What is Processed Food?

First, we should start on the tricky subject of definitions.

Jones and Clemens published a nice summary of how various organizations differ in their definitions of “processed food” (3). The United States Department of Agriculture and other government organizations, for example, tend to use a broad definition that includes any changes from a natural state – such as washing, heating, and cooking, to adding preservatives, flavors, additives, etc. The American Institute for Cancer Research uses the term “minimally processed” to denote vegetables, grains, and beans prepared without much added to them, or minimal refining. Then there is the “NOVA” system, an attempt by Dr. Carlos Monteiro and colleagues to categorize food processing into: “unprocessed or minimally processed foods”, which are essentially unmodified from nature or include light processing such as drying, boiling, freezing, etc., “processed culinary ingredients”, “processed foods”, and “ultra-processed foods” as the extreme, which includes foods made with ingredients with limited “unprocessed foods”, such as concentrated energy sources like sugars, oils, fat, salt, extracts like casein, lactose, and whey, or additives like dyes, flavors, sweeteners, etc. (4). There doesn’t appear to be good published data on what the public considers processed food, although the International Food Information Council (IFIC) has developed definitions with input from consumer focus groups, discussed below.