Why Does Processed Food Have Such a Bad Reputation?

Abstract

I was at a faculty awards banquet one April evening and seated next to the husband of one of the awardees. The banquet was held in a huge room of the hotel and conference center with all the partitions pushed back and at least 200 guests present. When the gentleman next to me learned that I was a food scientist, he picked up a baby-blue packet of Equal and said that his wife wouldn’t eat anything like that or any processed foods. During the banquet I looked around at what we were eating. We had a salad with dressing. I suspect that the greens came out of a bag, and the dressing did not separate because the processor had added emulsifiers. The main entrée was their famous Celestial Chicken which by a strange coincidence was the same size and shape on everybody’s plate. Were all the contributing chickens the exact same size?