Processing food is a method of production.About 40% of the global population is overweight or obese, and experts say that processed foods are largely to blame.A meta-study published in the British Medical Journal on February 28, 2024, concluded that "greater exposure to ultra-processed food was associated with a higher risk of adverse health outcomes, especially cardiometabolic, common mental disorder, and mortality outcomes." Processed foods can be any kind of food that has been altered in production. It can be food that's had vitamins or coloring added, or food that's been made safe for human consumption, such as pasteurized milk. Strictly speaking, a freshly-baked loaf of organic whole grain bread is processed, because the individual ingredients have been altered in the baking process. But we still tend to say that "processed foods" are bad for us, when in fact it depends on the extent to which the foods have been processed.Ultra-processed food is an industrially created food, derived from natural and/or synthesized foods.