In my articles, I often refer to foods as whole or unprocessed and encourage preference for them. The antipodes of whole foods in the food world are refined foods, some of which I have chosen to write about.
Refined oil, extra virgin flour, and white sugar. We are used to eating these things on a daily basis and take them for granted. But by doing so, we daily deprive ourselves of important nutrients and useful components, which were originally contained in these products, but during the refining process were "extracted" from them. Why do manufacturers do this? Of course, depriving foods of vitamins is not their goal at all. Their goal is to extend the shelf life of the product, to make it as cheap as possible, suitable for the widest range of needs, "beautiful" and "tasty" (or tasteless, so that, for example, refined oil does not interfere with the taste of culinary products). This is what refining is used for - the final purification of products, during which so-called "ballast substances" are removed from it, including vitamins, trace elements, antioxidants, amino acids, fiber, etc. As a result, we end up with an incomplete in composition, but still loaded with calories. Let's look at the most refined foods today so that we can choose them more carefully.
Vegetable oil
This oil is necessary for human nutrition: it contains polyunsaturated fatty acids, which protect our cells from destruction, as well as vitamins and nutrients.
Cold-pressed vegetable oils are referred to by the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization as "oils obtained without changing the nature of the oil, only by mechanical procedures such as pressing and baling, without heating. They can only be purified by water washing, sedimentation, filtration and centrifugation." This is how unrefined sunflower oil and the very useful Extra Virgin olive oil are made.
But in addition to these methods are used, such as oil extraction with solvents. A solvent is added to the prepared raw material, which produces more oil than cold-pressed, and then it is evaporated. True, there are concerns that some of the solvent may still remain in the oil that we then buy. What other tests can vegetable oil be subjected to? Decolorization. Deodorization (which means that the oil is stripped of its odor by distilling it with water vapor at temperatures above 230 degrees). Hydrogenation (hydrogenated trans fats are widely used in cooking). As a result, this oil goes through all sorts of chemical processes, cooling, and heating several times.
Cereals, cereal porridge and flour
Oats, millet, rye and other grains are an important source of minerals, vitamins and fiber that are almost completely lost when grains are turned into flour, granola or instant flakes. The deep industrial processing changes the structure and chemical composition of the original grain, which makes the resulting product more "smooth" and sticky - and almost useless. More precisely, even harmful. In fact, refined and bleached flour - it is "empty" starch, which rapidly raises blood sugar levels and clogs our bodies. Therefore, it is best to cook whole grain porridge and buy or make baked goods from whole wheat, coarse-grained gray flour, or crumbled rye flour.
I will speak separately about rice. Many of us are accustomed since childhood to polished white rice, which is starchy and sweet. And this is a bad habit! For years such rice was a staple food of the Far East, which caused an epidemic of beri-beri disease (vitamin B1 deficiency), which could be cured with just rice bran. But the husk of rice, which is rich in vitamins and nutrients, is removed when rice is ground. This example can be considered the first recorded fact of the harm that refined foods do to us.
Sugar
We all know the harms of sugar, yet we still can't live without it. I would generally recommend avoiding foods with any added sugar (be it cane sugar, guava nectar, maple syrup and other sweeteners that are positioned as healthier). However, refined sugar is really our number one enemy. Once refined, it does not contain any of the beneficial elements that were originally in the sugar beet or sugar cane that were necessary for the digestion of the product. All that is left is completely "empty" calories. This sugar depletes our body by taking away, in particular, the reserves of chromium, which is responsible for the metabolism of glucose. It also dehydrates, drains energy, and leads to toxins, oxidation, and fermentation. All of this guarantees a host of health problems.
If you can't live without sweets, look into organic honey or stevia.
To eat more meals made with whole ingredients, download my recipe app, which has recently been updated with new delicious and quick-to-make meals!
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