Most people are aware of the fact that the unprocessed whole plant-based diet is a highly nutritious option. It covers an extensive range of ingredients in the form of vegetables, lentils, soy, fruits, nuts, seeds, and several others. All vegans want to be successful in following a strict yet somewhat flexible diet pattern to stay healthy. Still there comes a point to drawing a line between something healthy and unhealthy. If you somewhere think eating potato chips, quinoa puffs , or nachos is unhealthy, then know something relevant about processed foods.
Processed food is any packed item that has a series of mechanical or chemical operations performed inside. It is done not to change the flavor and preserve the life of a product for a long-lasting time. Most commonly, processed food is available in canned, frozen, packet, packaged, or cooked forms with having fortifying nutritional composition. An extensive range of processed foods including plant-based snacks are available in packets, boxes, jars, cartons, or bags.
One of the things that matter the most is not all processed food items are unhealthy. Products having least to no chemical composition are nutritious and simple to include in your vegan diet pattern. Thus, it is flexible for you to include packaged food on a vegan diet to stay nutritious.
As already mentioned, not all processed items belong to the unhealthy category. There are certain factors that you can consider to know the nutritional capacity of vegan snack items.
* Buy Minimally Processed Food: Certain plant-based snacks are processed minimally to the extent of limited preservation levels. For example, you can lay hands on bagged spinach, roasted nuts, plantain tostones , cut vegetables, and some more products.
* Foods with Additional Ingredients: Additional flavors for sweetness, spicy, colors, and preservatives are added to several processed food items. You can avoid eating such snacks by reading the composition on the back of the packet.
* Read to Eat Items: In most cases, some ready-to-eat snacks like granola and crackers are highly processed in nature. However, exceptions are always there in the form of quinoa puffs that are least processed.
One of the easiest ways to determine if processed food is healthy or not, read the label and food contents carefully. It may sound like an old-fashioned way to know the ingredients of vegan snacks but still works every time. This is a skill that clears your doubt about consuming a nutritious or unhealthy food item.
There is a list of ingredients present on the food label of snacks. Just look at the highest amount of nutrition in a particular section and rely on the same. If you see signs of overloaded sugar, oil, fats, and carbohydrates, products are not meant for you.
Also, look at the levels of sodium and fiber in the food content section of the vegan snacks. It is essential to have low-fat content, higher fiber, and protein contents inside the processed product that claim to be healthy.
Another consideration to look after when buying processed food items is the list of additives involved. Many times, products have added colors, aroma, flavorings, and thickeners inside to enhance the taste. In reality, such additives diminish the required nutrition of plant-based snacks that you expect to consume in your diet.
Specifically, the unsweetened almond milk pack contains filtered water, almonds, potassium citrate, sea salt, gellan gum, and other additives to enhance the taste. On the other side, the Ojas Vegan brand offers no additives-made healthy crunchy snacks for all vegans.
Not many people are aware of the fact that increasing the amount of fiber-rich food content can lead to health improvements. As you increase the fiber intake, your metabolism syndrome goes down, and feel less inflammation inside. The increased dietary fiber-rich food results in lowering the risk of diseases and enhanced set of energy. So, whenever you try to lay your hands on processed vegan snacks, make sure to buy fiber-rich one.
Here is the list of a few healthy processed food to add to your vegan diet pattern without thinking about oil, sugar, fats, or additives.
* Non-dairy milk
* Plantain tostones
* Frozen fruits and veggies
* Wholegrain pasta, cereal, and tortillas
* Tofu, tempeh, soy curls, and seitan
* Nut butter
* Canned beans
* Vinegar
* Sauces & flavorings like mustard, tamari, vanilla, cacao, etc.
* Molasses, date sugar, and syrup.
Eating vegan snacks in the form of processed food must be done after knowing the ingredients and nutritional content. There is no point in consuming packed snacks without knowing the fat, sugar, cholesterol, and other unhealthy things inside. Rely on cholesterol-free, sugar-free, and fat-free products of Ojas Vegan to meet little hunger cravings.
