The Top Nine Most Crappy Processed Foods + a Brownie Recipe With Nothing Crappy In It (2024)

When I think about processed food, I always think of food that’s sold at gas stations.

Chips, crackers, cookies, muffins, everything except that one lone banana that sits by the register. You know the one. Sometimes it’s an apple.

Processed foods are convenient, they have lots of preservatives, they’re cheap, and you can open the package and pop them straight into your pie hole. No assembly required.

There are certain foods that are more processed than others.

A donut for instance is more processed than a piece of whole wheat bread. But whole wheat bread is more processed than say, a piece of sprouted grain bread. Sprouted grain bread is more processed than brown rice and buckwheat.

Let’s break this down into two simple steps.

Step one is below and you can find step two right here.

STEP ONE

The first step is to identify the foods that would be better off avoided if you’re interested in taking care of your body.

1) Dairy products, especially sweetened dairy products

Watch: Got The Facts on Milk to learn all kinds of things about dairy you didn’t want to know.

In a nutshell: Dairy contains a protein called casein. Casein has been linked with loads of problems including inflammation, autoimmune diseases (think MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Alopecia to name a few), acne, allergies, and even eczema.

The average glass of milk contains 60 different anabolic hormones (organic milk or not). The purpose of anabolic hormones is to help calves grow to become very large cows.

Why are we drinking something with hormones in it that are meant to grow a 1500-pound mammal?

There is no evidence that milk and dairy products help protect our bones. It’s actually the opposite.

Turns out that the places in the world that consume the most dairy have the most instances of hip fractures, and the regions that consume the least amount of dairy have the lowest amount of hip fractures.

2) Anything containing Trans Fats

Trans Fats are lab-manufactured fats. To make Trans Fat, hydrogen is pumped into liquid oil to make a hard fat (think margarine and Crisco). This process is known as hydrogenation.

Trans Fats raise “bad” cholesterol and lower “good” cholesterol.

They clog the arteries and are responsible for a slew of health problems, including obesity, diabetes, and dementia to name a few. They are so bad that the entire state of New York banned them in 2006.

But get this.

Even if a food label says “Zero Trans Fat”, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s free of these fake fats.

It just means that there is less than 1/2 a gram per serving in that food.

To find out if an item contains Trans Fat, read the ingredient list. If you see “hydrogenated” or “Partially Hydrogenated” on the list, that’s your clue.

Common items that have Trans Fats are microwave popcorn, traditional supermarket pastries and donuts, frozen pizza, Coffee-Mate coffee creamer, and whipped topping.

3) Processed meats like sausage, hot dogs, jerky, bacon, and lunch meat

It doesn’t get any more processed than these.

Processed meats are filled with color enhancers, glues, and carcinogenic chemicals like Sodium Nitrite.

If processed meats weren’t pumped full of all these chemicals, the meat would appear gray in color and dead-looking. This would make people for sure stop eating them. Sodium Nitrites are responsible for putting back in that reddish “fresh” meat color.

Processed meats have been linked with so many types of cancer and other health problems that a 2007 report from the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) advised people to completely stop buying and eating all processed meat.

4) Donuts

Even vegan donuts, y’all. 🙁

At best, they’re full of processed flour and processed sugar. At worst, they’re also fried and full of Trans Fat. Vegan or not, donuts are nutrient void and are not helpful to your beautiful bod. That doesn’t mean I don’t have one once in a while 🙂

5) Smoked meat, barbecued meat, and conventionally raised meat

The high temperatures of smoked and barbecued meat create highly toxic cancer-causing carcinogenic compounds called Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs).

Conventionally raised meat is full of hormones and chemicals. Even organic meat is full of saturated fat and should be avoided for heart health.

Meat in general is something that we don’t need and that causes more harm than good.

If you’re set on eating it, at least stay away from smoked, barbecued, conventionally raised, and processed meats.

6) All commercially fried foods

First, there’s the Trans Fat issue because most oils used to fry foods is hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated. And just because it’s “partially” hydrogenated does not mean it’s “partially” good for you.

Even foods that are fried in non-hydrogenated vegetable oils like Canola or Safflower Oil have their own set of problems. These types of fats (polyunsaturated fats) easily become rancid when exposed to oxygen, producing damaging free radicals in the body.

Canola oil is pretty much guaranteed to be made from Genetically Modified ingredients.

And then there’s the risky substance called Acrylamide, which is formed in certain foods that are heated to high temperatures. The highest levels of Acrylamide are found in french fries and potato chips. 🙁

The World Health Organization stated that the levels of Acrylamide in foods pose a “major concern” and that more research is needed to determine the risk of dietary Acrylamide exposure.

7) Soda

Check this out.

One can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar (usually in the form of high fructose corn syrup), 150 calories, 30 – 55 mg of caffeine, and loads of artificial colors and sulfites.

If it’sa diet soda, it has all of this stuff but the high fructose corn syrup gets swapped out for even more harmful artificial sweeteners like aspartame.

Soda spikes blood sugar, interferes with the body’s ability to absorb calcium, causes dehydration, causes plaque buildup on the teeth, causes weight gain, and offers zero nutrients.

8) Refined white sugar

Excess sugar increases belly fat, damages the heart, has toxic effects on the liver, ages the cells and brain, and is addictive.

Processed sugar is found in a lot more than just dessert-type foods.

Food companies sneak it into lots of packaged foods to make them more satisfying, to cover up other chemical-like tastes, and to take advantage of the addictive quality. Some foods that are surprisingly high in sugar are ketchup, fat-free salad dressings, milk, granola bars, tonic water, packaged sauces and gravies, and even certain types of bread.

Check out some alternative names for sugar:

Concentrated fruit juice, dextrose, maltose, crystalline fructose, evaporated cane juice, invert sugar, malt syrup, cane crystals, and fructose.

All is not lost! When you need to sweeten things up try dried dates, bananas, brown rice syrup, and 100% pure maple syrup.

9) Refined white flour

The grain is crushed and the bran and the germ are removed. It then gets bleached and treated with chlorine.

What’s left is a nutrient-void substance that spikes blood sugar and acts like glue in the intestines, making it hard to digest.

Here are the items to avoid that are made of refined white flour:

White bread, white pasta, white tortillas, most crackers, baked goods, and pizza dough.

That wraps up part one. Part two is just a click away.

If you’re inspired to get away from unhealthy ingredients , check out Plant Fueled Life – our membership with thousands of plant based recipes and hundreds of meal plans.

I know that black beans in brownies sound weird, but just go with it and tell me what you think in the comments below.