Question 1: What Counts as Processed?

Whenever someone hears that I gave up processed foods for Lent, their first question is always “What Counts as Processed?” For instance, bread is pretty far removed from the raw wheat that it comes from. Even more importantly, cheese and sausage are both “processed,” but not in the same way a Twinkie is processed.

Remember though, cooking is not processing. Neither is curing, dehydrating, pasteurizing, or fermenting. These are age-old techniques humans have always used to prepare food. It’s not like this is a raw diet!

Guideline 1: If I’m Not Sure, I Won’t Eat It (“NSFW”)
It’s kind of like how you can’t define pornography, but you know it when you see it. I suppose the same goes for processed foods.

Many people add the description “NSFW” (Not Safe For Work) when they pass around links to web content that could be questionable - I know to avoid them, at least when I’m at the office.

The same goes for food. If it’s questionable, I know to avoid it, at least during this no-processed-foods-for-Lent thing.

Guideline 2: You Have Know What It is
My mother used to refuse to buy food for my sister and me if we couldn’t pronounce all the ingredients on the label. It was a great idea, but I got a little too good at pronouncing odd chemicals. And “High Fructose Corn Syrup” was just a little too easy to say.

So I’m tweaking that axiom a little bit. I have to have a good understanding of how a food is made and where on earth it comes from. I more or less understand how to turn milk into cheese, or grapes into wine. So these are perfectly fine for me to eat. Same with bread and sausage.

I have no clue how they make MSG. I suppose this Wikipedia article about MSG could help, but that’s not really the point. Unfortunately, this will make my Chinese food habits much harder to support for a while.

What Else?
Am I missing something?