Hello and welcome to Zoe Shorts, the Bite Size Podcast where we discuss one topic around

science and nutrition. I'm Jonathan Wolf and as always I'm joined by Dr. Sarah Berry.

And today's subject is process foods.

So Jonathan the word process does become associated with the unhealthy, with the mainstream media

encouraging us to detox from process food or giving us you know 10 easy ways to stop eating

but actually the everything that we consume has undergone some type of processing.

So Sarah if most of what we eat is processed can it really all be unhealthy for us?

Well shall we dive into this Jonathan? Let's do it.

So first off Sarah I think we better start off by understanding what a process food actually is.

Yeah so if I can give you a kind of formal definition according to the department of agriculture

process foods are any raw agricultural commodities that have been washed, cleaned, milled,

cut, chopped, heated, pasturized, blanched, cooked, canned, frozen, dried, dehydrated, mixed package

or had anything done to them that basically alters their natural stay.

My gosh that was a mouthful. Yeah I was just trying to say that three times a month.

So basically that's anything that you haven't actually picked off for tree is that right?

Do you know what pretty much yes?

Now there is an important subcategory to highlight as well right?

Ultra processed foods and these usually have lots of added ingredients like sugar and fat

they can contain additives like artificial colors and flavors or stabilizers

think ready meals, soft drinks hot dogs, fast foods, cookies, cakes.

We're going to dive sort of deep into ultra processed foods in another episode so

let's not really focus on that right now and stick to processing in general.

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