Will processed foods hurt performance?

Demonizing processed foods and promoting all organic choices in the pursuit of athletic performance shows a complete lack of understanding of sports nutrition.

Don’t let influencers scare you away from “processed foods”. Almost everything you eat is in some way processed.

Her is how the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics defines processed foods:

"Processed food" includes food that has been cooked, canned, frozen, packaged or changed in nutritional composition with fortifying, preserving or preparing in different ways. Any time we cook, bake or prepare food, we're processing food.

Organic, free range, “all natural”, grass fed and other marketing terms are often meaningless as there are no additive health benefits to foods with these designations. And there’s definitely no evidence to suggest it will improve athletic performance. Shit, if we are gonna play the anecdote game then there’s a plethora of elite athletes that are evidence McDonalds is the ultimate performance enhancer.

There’s also an implied classism within these proclamations as they infer a moral imperative to what one can afford.

If you make these choices for taste or ethical reasons that’s fine. Just don’t think it’s any healthier or better for performance. I personally spend way too much on eggs just bc I like the taste of free range eggs from the local farms but I would never suggest others to do so.

The basics will always apply. Eat sufficient protein. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables of varying colors. Eat enough calories to support your training. That’s it.