• hperrin@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    If I added some olive oil to a recipe, I wouldn’t consider it processed. Here are the ingredients of Impossible burger meat:

    Ingredients: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Sunflower Oil, Coconut Oil, 2% Or Less Of: Natural Flavors, Methylcellulose, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Yeast Extract, Dextrose, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Vitamin E (Tocopherols), L-Tryptophan, Soy Protein Isolate,

    Vitamins and Minerals: Zinc, Vitamins (B3, B1, B6, B2, and B12)

    Contains: Soy

    - https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018937494-What-are-the-ingredients-in-Impossible-Beef-Meat-From-Plants

    The only preservatives in there are cultured dextrose and vitamin E. Vitamin E occurs naturally in meat anyway, and cultured dextrose is just dextrose that’s been fermented. It’s used as a natural preservative in tons of foods, including deli meats.

    Nothing in there is something I would consider “processed”, but I guess that depends on your definition of processed. If fermentation is “processed”, then tons of healthy natural foods are processed, including yogurt, cheese, kombucha, and sauerkraut.

      • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Not necessarily. Extracting oil, you can say, is a form of processing, just like juicing an orange. I think it makes the label somewhat useless to say that, but sure. When you eat a raw soybean, though, you’re consuming soybean oil. That’s not processed in any way.

        • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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          1 day ago

          That’s an amusing semantic ploy. Let us say I am using “oil” in the culinary sense, which would not include fats still trapped in cells and fibers of the plant.

          • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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            1 day ago

            The term “processed food” is entirely semantic. What is considered “processing”?

      • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Processed water is an interesting concept.

        Or do you just mean cheese and yogurt etc?

        I feel like the label just becomes useless if something like a bowl of oats is “processed”.