The question has been fuelling debates for years it seems, but still the answer is not clear. In fact, chances are we will never really know exactly what food impacts in what way. Although some chemicals have proven effects, the factors are just too numerous to be categorical on the subject. And chances are, as time goes by, it will get harder and harder to feed the world population on only healthy natural unprocessed food.
And anyway, what is processed food? Food that is not been transformed by the hand of Man with their natural state. Does that mean we should chew off raw meat from cadavers still warm with the heat of life, just like our ancestors did thousands of years ago? Feeding on freshly undug roots and wild berries is not that realistic. Let's face it, just cooking the food is processing it.
What you should be scared of, maybe, is the synthetic stuff. The chemical industry is booming, and has been for years. Every year thousands of new "possibly comestible" molecules are created in labs around the world. And if many are refused by health authorities, others are fully accepted and incorporated into the food distributed to the population on large scales. It may be that some, even a large part, of these synthetic "food" are totally harmless to the human body, like the studies indicate us to believe. But what if some test were just not conducted the right way?
On what kind of duration are these chemicals tested for potential harmful effects? How long can a lab afford to wait after having created a molecule before it is allowed to sell it? Even if they feed lab rats on a specific chemical for 5 years and the results are “acceptable”, what happens if a human being eats some for 30 years every day? And chances are, he won’t be eating only that unique synthetic chemical. What happens when there’s an explosive mix that no one had the idea of testing?
Will it's simple, people fall sick or die. Sometimes it can go unnoticed, in the case of someone with a specific health condition and having ingested just the wrong amount of the wrong mix of synthetic molecules. Other times it bursts out to public view as an epidemic disease. In that case, the product is just called out of sales, is modified or banned, and labs keep coming up with a new discovery.
So, in some way, yes, you could be scared of some highly synthetic food, although major risks are limited by health authorities. But food processing is just inevitable, and we have to live with it, but everything that comes out of a factory isn’t necessarily unhealthy or a weight gainer product. You can be slim and healthy without having to eat raw carrots and cabbage every day, just be careful not to eat only industrially processed food.
