[orev]

Too many people jump on the health trend bandwagon to get attention, and all the slight misunderstandings add up to a confusing mess of information.

It’s not that difficult: the closer the item is to its natural state, the more healthy it is.

Almost all foods need some processing to be made edible (peeling, cooking, etc), but beyond that their health vs processing ratio declines.

For example: Rice needs to be cut, threshed, and cleaned. Then you have something that’s baseline edible (brown rice). But then people remove the bran layer to make white rice, which removes health. Then they pre-cook it to make “quick cook” rice, which removes more health. Or they grind it up to make rice flour, which removes more health. Or they ferment it to make saki, which removes more health.

At what point does it become ultra processed? It doesn’t really matter. The focus should be on staying as close to the initial edible state as possible.

[danaris]

Your thesis is completely undercut by the rest of your post.

Some foods are healthiest to eat with no processing.

Other foods require minimal processing to be healthily edible.

Still other foods require significant processing to be healthily edible.

It's almost like....there's no simple, one-line rule you can apply to food to guarantee that you are always getting the healthiest stuff!! You actually have to apply human thought, judgement, and knowledge of the subject to it!

[orev]

I don’t see how the thesis is undercut at all. Process the food as much as is needed to make it edible, but not more than that. Of course each food will require different types of processing.