In 2019, researchers conducted an experiment. They organized a group of adults to eat only one kind of food every day until they were full.

The results showed that people who ate this kind of special food consumed 508 calories more on average every day than those who ate the normal food. After just two weeks, they gained about 1 kg on average.

You may not have heard the name of this kind of food, but you have seen it everywhere in your life and you must have eaten it, that is: Over Processed Food.

After deep processing, we can hardly see what the original ingredients are.

If you have potatoes, potato starch, fried potato shreds, potato chips, potato chips... Can you find out which is over processed food?

In the process from raw materials to over processed food, most of the food has been chemically modified, and the ingredients of the food itself have been separated and recombined to the point where raw materials can hardly be seen.

The vast majority of packaged snacks and fast food sold in supermarkets are "over processed food". Including your favorite chocolate, biscuits, potato chips, sausage, instant milk tea, sweet soda...

Processing is equivalent to changing the original structure of food to a certain extent, and adding sugar, oil, salt and other additives. This will make food more delicious and easier to preserve, but it will also lose some nutrients and bring some health risks.

General cooking and processing can achieve a balance between taste, storage and nutrition.

But "over processing" is the ultimate processing, which is easy to maximize the shortcomings of processed food.

In many developed countries, over processed food can account for more than 40% or even 50% of the diet. In the diet structure of children aged 2 to 19 in the United States, over processed food accounts for 67% of the total.

Do you often eat all kinds of biscuits and bread for breakfast? A hamburger for dinner? Would you like some potato chips for the show?

Potato chips, biscuits, hamburgers, beverages... All kinds of over processed food with sweet, salty, sour etc on the supermarket shelves let us eat more oil, salt and sugar, so that we unconsciously take in more calories.

Every 10% increase in the proportion of over processed food in the diet will increase the health risk. If we take in over processed food for a long time, it will cause various diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, etc

Eating too much over processed food is harmful for health, but giving up completely will not only reduce a lot of happiness, but also be difficult to implement.

Our suggestion is: control the total intake, and do not eat too much over processed food.

Control the calories brought by over processed snacks and fast food less than 200 calories per day, which is less than 10% of the total daily intake.

In this way, we can not only ensure a healthy overall eating, but also allow a pleasant food experience every day.

（Writer：Laurro）