Patter Matters — processed food

There is a question worth sitting with. At some point in the last century, the American relationship with food changed fundamentally. Not in the way food culture usually discusses — not in terms of trends or cuisines or dining habits — but in something more basic. The thing most Americans eat most of the time stopped being food in any meaningful sense of the word, and we largely didn't notice. The Transition For most of human history, food was what it was: animals, plants, and the things made from them through cooking. The tools of transformation were heat, salt, fermentation,...

The term "ultra-processed food" has entered mainstream conversation in recent years, carried by a growing body of research linking it to a range of health outcomes. But the term is used loosely, and the concept behind it is often misunderstood. Understanding what ultra-processed food actually means — and why the distinction matters — requires looking past the marketing language and into the science. The NOVA Classification System The most widely used framework for thinking about food processing is the NOVA classification system, developed by researchers at the University of São Paulo. NOVA divides foods into four groups based on the...

There is a fact about most energy bars that rarely appears in their marketing: they are designed to sit on a shelf — or in a gym bag, a glove compartment, an airplane seatback pocket — for up to a year without spoiling. Think about that for a moment. Real food does not do that. A banana lasts a few days. Almonds, stored properly, last a few months. Medjool dates, refrigerated, last about a year — but at room temperature, considerably less. Dried fruit, depending on how it was processed, lasts weeks to months. An energy bar made entirely of...