Fitness Friday: What is “Whole Food”?
I think the general public is very confused about “processed food” vs.“whole food.” And I don’t blame them. The processed food people do a slick job of marketing their products, trying to convince us their laboratory concoctions are actually healthy.
“Made from REAL fruit.”
“All natural.”
“No Trans Fat!”
“Gluten Free”
“No Artificial Sweeteners”
What does it all mean? No one knows, really, so don’t knock yourself out trying to figure it out. Instead, I think it’s easier to identify “whole foods” and go from there.
How Do I Know if Something is a Whole Food?
1. If the food came from the ground or has a mother, it’s a whole food.
2. A whole food has nothing added to it or taken from it. It is in its simplest form, the way God created it to be.
3. In a grocery store, you find most whole foods on the perimeter of the store.
4. When you look at the ingredients, there is only one.
5. When you look at the food, it should look like the food in question. (an apple should look like an apple–not an Apple Jack, a tomato should look like a tomato–not catsup, etc)
6. The more ingredients you see, generally, the more processing has taken place.
7. If the ingredients list contains any chemicals, preservatives, artificial coloring or flavoring, it is absolutely not a whole food.
8. Many whole foods have limited or no packaging (think produce and meat).
9. Most whole foods can be purchased from a farmer’s market.
And Here is Where I Confuse You
1. Not all processing is bad. For example, cheese, butter and plain Greek yogurt are minimally processed, but they are all foods that you could safely work into a healthy diet. Unless it’s Velveeta or spray cheese in a can. Read labels to see what other ingredients are there…spray cheese is totally gross! (how old am I, 15?)
2. You can’t always look at the number of ingredients. Salsa may contain several ingredients, but if it’s a fresh salsa, it should contain only a variety of chopped up vegetables and herbs: All healthy, whole foods, just chopped up and mixed together.
3. Not all whole foods are in the perimeter of the grocery store. You can also find many whole foods (fruits, veggies, meat and fish) in the frozen food section–right there next to the Eggo Waffles and Pizza Pockets. You will find nuts (a whole food) in the snack aisle, right next to the Pringles.
4. There are degrees of processing. And this is where it gets even more complicated. To help you understand this concept and make the healthiest choices possible, I’ve compiled a little list of foods at various stages of processing.
Whole vs. Minimally Processed vs. Processed
Apple=whole food
Apple Sauce=minimally processed food
Apple Pop Tart=processed food
Blueberry=whole food
Blueberry Jam=processed food
Blueberry Flavored Gummy Treats=highly processed food
Brown Rice: whole food
White Rice: processed food
Rice Crispy Treat: highly processed food
Corn: whole food
Organic Corn Tortilla: minimally processed food
Fritos: highly processed food
Oats: whole food
Nature Valley Granola Bars: processed food
Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie: highly processed food
Wheat: whole food
Sprouted Grain Wheat Bread: minimally processed food
Wonder White Bread: processed food
If you stick around Fitness Friday I will always bring you great information on how to work whole foods into your diet so you can reach your health and fitness goals. Because, no matter what your health or fitness goal, a diet rich in whole foods is an absolute necessity.
Unless, of course, your health and fitness goal is to be overweight and sick. Then, by all means, get crazy with the Little Debbie snacks. Also, totally gross.
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What a great reference and reminder… A good repeat for sure.
T
Thanks for clearing so much of that up for me! I guess I missed it the last time it was posted, so a great repeat definitely! We're working on cutting out the processed foods in our home. The hubs isn't totally on board. He loves those Little Debbie snacks. I'm with you-totally gross. What do you think about canned veggies? I'm a total rookie here and could use any help.
I am good at pretending . . . got you covered.
Fondly,
Glenda
Hi Sandi ,sorry your sick…no fun…I know that feeling of feeling yucky and uninspired! Hope you are well soon…interesting post. I do try to eat pretty healthy, and mostly "whole" food, but have been hearing that word "whole" food a lot lately and was wondering what the distinction was…
I'm one of your lucky seven:) It's been aloooong week here too. This was and IS a great, informative post! (It's Mindy:)
I love your list of examples! When I was a Girl Scout leader, we were learning about smart food shopping, and one of the girls stated a helpful rule: "If it's an adjective instead of a noun, it's probably not the real food."–like "yogurty coated fruity flavored snacks" contain small amounts of highly processed yogurt and fruit, along with a lot of sugar and fake stuff.
Liz: What I have read about canned veggies is that most of them are much less nutritious than frozen or fresh versions of the same veg, and they tend to be high in sodium. (Canned BEANS other than green beans retain their nutrients, though, and you can remove a lot of salt by rinsing them which also reduces the gassy effect.) FROZEN vegs actually can be more nutritious than fresh, though, if the fresh vegs were harvested days ago, because frozen ones usually are frozen within a day of harvest.