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Processed Foods as Part of a Healthy Diet

by — Last updated: 2022-02-13 in Nutrition & Dieting

Table of Contents

Getting rid of processed foods is usually right at the top of any dieting tip sheet. On the surface it makes sense to cut out these junk foods, but dig a little deeper and it’s not so clear cut.

Armed with this information you may now feel it’s time to go and indulge in all those processed foods you’ve been missing out on.

Hang tight just a second though.

Processed foods can certainly be part of a healthy diet, whether you’re trying to lose weight, build muscle or just get fitter and healthier, but you need to be careful.
Read More: Processed Sugar Is Rotting Your Teeth

Calories

The argument about processed foods being higher in calories holds a lot of truth. Sure, not all of them are (as per the artificial sweetener example) and there are plenty of high calorie unprocessed foods like nuts, olive oil, coconut, pineapple and grass-fed beef, but on the whole, most of your typical processed foods are calorie bombs.

Burgers, fried chicken, pizza, fries, cakes and cookies are all about as processed as you’ll get, and would be enough to give any calorie counter a heart attack.

If you do decide to incorporate processed foods into your diet, make sure you keep a real close eye on the calories. They’ll add up much sooner than you think.

The Satiety Factor

In theory, if you need to eat 2,000 calories per day to lose weight, you could get these calories from unprocessed foods such as veggies, low-sugar fruits, animal products and grains, or from processed foods and still lose weight.

The theory is great, but for most people this doesn't work in practice.

2,000 calories of ice cream, pies and hot dogs isn't a lot of food. 2,000 calories of chicken breast, eggs, lean steak, Greek yogurt, blueberries, brown rice, broccoli and carrots can be a huge volume of food and is much more likely to keep you feeling full all day long.

By eating mainly unprocessed foods you’ll also get more vitamins, minerals and fiber, as well as less sugar, carbohydrate and trans fats, and likely feel much healthier and energetic.

The Bottom Line

It might be against the grain and contradict a lot of what you've read, but eating processed foods won’t kill you, and will have no adverse effects on weight loss. This comes with one big caveat however.

You must eat these processed foods in the right quantities so they fit your calorie targets.

Moving away from weight loss and looking at general health, clearly you’re better off eating more unprocessed foods, but again, once in a while, in moderate amounts and as part of an overall healthy diet, processed foods won’t have any detrimental effect.

The best approach to take is to stick to mainly unprocessed foods most of the time – say 80 to 90 percent of the time, then add in small amounts of processed foods to fill up the rest of your calories if you feel the need to.