The recently released Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2025-2030 discourages consumption of “processed foods”.  The emphasis on protein including eggs is a vindication for our industry that has undergone unjustified criticism over cholesterol content in past decades.

The question now arises as to what constitutes “processed foods.”  Various definitions have been applied but without consideration of the implications for the manufacturers of packaged products.  Applying the broadest descriptor, “processing” includes any alteration of a food from the natural state through heating, pasteurizing, mixing, milling, freezing or canning.  Within reason, these processes are essential to manufacture food products, preserve nutrient quality or to make them available to consumers.  With respect to additives, some preservatives have been shown to be both beneficial and innocuous.  Many ‘unpronounceable additives’ disfavored by purists are in fact nutrients and contribute to or are essential to health.

In a move to reject all additives in pursuit of a clean label, activists motivated by either naïve sincerity or outright mendacity risk throwing out the baby with the bath water.