Taq writes:
Are the whole foods in the bar doing as much harm as the additives? Again, the constant assumption is that artificial is bad, natural is good. But is this true?
Percy writes:
Oh, I see, you're questioning the proposition that whole foods are healthier than processed foods, and that traditional diets are healthier than the western style diet.
Percy writes:
One thing that has been observed over and over again is that when people abandon a traditional diet for a western style diet that they soon begin experiencing the diseases of western civilization, namely heart disease and diabetes.
I think Taq was questioning the assumption that natural must
invariably be better and processed always bad. I don't think anyone is defending what you have called the'Western diet' over traditional diets. Processed food in the Western diet has been processed to maximise consumption in order to maximise profit. It panders to our evolutionary inbuilt desire for sweet, salty and fatty foods with the over-arching aim of keeping production costs down and consumption high in order to maximise profit.
If we were to produce processed food with the aim of maximising nutritional value and needs rather than desires and profit it
might lead to a different result in terms of processed food being unhealthy.
I'm not suggesting this is remotely likely. I'm just defending the idea that we can/should question the processed = bad position.
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