Prepared food may be convenient to use, but it is important to
balance packaged and fresh foods for a healthy food intake.
Packaged foods are convenient because they are easy to buy
and prepare. They are obviously a bonus to anyone who has to cook for the
family every day or comes home tired from work. But when we consider our diet,
we have to think not only about nutritional value.
Drawbacks of prepared
food
Whenever food is processed in any way, some of the nutrients
will be lost or destroyed. The main case of nutritional loss is cooking or
dehydration, which is applied to many fresh foods during industrial processing
to reduce the enzyme activity, which would cause them to go bad. This is
especially the case with tinned foods, which tend to lose vitamin C, folic acid
and thiamine, all of which are heat sensitive. Protein also does not stand up well
to heat.
Apart from nutrient losses, many packaged foods are inferior
to fresh ones because they contain additives. These include those chemical
stabilizers, flavorings, colorings, antioxidants, and preservatives which are
intended to improve qualities, color, taste, and texture. Medical opinion
differs widely on the effects of these additives. Some doctors argue that many
of them can cause allergic reactions.
Nevertheless, it makes sense to keep to a minimum the amount
of unnecessary chemicals we consume. The more food we buy fresh and prepare
ourselves the more we can cut out chemicals that have no nutritional value but
are added solely to make food more attractive or to preserve it better.
This is even more important when we look at compound foods
made up to manufacturer’s recipes. Most packaged sweets, biscuits and cakes,
for example, contain not only chemical additives especially artificial flavoring but also white flour and hard margarine rather than wholemeal flour and
soft margarine, which are recommended by nutritionists. In addition ‘all in
one’ packaged meals tend to include flavorings like mono-sodium glutamate.
These flavorings have recently come under suspicion as being the cause of
dizziness, migraine and addiction.
Generally, however packaged foods are not in themselves
harmful; the point is simply that they should be eaten in moderation rather
than being a major part of your diet. And you should be aware of what you are
buying and consuming: make a habit of reading the labels of packaged foods and
choosing those, which contain fewest unwanted ingredients.
Using fresh foods
Though you might not have the
time or the inclination to stop buying packaged foods altogether, you should
try to eat some fresh foods every day. Fresh produce not only contains more
nutrients, it generally has a more attractive appearance and texture and can
provide a wide variety of interesting textures. And it doesn’t necessarily take
longer to prepare; for example fresh fish can be grilled in the same amount of time
that it takes to cook fish fingers, potatoes baked in their skin need a minimum
of preparation and many other vegetables and most fruits can be eaten raw,
either plain or combined in a salad. The key to a good diet is to maximize the
convenience of processed foods when you need to use them, but at the same time
to include as much fresh foods as and when you can.
