disease. Fresh materials, such as fresh produce and raw meats, are more likely to harbour pathogenic micro-organisms (e.g. Salmonella) capable of causing serious illnesses. The extremely varied modern diet is only truly possible on a wide scale because of food processing. Transportation of more exotic foods, as well as the elimination of much hard labour gives the modern eater easy access to a wide variety of food unimaginable to their ancestors.

Processed food freed people from the large amount of time involved in preparing and cooking "natural" unprocessed foods. The increase in free time allows people much more choice in life style than previously allowed. In many families the adults are working away from home and therefore there is little time for the preparation of food based on fresh ingredients. The food industry offers products that fulfill many different needs: From peeled potatoes that only have to be boiled at home to fully prepared ready meals that can be heated up in the microwave oven within a few minutes.

Modern food processing also improves the quality of life for people with allergies, diabetics, and other people who cannot consume some common food elements. Food processing can also add extra nutrients such as vitamins.

There are, of course, drawbacks to food processing. However, it would be essentially impossible to feed the world today without it, and it would certainly be impossible for most of us to live our modern lifestyles without processed food.

Is all this totally your own words? Nevermind.

No. Noted above, I forgot to add the link. I always include links when I have them, as I am often mockingly reminded by some.

I called you on your bullshit CES...I've been discussing with you long enough to know that you don't forget to cite your sources. Why don't you have the humility to simply admit it, instead of accusing me of mocking you?

[FBM]

Ooops.

[laklak]

I'm sure it would be possible to feed the world without the use of unprocessed foods

I hope that was a typo ... it certainly sounds nightmarish to me!

#

Nasty hobbitses ruins nice fresh fish.

Nightmarish? Fuck, it'd be the 7th level of the Inferno. No bacon, cheese or hot okra pickles? No beer or wine? No smoked kielbasas and sauerkraut? Toast and Marmite? Biscuits and sausage gravy?

[Coito ergo sum]

What are we defining as "processed foods"? It's not the same a box of frozen peeled shrimps, or a jar of honey than canned beef stroganoff or frozen microwave pizza or "ready to make" brownies.

Of course it's "ready to make" brownies. That is a typical processed food, as is frozen and microwaveable pizza. There are different definitions for processed food, but even the most restrictive would include prepared, store bought brownies and pizzas. They are usually full of preservatives and things that mai mentioned that people can't pronounce.

The broad definition of "processed food," is: "food that has been altered from its natural state for safety reasons and for convenience." Examples of food processing methods include: canning, freezing, refrigeration, dehydration and aseptic processing. Milk is considered a processed food because it is pasteurized to kill bacteria and homogenized to keep fats from separating. I would never want to drink milk out of the cow, because of it's less safe than the processed variety. I like Parmelot, actually. It lasts longer.

With that in mind, and addressing the most elaborate ones; the ones who are truly processed and not just preserved, I find many of the points above quite inaccurate. The majority of the World's food poisoning comes from processed food,

That's not correct. The majority of the worlds food poisoning comes from water. The leading cause of sickness in the world from nutritional consumption is from drinking impure water.

either industrially (food factories, cans, etc) or from catterings and restaurants.

I would have to see your stats on that. What do you have that backs up the assertion? Given a choice, I'll take processed milk over milk straight from the teat any day of the week. After contaminated water, the usual sources of food borne illnesses are improper handling, preparation, or storage of food.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_foodb ... z1JVOo059a

Food poisoning from raw ingredients are usually limited to bacteria in the food, and pesticides in the vegetables. Both are easily manageable by proper hygiene and cooking.
On the other hand, processed foods have the same -or bigger, as they are further in the decompotition process- risk of microbiotic infection than the raw ingredients. To that you have to add the health issues that the processing carries: Botulism from anaerobic fermentation in canned foods, and the break of the Cold Chain are big health issues in many countries. Salmonella is mainly a food hygiene risk and it can be passed into processed foods from an infected point in the factory or the restaurant as much as in any open place.

