That's fair, and I'm not usually one to try to dilute a words meaning, but if processed indeed means to redefine a natural food item in the way you describe, what's to say you can't do that in a way that keeps it as healthy (or even more healthy) while making it either more approachable in ease of cooking or just tastier.
The issue with processing in your example is mainly the corn syrup and coloring (if not using natural coloring like carotene etc), as well as to a lesser extent shredding of the corn or wheat which leads to a higher glycemic index.
But as we've made cheese puffs out of corn and varying degrees of terrible chemicals, we now have chips made from quinoa, beans, lentils etc, which I'm not saying are great, but better.
If I could have a snickers with 0 calories and no carcinogens, or pringles made out of broccoli, you can bet your ass I would pop that package without stopping.
So again, even with our agreed definition of processed, it might in 95% of cases right now mean "bad food", but it doesn't have to.
So again, even with our agreed definition of processed, it might in 95% of cases right now mean "bad food", but it doesn't have to.
Fine, it doesn't have to. And if we have the technology to send someone's car into space, we can surely create something processed and perfect in terms of glycemic index, macronutrient balance, and so forth. But as a general rule, almost all that stuff has flaws. For example, even the organic quinoa chips (and puffs which I'm very guilty of inhaling a bagfull of) has a lot more sodium than you really need.
That and I'd argue, in the case of certain concentrated items like whey protein chips, it's kind of unclear what side effects we might discover one day (as we did with refined sugars and obesity and diabetes and such). That said, I'm risking it.
Lest I be accused of hypocrisy for occasionally eating the healthy processed stuff you describe, I'd argue that for the general (ignorant, at least in the US) public, 'avoid processed' is a good rule of thumb.
The issue with processing in your example is mainly the corn syrup and coloring (if not using natural coloring like carotene etc), as well as to a lesser extent shredding of the corn or wheat which leads to a higher glycemic index.
But as we've made cheese puffs out of corn and varying degrees of terrible chemicals, we now have chips made from quinoa, beans, lentils etc, which I'm not saying are great, but better.
If I could have a snickers with 0 calories and no carcinogens, or pringles made out of broccoli, you can bet your ass I would pop that package without stopping.
So again, even with our agreed definition of processed, it might in 95% of cases right now mean "bad food", but it doesn't have to.