Let's Talk: Convenience
12 Comments
As we've been on our crazy, whirlwind, two-week, eight-city, eleven-flight book tour these past two weeks, we've met a recurrent question in our talks at bookstores and cooking schools: what exactly is processed food?
My photo here might be a great example of the problem. It's a mushroom and pepper pizza Bruce made for lunch the other day.
First off, it's made with a store-bought, whole wheat pizza crust.
Real food? I would argue "yes."
Processed, too? Well, yes. But not in the way we use the words "processed food."
For example, this crust was made with nothing but all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, olive oil, and water. No hydrogenated shortening, no stretchers, no emulsifiers. In other words, it's about how Bruce or I would make a whole wheat crust at home on our own.
As we keep saying, "convenience shouldn't be discounted, just examined."
And while we're on it, the olive oil in that crust is processed. No doubt. The olives are pressed. But Bruce and I use only "first cold-pressed olive oil." If you use olive oil from "refined olives," it means the manufacturer used chemical solvents to extract the oil from inferior or unripe olives. What was merely processed food suddenly became "processed food." (If that makes any sense.)
Or take that sauce on our pie. It was a combination of jarred marinara sauce and canned tomato paste, a combo Bruce whirred in the blender until smooth. Was it real food? I'd say so, even though both are canned.
How would I know? Because I read the label. The jarred marinara had in it just what I would make marinara with: tomatoes, herbs, olive oil, onion, garlic, and sea salt. A lot of the other jars on the shelf had corn syrup (to cover the taste of bad tomatoes), MSG (same reason), emulsifiers (not enough bad tomatoes to thicken it up on their own), and on and on.
And the mozzarella on the pie? Yes, processed. We are not advocating a raw-food diet. But nonetheless processed in a way to still make real food.
So processed food is not necessarily "processed food." Do you agree? Is our pizza "real food"? How do you make a line in the sand between the processed stuff and the real stuff? Does it have to do with the chemical signature? Does it have to do with something about taste? With labels? With recommendations from others? How can you tell?
Reader Comments (12)
Thank you for saying that prepared foods can still be real foods! I mentioned that I was trying to make more "real meals" to a friend the other week and she started talking about "but your pie crust wasn't homemade and your pizza crust is prepared by Whole Foods!" When I tried to point out that the ingredients were all "real" ingredients but I just don't have the patience/time to make crust dough it didn't work well.
I feel vindicated!
that's exactly what i made for lunch! i picked up the dough at trader joe's, and it has nothing i wouldn't put in it. canned pizza sauce, but quality sauce, with only herbs added to the tomatoes. then red peppers, mushrooms, asparagus, and a few globs of goat cheese. all real food.
i completely agree that not all processed food is equal. i think we need to read the label, pure and simple. if there's ingredients i have trouble pronouncing or my grandma would not recognize, i'll skip it. though you can't just look on the front of the package, where it says 'all natural', 'heart healthy', 'no added sugar'. you must read the ingredient list. labeling is a disgrace. i don't think producers should be allowed to market a product as 'fat-free', when it's loaded with sugars, because that sends a confusing message. you need to look at the ingredients and see what they replaced the fat with. 'sugar-free' is another misleading message. 'no artificial flavoring' is worse: if i'm looking at a strawberry ice cream, and it says on it only natural flavors were used, that makes me think yay! all strawberry-extracted flavor, but in fact all it means is that no artificial flavors were used. anything made form corn, like high-fructose corn syrup, is all natural. so that ice cream may be loaded with half a dozen corn derivates, and still say 'all natural' and not lie about it. kinda crazy, if you ask me.
mark, it's unclear to me what you mean about the chemical signature of a food. of course that's a foolproof way to distinguish processed from 'processed', but surely none of us carry mass spectrometers to the market. failing that, the only way to shop for real food is to carefully comb the ingredient list.
