{"id":69109,"date":"2025-06-26T10:43:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=69109"},"modified":"2025-06-26T10:43:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:43:20","slug":"eating-smart-why-you-should-rethink-processed-foods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/26\/eating-smart-why-you-should-rethink-processed-foods\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating Smart: Why You Should Rethink Processed Foods"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onilede Titi Faith<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Processed foods, as we know them, are those that have been altered in one way or another; either to extend shelf life or to enhance their taste and nutritional value.<\/p>\n<p>These foods are typically categorized into three groups: minimally processed, moderately processed, and highly processed.<\/p>\n<p>Minimally processed foods are often packaged for convenience, such as washed and cut vegetables. Moderately processed foods include canned goods, where preservatives like salt and oil are added.<\/p>\n<p>Highly processed foods are packed with artificial ingredients and preservatives designed to significantly increase their longevity.<\/p>\n<p>While processed foods may offer benefits such as convenience, nutritional enhancement, safety, and affordability, the excessive addition of preservatives often defeats these original purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, such additives can become harmful to human health, leading to complications.<\/p>\n<p>Processed foods have both short-term and long-term effects on human health. In the short term, they may cause digestive discomfort and increased sugar intake, which can lead to obesity.<\/p>\n<p>In the long term, they have been linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer.<\/p>\n<p>These foods can also foster unhealthy addictions.<\/p>\n<p>Though they offer ease and cost-effectiveness, it is advisable to limit our reliance on processed foods.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, we should aim to prepare meals using fresh, organic ingredients and practice moderation in our food choices to maintain better health and well-being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onilede Titi Faith &nbsp; Processed foods, as we know them, are those that have been altered in one way or another; either to extend shelf life or to enhance their taste and nutritional value. These foods are typically categorized into three groups: minimally processed, moderately processed, and highly processed. Minimally processed foods are often [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":69110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-opinion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69111,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69109\/revisions\/69111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}