I find myself on campaign against the basic building blocks of these stupid diets. I want the words "chemical" and "processed" to be expunged from non-technical language. In their casual usage, they don't mean anything.
I even see advice in the health section of the NY Times on avoiding chemicals and processed foods. WTF? As if everything you've ever put in your mouth wasn't 100% chemicals. And what is processing? Doing something to something. Heating. Grinding. Straining. Thickening. Separating. Refining. Preserving. Aging. Fermenting. Everything we've been doing to food to make it more digestible or long-lasting or to taste better or to have fun with it for the last 10,000 to 100,000 years. Few foods are more processed than wine. Or chocolate. Or coffee. Or whisky. A Big Mac doesn't see a fraction of the processes of these foods.
If you want to cut down on McDonalds, find a better descriptor than "processed." It's meaningless. Even if I tease out what you think you mean, that meaning will be inaccurate. McDonalds isn't bad because it's processed, it's bad because it sucks.
["Sucks" might need some clarification for someone who was born recently, or who has only just landed on our planet. But at least a logically coherent definition is possible.]
End rant.
