> The whole pseudo-science around "whole food" and "too much processing" is just that. Bunk.
The idea is that you want to get closer to the source. For example, getting produce from the store that was shipped from Guam is possibly laden with chemicals used to preserve it until it reaches your grocery store. On the other hand, buying direct from the farm cuts out the need for that.
Also, food that has been cooked and recooked several times, then blended with food artificial preservatives is probably less healthy than (on average) than the food you make yourself from scratch.
Combine that with the fact that many industries explicitly target the "bliss point" when formulating their recipes... and you're probably better off with a home-cooked meal than a frozen microwave dinner.
To add to jschwartzi's comment, what if there was a snack food that tasted good, but you could only consume two handfuls before you felt like you couldn't eat anymore?
Some people might find this situation perfect because it helps to limit consumption. In reality, snack food companies see this as a defect in their product and attempt to engineer the limitation away.
If you could continually get wonderful feelings just from eating a product, and the product never made you feel full, you might continue eating it until you've consumed an entire package. At that point, you read the back and realize that you just ate 3000 calories in a single sitting and have a little panic attack.
This sounds an awful lot like saying that food ought to taste bad so you don't eat too much of it.
I'd rather have food that tastes good but is still something I'm able to eat in moderation. I get that food makers have no incentive whatsoever to get me to eat in moderation, but that looks like a different thing from the "bliss point."
It doesn't have to taste bad to force you to eat it in moderation. There are examples out there. People complain that Pepsi is too sweet, and you can only drink a small amount before they can't drink anymore. You could also talk about the salt levels on certain foods (where after a certain amount they start tasting too salty, etc). Food makers want their food to never make you say, "Ok, that's enough this is getting too {sweet,salty,sugary,etc}". That's different from the food tasting bad.
The idea is that you want to get closer to the source. For example, getting produce from the store that was shipped from Guam is possibly laden with chemicals used to preserve it until it reaches your grocery store. On the other hand, buying direct from the farm cuts out the need for that.
Also, food that has been cooked and recooked several times, then blended with food artificial preservatives is probably less healthy than (on average) than the food you make yourself from scratch.
Combine that with the fact that many industries explicitly target the "bliss point" when formulating their recipes... and you're probably better off with a home-cooked meal than a frozen microwave dinner.