5 Effective Ways to Reduce Processed Foods in Your Diet

Even if you wanted to, eliminating all severely processed items from your diet would be quite tough. That would imply avoiding most eateries and foregoing the hot dog at the family barbecue. Fact is even though eating processed food is unhealthy doing away with them is impossible in current times. So, there are several things you may take to limit your consumption of processed foods. Below are 5 easy steps:

1. Begin gradually and gently

It is OK to gradually replace processed foods in your diet with more fresh meals. In fact, it may increase your likelihood of sticking with these adjustments in the long run.

2. Shop the grocery store’s outside aisles

Most grocery store centre hallways are crammed with processed packaged goods and ready-made delicacies. Increase your purchases from the vegetable and dairy aisles.

3. Scan and examine the label properly

The longer a food’s ingredient list, the more processed it is. If the majority of the components are difficult-to-pronounce chemicals rather than genuine food, it’s a fair bet that the meal has been severely processed.

4. Buy meats that are raw or have been lightly processed.

Choose lightly processed meats (e.g., shellfish, chicken breast) and avoid excessively processed meats (e.g., sausage, cured meats like bacon). It is important to develop better, healthier meat eating habits.

5. Prepare more meals at home

While travelling, you may not always be in charge of your nutrition. But at home you are. Cook a bigger quantity of meals and freeze the leftovers or make your own salad dressing. While many elements of our health might be complex, consuming less processed food does not have to be one of them.

When in doubt, just start with food that are raw and fresh and not preserved chemically.

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. In January of 2012, Megan Kimble was a city-dwelling 26-year-old—busy and broke, living in a small apartment without so much as a garden plot to her name. But she cared about food: where it came from, how it was made, and what it did to her body. So she set herself a challenge. She would go an entire year without eating processed foods. In this talk, she discusses what makes a food processed and how those processes impact our bodies and communities.