Yes, but these food handling issues have nothing inherently to do with the "processed" foods of which you speak. Salmonella, E. Coli and other bacteria and viruses are passed to "unprocessed" foods like salads and sushi through failure to wash hands and such. So, on the one hand you say that brownie mixes, full of preservatives and additives, sold in supermarkets are not the processed foods you're talking about, and then you cite as an evil of processed foods diseases that are quite usually passed into foods at restaurants, when they give you whole foods like a salad, potato and steak.

Air conditioning systems in factories and restaurants are salmonella paradise

Restaurant food is a "processed" food? But, a brownie mix in the supermarket isn't?

And, air conditioning systems are used in whole food factories too - like when they store and ship factory loads of produce. Those aren't processed foods, are they?

as much as still water in the open. With the difference that the raw ingredients are to be cleaned and cooked which it's the best bacteria cleaning you can find. But processed foods are not often subject to such long and high temperature treatment.

What's your definition of "processed food?"

About the nutritional variety, that's arguable. Frozen ingredients aside, one of the ways of making the shelf life longer in foods it's to decrease its nutritional attractiveness to bacterias and pests: refining the cereals, the sugars, or just extracting the bacteria-resistant part and leave the rest (like fruit juices). Apart of that whatever the variety of flavors, the food industry ingredients are truly not so many, as not many ingredients are resistant enough and cheap enough for industrial processing. Soy protein and corn carbs are taking over previous more diversified protein and carbs sources.

Almost nothing is more commonly processed than soy. Soy milk - soy cheese - soy burgers - tofu - you name it. Unless you're eating edamame, you're eating processed soy.

I find the role of processed foods for allergics and diabetics the opposite of the one marked above. I don't want to go for almost-conspiracy theories, but I would like to raise the idea that processed foods increase the overall rates of allergics and diabetics, and obeses, and absolutele not that they are a relief for them!

Raise it all you want. Do you have evidence?

I've seen nothing to show that they increase the overall rates of allergies or diabetes. Diabetes is most correlated to obesity, and obesity is most correlated to an increase in the amount of food consumed per capita per day in relation to decreased physical activity per capita per day.

I cannot provide except my anecdotal experience of seeing the availability of processed foods go hand by hand with those conditions in any developping country I have been.

My anecdotal experience is of seeing the increase in caloric intake and decrease in physical activity of individuals go hand in hand with increased obesity. And, with obesity comes higher rates of diabetes and other obesity related illnesses. This would happen whether a person eats unprocessed or processed foods.

I think that there is a historically developped science of proper nutrition and food safety depurated by try and error: It's called gastronomy. How to cook the ingredients, and how long, how to prepare them, clean them, mill them, and when, and what to accompany them with it was not only a matter of taste, it was also a matter of how to get more nutrition and less sicknesses.

Processed food is economically more attractive, and easier both for the retailer and the lazy houseworker, but I don't accept that they are better neither in terms of food safety nor in nutritional value. Quite the opposite.

I think it depends on the food. Milk is better when it's processed. Processed cheese food, not so much (however even "natural" cheese is by definition a processed food, and it isn't good for you either). Canned vegetables was a boon to nutrition, as were frozen vegetables, because it allowed more people to access vegetables that they were previously unable to get as much of, and certainly not year-round due to growing seasons. So, that's good - even with the possibility of some contamination now and again, the overall benefit has been huge. It's part of the reason why western civilization saw life expectancies go from in the 50's a couple of hundred years ago to now about 80 years.

[Coito ergo sum]

I called you on your bullshit CES...I've been discussing with you long enough to know that you don't forget to cite your sources. Why don't you have the humility to simply admit it, instead of accusing me of mocking you?

I'm done letting you pick fights with me. Call me on my bullshit? Thanks, mai - you're wonderful and sweet.

Why would I not link to the source? What do you think I was purposefully trying to gain from it?

You think I was just pretending that what was in a source was my own information? Mai - I PREFER to have sources back me up. That' is better than just saying things without a source. I would RATHER have you see that I got my information from somewhere and not just come up with it out of thin air. I do tend to type these messages as I am working on other things, so I don't pretend to perfection. You can take me at my word, or not.

