Contest !! ||Processed food and health

Hope everyone is doing well? Big thanks to @khursheedanwar for putting up this healthy contest.

Processed foods are foods whose form have been changed through one preparation or the other. Some foods are processed to make it lasts longer, increase its shelf life and to add some flavour to it.

Processed foods can be healthy or unhealthy depending on how and what was included in the preparation. Usually the addition of fat, sugar, salt to process foods can make it unhealthy for regular consumption.

Write names of any ten processed foods and what you know about processed food?

List of some processed foods

• tinned tomatoes
• canned beef (corn beef)
• tinned vegetables (peas, carrot)
• canned sardines
• processed sausages
• processed chicken hams
• bread
• milk
• canned corn (sweet corn)
• hotdogs
• cereals (breakfast cereals eg cornflakes, rice crispy etc)
• yoghurt
• drinks( canned juices, carbonated drinks)
• jam

Hotdog source

Canned beans source

Tinned tomatoes s source

How processed food are for our health?(Healthy or unhealthy).

Some processed foods are good for our health.
Examples include bread, milk, breakfast cereals, yoghurt (low-fat) are all healthy to add to diet.

• Bread is made from wheat flour
• milk goes through pasteurization to make it fit for consumption
• likewise yoghurt containing pasteurized milk
• cereals contain high fibre which supports digestive health, improving bowel movement.

Bread source

Pasteurized milk source

High content of sugar, salt or fat in processed foods makes them unfit for consumption. Hence, they should be taken with great caution. Because of the fat/sugar/salt content, they contain high calories and saturated fat or transfat.

Unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. They are the healthy fat and are present in oils eg vegetable oil, soya oil, olive oil, groundnut oil, in nuts, seeds, and some fish.

Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. They are not healthy, hence should be consumed with caution, or avoided eg margarine, butter, lard, shortening ,cheese.

Transfat is fat that contains hydrogenated oils. Trans fat can occur when unsaturated fat is heated at extremely high temperature such that the fat is totally denatured. Fats in cakes, cookies , fried foods are transfat. They are not healthy fat, and should be avoided to prevent excessive weight gain and heart related conditions like heart attack, stroke etc.

These processes foods contain higher calories more than daily intake recommendation which is bad for the health.

Canned sardines, processed meat products( hotdogs, corn beef, sausage, satice) sweetened corn, tinned vegetables, cakes, cookies, pastries contain higher amount of salt, sugar or fat to keep them longer. Indiscriminate consumption can be dangerous to our health.

Hotdog snack source

Canned sardines source

Cookies source

Cake source

How much processed food you utilize on weekly basis?

I prefer naturally made foods to processed foods. I take bread mostly, enjoy beverages with milk, enjoy taking yoghurt too, canned juices, I love oats.
I barely take cake or cookies throughout a week.
So a weekly basis, bread is most consumed processed food, followed by yoghurt. I like good soft sliced bread, and it's always filling!

On a general note, I'll advise we consume more of naturally prepared foods than processed foods. Moreso, we should eat healthy processed foods more and limit or avoid the intake of unhealthy processed foods. One way to know a processed food is unhealthy is to always check the nutritional information label for the amount of total sugar, salt, saturated fat and transfat.

I invite @eliany, @adachukwu @mandate to participate.

Thank you all for reading.