Hi, guys. Thanks for writing such great comments. (Again!) First off, Bethany, I think we all lead busy lives. And Bruce and I really believe that we can find real food in the real (not just organic) supermarket. Sure, we have to read labels. Of course. But it's all there. Again, I can find bottled marinara sauce that's as good as anything I can make at home--with real ingredients. And sometimes, a little bottled marinara on grilled zucchini fits the bill for dinner.
Dana, as to the chemical signature, you made me laugh. No, of course we can't have spectrometers with us at the supermarket. Wouldn't that be a terrific sight? But we can do our best with the information we're given. I agree: some of that info is incomplete. But we can still read. And you're dead right: stay away from all health and nutrition claims. I find the sugar-free or fat-free claim to be particularly distressing. As we recount in the book, the sugar-free cookies are often HIGHER in calories compared to the regular ones. Two days ago, we were in a supermarket in Phoenix on this book tour and we found packages of "sugar-free" cookies that had 19g of carbs per serving, as opposed to the "regular" cookies with 20g. If someone were buying the sugar-free because of diabetes or other health issues, they wouldn't really have made much of a choice for their health.
M.
Funny, my husband and I were having this discussion the other day. I think it boils down to 2 things: WHY is it processed, and HOW is it processed? On the why, for example, does the process turn milk into cheese? Or does it turn milk (plus other stuff) into shelf-stable, plastic-wrapped, cheap as dirt "cheese product"? On the how, I always use the example of extrusion. Real food does not come in perfect, repeatable squares (or tubes, or butterflies, etc.). Somewhere we got away from processing food to make other food (e.g. squeezing apples to make apple cider), or making it safe to eat (e.g., pasteurizing), to processing food for ease of shipping & storing, and mainly to make it cheap.
Phew! I'll get down off my soapbox now. Thanks for the great blog!
We process food all the time. When we combine ingredients to make something and/or cook food, we've processed it.
My criteria is "can I make this at home?" -- at least in theory. I could make the pizza dough and marinara at home, so they're okay.
Kori: As we say in REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, no part of an animal looks like a football. If it looks like that in the deli case, it's processed.
Sally: I agree that the "home made" test is a good one--although you do have to give it a little grace, no? I mean, I can't really make tea at home. I suppose I could ferment tea leaves in the backyard, but I'm not actually sure. I think perhaps you can combine your "home made" test with one about "keeping the essential nature" of something. And then there's just some gray areas. Bruce and I don't always agree about how to work out the chart in our book: real food, almost real food, barely real food, and not real food. We sometimes put items in different locations on the chart. But I hope it's still a useful tool--perhaps BECAUSE it has some give in it.
M.
Well, I did say "at least in theory." If I had an olive tree and a big stone olive press, I could make olive oil. But since I don't, I buy it. Same for tea, coffee and a lot of other things. Shoot, I can't even grow herbs!
I think it kind of goes back to what Michael Pollan has said about eating foods that your grandmother or great-grandmother would recognize as food. I've adapted that to say "someone's grandmother or great-grandmother." I mean, my mother wouldn't recognize hummus, but someone's mother, grandmother and great-grandmother grew up with it.
Ha! Indeed. You're right. I was just trying to throw nuance down. (Can anyone really do that?)
M.
What about "If you can't pronounce the ingredients, it's not real food?" I'm constantly surprised on what's included on the ingredients label. Have you noticed the new commercial about high fructose corn syrup on TV? Interesting
Couldn't agree more. There's nothing inherently wrong with convenience foods -- if they're made well with good ingredients and none of those nasty preservatives nobody can pronounce.
The thing I've noticed after reading labels is that when a food is made low-fat or non-fat, that's where the chemicals start coming in. I bought sour cream. Low fat was full of chemicals. Regular sour cream for the same brand didn't have any chemicals.
Linda: It's true. When something gets taken out, other things get added to make up for it. After all, skim milk is pretty watery. Nobody wants watery sour cream. So they sometimes add stabilizers and emulsifiers to return that whole-milk feel. That all said, I can find low-fat sour cream that fits the bill perfectly: low-fat, yes a little thinner, but still just pure cultured milk. It seems this is the best choice for me--unless I want the real thing, which is so ridiculously satisfying.
M.