I've written about Ultra-processed Food before, and after learning about the concept I have been more intentional about my food choices, particularly around lunchtime, when I regularly buy ready-to-eat from the supermarket. It's hard to find whole-foods in the ready-to-eat category, and particularly in the snack
category if you want something other than fruit. But—peanuts! These are basically like crisps, but healthier, and whole foods, right?
It turns out that you have to look closely. Naïvely, I expected that dry-roasted
peanuts would a healthier choice than the salted
peanuts that were also on offer. After all, there's salt right in the name! But looking at the ingredients and nutritional information, it turns out not only that dry-roasted
peanuts are a UPF with 20 ingredients, where salted
peanuts only have 3 ingredients (peanuts, sunflower oil, salt), but also that dry-roasted
peanuts contain more salt than the salted
.
THBAPSA