Processed foods are commonplace within people’s diets in the UK. Dependent on the composition and degree of processing, processed foods can add to, or reduce the nutritional quality of an individual’s diet.
Food processing are methods and techniques that turn fresh foods into food products1. A range of operations are used, including washing, chopping, heating, freezing, packaging and the addition of ingredients, which may change the characteristics of a food; including their nutritional composition. This includes food fortification2,3. There is a growing narrative that classes all forms of processing, and in particular significant degrees of processing as less healthy or desirable, even though this does not apply in all cases.