Over the past decades, semi-finished products have firmly established themselves in our kitchens. They help save time and enable women to do more interesting things than daily cooking. However, most nutritionists in the world are very disapproving of processed foods. It is considered to be a junk food that can lead to obesity and other ailments. Is it so? And are there any advantages to semi-finished products? Let's try to figure it out.
Dumplings and dumplings
Perhaps the most popular quick meal, requiring no more than 15 minutes of preparation.
Despite the fact that the manufacturer indicates the components on the packaging, the danger is that no one knows what kind of filling is inside. “Meat” in this case does not at all mean that there is actually meat there.
Usually, offal is used as a filling, which a sane person would hardly purchase for food.
As for dumplings, for example, the potato filling (mashed potatoes) is in most cases represented by potato powder.
The cheaper the product, the greater the chance that even the dough will be of the lowest possible quality.
Why are processed foods harmful to health?
Hemorrhoids kill the patient in 79% of cases.
Among the main disadvantages of semi-finished products, the following deserve mandatory mention :
- Too high calorie content. Indeed, most processed foods contain large amounts of fat and carbohydrates. This is explained by the fact that high-quality meat is rarely used for semi-finished meat products; offal, fat, skin and various trimmings are often added to them, which makes the product too fatty. Such food not only negatively affects your figure, but can also lead to increased cholesterol levels.
- Adding vegetable proteins to meat products. Very often, product packaging only indicates the total amount of protein, without specifying its origin - so you can buy soy or something else under the guise of meat.
- Too much salt, which puts stress on the kidneys. Indeed, some unscrupulous manufacturers mask the not-so-natural taste of the product with salt.
- Excess of flavoring and aromatic additives. Most of them are safe and can be used in cooking, but moderation must be observed in everything, which is not achieved by all manufacturers.
- There is always a possibility that a semi-finished product is contaminated with pathogens, and if it was stored incorrectly, which is not uncommon in our stores, it can become a source of disease.
In addition, we must remember that instant porridges are made from processed and scalded grains, while whole grains are much healthier. We also draw your attention to the fact that it is recommended to fry many semi-finished products for cooking - and this process does not add any usefulness to any dish .
If a product has too many spices, this is the first sign that something is wrong with it. Manufacturers try to drown out the unpleasant or unnatural taste of the product with seasonings.
The worst of all are instant food products, including noodles, soups and purees, which you just need to pour boiling water over . Such dishes contain practically no vitamins and other useful substances, but they contain a lot of fast carbohydrates, flavors and flavoring additives.
Pancakes, cabbage rolls, pizza
In this case, it’s a little easier, since you can see the pizza filling yourself. The only danger is how high-quality the products the manufacturer has supplied and whether everything is in order with their expiration date.
As for pancakes, ensuring that there is, for example, meat inside the dough is just as problematic as in the version with dumplings.
Of course, there will be something “meat-containing,” but what it is is an open question. It’s the same story with cabbage rolls: what the cabbage leaf hides is a matter of the manufacturer’s conscience.
How are semi-finished products harmful to your figure?
In the modern world, people try to make their lives easier by inventing various gadgets, household appliances, etc., this also applies to food products. Today, in almost any store you can buy semi-finished products: cutlets, dumplings, dumplings, cheesecakes, pancakes, and so on. After all, it’s so easy to put it in a frying pan, a few minutes and dinner is ready, this is an ideal solution for lazy or busy people. But every coin has two sides, so the ease of preparing semi-finished products is completely negated by their harm to health and figure.
Products with a surprise
If we consider the composition of semi-finished products, the information is not at all encouraging. Such products contain a lot of unhealthy fats and light carbohydrates, as well as salt and flavor enhancers, all of which negatively affect the health and figure of any person. For example, homemade cutlets made from minced chicken can be considered a completely dietary dish, since only natural and low-calorie ingredients were used for their preparation. What cannot be said about cutlets bought in a supermarket, such cutlets certainly contain a lot of fat and soy, which means that the calorie content of such a product is off the charts.
Convenience foods contain monosodium glutamate, which is essentially a carcinogen, and its effect on the body leads to disastrous results. In addition, dyes and stabilizers contained in semi-finished products negatively affect the immune system and also cause various allergic reactions. If you eat such foods often, then after a while your health will deteriorate significantly.
Harm of the most popular semi-finished products
Dumplings.
Even homemade dumplings are harmful to the figure, since they combine meat and dough, and this combination is difficult to digest in the stomach. In store-bought dumplings you can find plant-based and even genetically modified protein, and it will have a negative impact not only on your figure, but also on your health.
Semi-finished meat or fish products, for example, cutlets, cabbage rolls, etc.
Unscrupulous producers add a lot of lard, vegetable protein, and fat to such meat.
