The key distinction is between unprocessed or minimally-processed food and processed food. Unprocessed food would be meat, fish, dairy, eggs, vegetables, and fruit (fresh and frozen), along with herbs and spices. Unprocessed foods don’t have ingredient lists. They come from plants or animals, not things that came out of a lab.

Any packaged foods should be minimally processed (meaning the ingredients are real food). They should be low in sugar (especially added sugar) and low in refined carbohydrate (e.g flour). They should not have industrial vegetable oils (soybean oil, corn oil, etc.).

Most meat should be unprocessed—just meat, though if you are a careful shopper you can find some brands of packaged meats that are minimally processed.

When considering a packaged food, it is important to closely scrutinize the label. For example, here is the label for Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch. The name makes it sound vaguely healthy. Note first of all that it has 68 grams of carbohydrate, of which 28 grams are sugar. That will not only dump a lot of fructose on your liver, it will spike your blood glucose. This is pretty much the epitome of a highly processed food.

And note the ingredient list. There are five different kinds of sugar. (For a listing of the other names for sugar found on food labels, go here.)

Here is the label for Thousand Island salad dressing. Note that ingredient list. It’s off to a bad start with soybean oil, and it has a lot of stuff in it that looks like it came out of a lab rather than a plant or animal. That is a highly processed food.

A minimally processed food might look like this, Rao’s Homemade Marinara sauce. Notice that all of the ingredients are real food: tomatoes, olive oil, and spices.

And here is the nutrition label for the same product. Note that it has no added sugar (the sugar present is that from the tomatoes).

Be aware that similar products can have very different levels of processing.

Here are three different labels for bacon:

Great Value Hickory Smoked Bacon:

Yikes!

Applegate, Organic Hickory Smoked No Sugar Uncured Bacon:

Getting better. But they are being a little sneaky here. One of the criticisms of bacon is that many brands contain nitrates. But do you know what else has a lot of nitrates? Celery powder.

Wellshire Farms, Thick Sliced Dry-Rubbed Bacon:

Not too bad. Here we have just pork, salt, and minimal sugar.

Don’t assume that just because a food makes a health claim on the label or because it has a healthy reputation that it’s good for you. Likewise, don’t assume a food with a bad reputation is harmful. Always read the label.