Somewhere between whole foods and ultra-processed foods lies a huge gray area—processed foods.

While it’s easy to identify whole foods and ultra-processed foods, it is much harder to to tell the difference between a good processed food and a bad processed food.

As an example, let’s look at salsa.

Salsa can be made with whole food ingredients and spices—and be both tasty and nutritious.

Salsa can also be highly processed with little nutritional value and lots of additives. 

The food industry can be very sneaky when it comes to making unhealthy food appear healthy.  

Since processed foods can cause a lot of confusion, we have an entire article—Understanding Processed Foodsthat will dive into the details of making good choices when it comes to processed products.