All this will certainly affect your health and figure. Food additives used in processed foods
If you see the following additives in foods, do not buy them under any circumstances:
- In addition to semi-finished products, Sodium Nitrate is found in bacon, sausages and sausages. This carcinogen can cause cancer.
- Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) can also be found in chewing gum, chips, crackers, and breakfast cereals. These oxidants negatively affect the human body and contribute to the occurrence of cancer.
- In addition to semi-finished products, Propyl Gallate can be added to soups and instant noodles. This supplement can also lead to cancer.
- Monosodium glutamate is an additive that enhances the taste and smell of not only semi-finished products, but also other products. Eating such food causes headaches, nausea and problems with the nervous system. In addition, glucamate is addictive, and natural products will seem completely tasteless to you.
- Aspartame is necessary to make the product sweet. This supplement can cause diarrhea, problems with the nervous system, as well as more severe consequences.
Down with laziness
We hope you understand that processed foods are not a good choice for nutrition. Therefore, prepare your own food using only natural products. It is best to bake the meat in the oven, so the dish will be dietary and very tasty. Steam also to preserve all the beneficial substances.
Vegetable semi-finished products
Probably the safest and even useful of all of the above.
Most often they are presented as ready-to-eat, after defrosting, chopped vegetables and fruits or mixtures of them.
They can also be vegetable envelopes (stuffed cabbage rolls).
The only danger with such food is that some manufacturers treat vegetables with special chemical solutions that may be unsafe for health.
However, fresh vegetables and fruits from the market are not immune to pesticides and nitrates.
Are they useful?
In modern media you can find many convincing arguments why processed foods should not be consumed under any circumstances? But are they any use? We answer: undoubtedly, there is. And the first thing that comes to mind is the liberation of women from kitchen duties. Today, in order to prepare a chicken cutlet, the fair sex does not have to run to the barn to catch the chicken, cut it, pluck it, carve it, prepare minced meat and, finally, fry it. Now this whole process takes a few minutes, and the woman has time for herself and her family.
Cutlets
The choice of semi-finished products is so wide that you can easily prepare both the first and second, and an excellent dessert. Compared to other “fast food”, they, of course, win, surpassing dry sandwiches or street hot dogs in health. But semi-finished products also have significant disadvantages.
The benefits and harms of semi-finished products - what you need to know before eating
The category of “semi-finished products” includes a large number of different products. They differ in the method of preparation:
- Freezing.
- Drying.
- Canning.
Such products, which have already gone through the most labor-intensive stages of preparation, have gained great popularity and the demand for them is only growing.
Semi-finished products are very convenient for busy working housewives. Products often don’t even need to be cooked; sometimes it’s enough just to warm them up - this is their undoubted advantage: they free the housewife from the long step-by-step process of cooking.
The benefits and harms of semi-finished products
The safest type is frozen vegetables, fruits and berries; they can be consumed without fear. They can only pose a danger after repeated defrosting and freezing, but this is not allowed in trade and will inevitably affect the appearance of the berries and pieces of fruit.
But regarding meat and fish semi-finished products there is no such confidence. Natural questions arise regarding their composition: it is not clear what is added to them and whether such food will cause harm.
When choosing, you need to carefully study the packaging: it should indicate the composition and contacts of the manufacturer. The packaging should not be torn, heavily wrinkled or sealed. The price set for this product will say a lot. Meat cutlets cannot be cheap, and if the price is suspiciously low, then most likely there is little or no meat there. Perhaps the semi-finished product is soy or made from meat production waste.
As for the freezing method, there are currently two of them: traditional (stage-by-stage) and shock. The latter has more advantages: products are frozen as quickly as possible, at low temperatures, during which time the taste and value of the products does not have time to change.
But even successfully purchased high-quality frozen cutlets still contain many undesirable additives: preservatives, dyes, seasonings, flavor enhancers, sugar and salt. After consuming such a mixture, you feel heaviness, irritation of the gastric mucosa, and a serious load on the kidneys.
As a result, you can get an exacerbation of chronic diseases of the digestive system and banal edema.
Some permitted foods, such as starch, promote mucus formation. It, in turn, is deposited on the intestinal walls, is difficult to excrete, and interferes with the normal course of metabolism and the functioning of the endocrine system. A large amount of starch in the body is not beneficial at all: it is fraught with the appearance of diabetes.
Instant noodles, which also belong to semi-finished products, are made from premium flour, depleted in vitamins and micronutrients, and contain a huge number of different flavoring additives. This is a very unhealthy food that does not contain any necessary components. But such food is capable of forming a dangerous form of food addiction.
Plant proteins, contained instead of healthy meat proteins, lack essential amino acids and are essentially “empty food”.
The method of bringing the semi-finished product to readiness is also important: if the product needs to be fried, this is the worst option.
The most dangerous thing about processed foods is the presence of hydrogenated fat. It's even found in pasta, although it's often not listed as an ingredient. Meanwhile, it poses a real danger to the body.
