There is much ballyhoo, fiddle-faddle, and argle-bargle on the web-o-sphere these days about the dangers of "ultra-processed" foods. In general, I agree that most processed "foods" are merely tasty and attractively packaged metabolic poison, but there are nuances that need to be addressed. It is certainly true that factory made food is carefully designed to be "hyper-palatable" so as to make sure customers keep coming back for more, but it is also the case that however much processing is undergone, the base ingredients are supremely unhealthy all by themselves.
And I'm not even counting the grubby panoply of chemicals that extend the shelf life and "freshness" of said foods. The major base ingredients, wheat, corn, seed oils, and especially sugar, are bad metabolic actors all on their own. Whatever processing and chemicals are involved in processed food manufacture, I consider them to be the lesser of the other evils.
Unfortunately, many types of foods such as bacon, sausage, and canned meats that most would consider processed, have been tarred by that metaphorical brush. The hard fact is that the likes of bacon, hotdogs, lunchmeat, and even SPAM are wildly healthier than any boxed or bagged snack in the middle of the grocery store. They are in every way far far better for you than any bread, pasta, chip, cracker, cupcake, candy, or cookie found not only in stores, but anywhere else they might appear. Even the most hoity-toity artisanal whole grain fifteen bucks a loaf bread from the corner vegan bakery is inferior to, dare I say it, SPAM, as far as your endocrine system is concerned.
That system doesn't give a hoot in Hades how good something tastes, or what your particular "gotta have" preferences might be. Your endocrine system does best on animal protein and fat, and anything else serves only to, slowly or rapidly, aid and abet the catastrophic epidemic of diabetes and auto-immune diseases that are devouring not only us, but the entire medical system as well.
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