The Journey of a Processed Food
Life of a processed food can be divided into three stages
Birth (Manufacture)
Purpose (Consumption)
Death (Disposable)
Birth (Manufacturing) – Processed or Packaged food are used to save time and efforts but, more time and efforts are being wasted on processing the product than what is being saved by it. Did you know that it takes 100 to 150 liters of water to make 0.5 liters of soda drink? It takes as much water as a 10 minute long shower to produce that little amount of soda. In fact, all processed foods takes heavy use of electricity, natural resources, manpower, petrol, time and space to be produced. This demanding inputs of such small amount of output makes one question the whole concept of food processing.
Purpose (Consumption) – The purpose of food is to satisfy your hunger and in turn satisfy the fuel requirements of the body. Processed food does just half the work, it satisfies (Or maybe tricks your brain into thinking that it has) your hunger but not the needs of your body. Hasn’t it ever happened to you that you ate a bag full of chips and got hungry again just an hour later? Maybe that’s how they are made or else how would they manage to get such extensive repeat sales.
Processed food is a perfectly addictive substance, it is salty, fatty and sugary making it the perfect reward for the pleasure stimuli’s of the body. Not only that, processed food is acidic in nature, which can cause less absorption of oxygen in your blood and may cause cancer and other diseases as well. (For more about this refer to the article on “Processed food & health”). Processed food is the major causes of obesity. (Not so fun fact: India is among top 5 in obesity)
Death (Disposable) – Almost every processed food is packed. This packaging saves the product but endangers the environment. Animals are dying by heavily eating these leftover packages. Manufacturers claim that the packaging of the processed food is disposable but it’s actually very hard for nature to dispose it (Minimum 500 years to completely dispose of plastic). Also, the waste products that are released in the making has taken over water, land and air and contributed to increasing carbon footprint by the industry. That’s too much pressure on the ecosystem for catering to the wants of a single species.
Processing is good but chemicals are not. The food should be processed to make it consumable not nonperishable. Whole foods are called whole foods because they are ready to be consumed on the spot as a gift given to us by nature. Chemical processing is unhealthy and unnecessary. Not everything that could be eaten, should be eaten. The marketing of such products are so cleverly done that it has placed a positive image of them in our minds. It has been happening for so long that processed food has taken over our lives. Not only our health but the impact it has on our environment is a serious concern. The two sides of balance scale with one side holding benefits and one side holding the damages is touching the grounds on the damage side. Let’s end this topic on a positive note and boycott processed food for organic food to make it a better surroundings for everyone.
