Ask Carb Diva: Questions & Answers About Food, Recipes, & Cooking, #125

I won't say that the crickets have been chirping—a nice cliche but it's much too cold for crickets (where do they hide in the winter?). But there were absolutely no questions this week. I could try to make something up and claim that it came from "Anonymous," but that would be misleading and simply not true. So instead I'll pull something out of my "I-should-write-something-about-this" file.

What does “processed foods” mean? Is that like genetically modified, or injected with chemicals, or what?

“Whole foods,” “raw foods,” “unprocessed foods” all sound ultra-healthy and environmentally conscious. On the flip side “processed foods” sound suspicious, and for good reasons, but what does it all really mean?

Research has shown that when the food we eat is removed from its natural state, we are introduced to a greater incidence of heart disease, obesity, and cancer. Added fats and sodium make what we eat a 10+ on the satisfaction meter but also encourage overeating. It’s thought that these engineered foods can even mess with the hormones that control hunger or trigger our brains to register when we have had enough to eat.

But is all processing bad? Honestly, once you pull a carrot from the ground and remove the outer skin you’ve processed that carrot. Consumer Reports recently published an article entitled “From Whole to Processed.” They examined different foods in raw, light-, medium-, and heavily-processed forms. Here’s a table to give you a concise summary of their results.

Want another example?

Old friends know how this column works but if this is your first visit, let me introduce you to my kitchen. Each week I receive questions about food ingredients, cooking or baking terms or methods, requests for recipes, and queries about nutrition. Just about anything food-related has been covered here.

Want to join in the fun? You can leave your question in the comments below, and next week the answer will be right here. It's that easy.

Did you know that there is a Table of Contents for this series? I have created an article that provides a detailed listing of each question I've received. It's broken down by category, and within each category, the questions are listed alphabetically. Each question is actually a hotlink back to the original post.

Here's a link to that Table of Contents.

I have also cataloged all of my personal recipes that I have shared with you in this weekly Q&A series and in all of my other articles as well. The link to that Index is here. There are hotlinks to each recipe and this will be updated as new recipes are shared.

Let's do this again next week. If you have questions about foods, cooking techniques, or nutrition you can ask them here. If you are in search of an old recipe or need ideas on how to improve an existing one I can help you. If you want to learn more, let's do it together. Present your questions, your ideas, your comments below. Or, you can write to me personally at this email address: lindalum52@gmail.com.

And, I promise that there will always be at least one photo of a kitty in every Monday post.