Actually, naturalness doesn’t automatically mean a food is healthy, says Christina Sadler, manager at the European Food Information Council and researcher at the University of Surrey.

In fact, processed foods can also be good, because:

1.       Natural foods can contain toxins, and minimal processing can in fact make them safer.
2.       Processing can help to retain nutrients in the food we eat.
3.       Processing allows vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin D, calcium and folate, to be added to certain processed foods, including bread and cereal.
4.       Processing helps to preserve food and make it more accessible.
5.       In the past, the main reason food was processed was to increase its shelf life.

For a long time, preserving food by adding ingredients such as sugar or salt was crucial in order for people to survive winter.

6.       Adding heat makes a lot of foods edible, such as potatoes and mushrooms.
7.       And while some processing can make a food less nutritious, it can still make food more accessible.

So here’s the key: As long as we can recognize a processed food as being close to its natural form, having them in our diet may even be good for us.

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> Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210521-which-processed-foods-are-better-than-natural