You know that handful of wild, organic $10 blueberries you just ate? They were full of chemicals -- and that's okay!
As a new AsapScience video explains, all foods have chemicals in them. So when companies are calling their foods "chemical-free," it's pretty meaningless. So too is that ubiquotous maxim of health nuts everywhere: "If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it."
Advertisement
Chances are, you can't pronounce everything in a banana: glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, starch, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, histidine, leucine, lysine, arginine, valine, alanine, serine and glycine, to name a handful. And, paradoxically, the chemical list is sometimes shorter in unhealthy foods. A candy heart, for example, has a shorter list of chemicals than a banana does, according to the video.
While this might seem like semantics, it's an important concept to take into consideration with so many food companies using "natural" language to convince you their products are healthful.
Advertisement
As this video reminds us, sometimes you need a little food perspective. And it's worth taking blanket health claims with a grain of salt (or, y'know, NaCl).
"The idea of saying, 'Just avoid processed foods' is crazy," registered dietician Dawn Jackson Blatner told The Huffington Post. "Yogurt is a processed food. It’s actually been cultured and packaged. Canned beans, with no other ingredient besides beans, is processed because [the beans] have been cooked and they have been canned."
Advertisement
Of course, there is a difference between "good" and "bad" processed foods. Yogurt, for example, is minimally processed, meaning it retains the good qualities of its source, such as calcium and protein. Foods like soda and and refined bread fall, by contrast, fall in the "highly processed" category, meaning they're been processed to the point where they're not longer recognizable as their original plant or animal source.
Which all goes to show you that there's no shortcut to consumer knowledge. Yep. There are tons of chemicals in your banana, and your can of beans is processed. You learn something new every day!
Also on HuffPost:
8 Healthy Office Snacks
Support HuffPost
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
Your Loyalty Means The World To Us
At HuffPost, we believe that everyone needs high-quality journalism, but we understand that not everyone can afford to pay for expensive news subscriptions. That is why we are committed to providing deeply reported, carefully fact-checked news that is freely accessible to everyone.
Whether you come to HuffPost for updates on the 2024 presidential race, hard-hitting investigations into critical issues facing our country today, or trending stories that make you laugh, we appreciate you. The truth is, news costs money to produce, and we are proud that we have never put our stories behind an expensive paywall.
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor?
Dear HuffPost Reader
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. If circumstances have changed since you last contributed, we hope you’ll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.