3 Healthy Processed Foods That Are Also Affordable

How did we ever get to this point where we have to review food labels, tally grams of fiber, sugar, etc?

We got here because of the over abundance of processed foods.

But something to note is that there are different degrees of food processing and not all processed foods are bad.

Here are 3 types of processed foods that are often more nutritious than their fresh counterparts:

1️⃣ Frozen foods - these may actually be more nutritious than fresh foods because they are flash frozen soon after picking and therefore retain their nutritional content.  

Fresh fruits and vegetables start losing nutritional value after picking and if transported far distances (imported) you may not be getting as much as you paid for in terms of nutrition compared to the frozen version!

2️⃣ Canned foods - these are canned soon after picking (or in the case of fish, after being caught), therefore retaining superior nutritional value.  

I am a huge fan of dried beans but recently learned that they may be less nutritious than canned varieties as they may have been sitting in a storeroom for too long!

3️⃣ Freeze dried foods - unlike other drying methods, freeze-drying allows the food (usually fruits and vegetables) to retain its shape and color and produces a high-quality product.  

This involves freezing the food, lowering the pressure and removing the ice.  

They can be brought back to life for cooking purposes by soaking them or boiling them.

Do you eat any of these “processed foods?”

Canned and frozen foods in particular tend to be much cheaper than their fresh counterparts.  

And more nutritious.  Win, win! 

So you don’t have to throw out every processed food in your home because they are not all bad.

Only those with never ending lists of ingredients with names you can’t pronounce. 😉

Thanks for reading!  If you'd like to watch the companion Youtube video to this blog post, you can watch it here.