So, that having been said - Oh, Mai, Miss Perfect, let me prostrate myself before you, and apologize, most humbly, that I forgot to include the link that it would have been in my interest to provide. I apologize for any injury you have suffered as a result

Is your goal to "get me" on something is painfully irrelevant and minor as "posting material without linking to the source"? Or, do you want to seriously discuss the issue? Will you admit that food processing is not "all" bad, at least? There have been some very sound benefits arising from it? Or, is it just black and white to you, like McDonalds?

[Coito ergo sum]

I had some of that unprocessed wine last night. Well, grapes.

I'm thinking of trying unprocessed beer next:


with a side of:

[maiforpeace]

ACK! I can't be arsed to chop up and answer point by point.

But just to address the water issue...how does water become impure? Contamination. The leading contributors to contamination? Manufacturing and processing.

[floppit]

I'm going to jump in without catching up - I can choose between time to read or write, not both!

I believe vegetarianism is noble but ill thought out as an aim for the human population and this is why:

1. Food produce per square metre between meat and arable is often badly compared, taking high density, high calorie arable and comparing on calories produced by meat over the same land. To compare accurately only high protein foods that genuinely can replace meat in minerals should be used - comparing for example nuts with meat rather than oats gives a very different outcome. BUT, I do think meat consumption should be reduced on the grounds that in order to continue to feed the world's population we need to be taking what we need, not more just for pleasure and we do over eat meat.

2. Biodiversity is a real issue across the globe and it should be adequately appreciated that to shift food production from a mixed diet of meat vs non meat to solely non meat would have a major impact on landscape and it's non human inhabitants. We would take a grave risk of losing huge amounts of hedgerow, stone walls, meadows, and basic pasture land, all of this things support our natural biodiversity.

3. Continuing to purchase meat according to increasing ethical value (free range, animal welfare, grass fed cows) provides an economic incentive to improve the ethics of animal farming. Refraining from any meat purchase only supports a switch from animal to arable farming (see above and below).

4. We are not alone! (no I don't mean aliens!). Over a significant millennia we have developed alongside ourselves farmed animals. Those bred in a way that causes them harm should come under the above ethical consideration to offer incentive to a move towards healthier stock. But those bred in a way that offers a healthy life need to be considered, there's millions of them, more than anyone would take on as pets and whether influenced by us or not they also play a significant part of our landscape. I would argue that at this point they have also successfully evolved to fill a niche, being farmed by us, protected by us, and accommodated using land that without animal farming they would be actively excluded from.

In short the picture of vegetarianism of the human population doesn't seem to pay off the animals and plant life currently supported, although it could swell the coffers of the wealthy arable farmers on rich soil with open access to chemical and genetic crop improvement.

[maiforpeace]

I called you on your bullshit CES...I've been discussing with you long enough to know that you don't forget to cite your sources. Why don't you have the humility to simply admit it, instead of accusing me of mocking you?

I'm done letting you pick fights with me. Call me on my bullshit? Thanks, mai - you're wonderful and sweet.

Why would I not link to the source? What do you think I was purposefully trying to gain from it?

You think I was just pretending that what was in a source was my own information? Mai - I PREFER to have sources back me up. That' is better than just saying things without a source. I would RATHER have you see that I got my information from somewhere and not just come up with it out of thin air. I do tend to type these messages as I am working on other things, so I don't pretend to perfection. You can take me at my word, or not.

So, that having been said - Oh, Mai, Miss Perfect, let me prostrate myself before you, and apologize, most humbly, that I forgot to include the link that it would have been in my interest to provide. I apologize for any injury you have suffered as a result

Is your goal to "get me" on something is painfully irrelevant and minor as "posting material without linking to the source"? Or, do you want to seriously discuss the issue? Will you admit that food processing is not "all" bad, at least? There have been some very sound benefits arising from it? Or, is it just black and white to you, like McDonalds?

If that was the case, then why accuse me of mocking you?

You are reading way more into this than there is. Get over your persecution complex.

[hadespussercats]

CES-- I think you might have misunderstood some of what Sisfo was saying about processed foods-- particularly points he raised about ready-to-make brownies and soy. I'm not sure, though-- I'll let him clear up the discussion points, if he cares to.

[Pappa]

I think there is some huge misunderstanding being caused in this thread by the term "processed food" having quite different colloquial and more specific meanings.