Comment by Broken_Hippo

I think commonly, processed doesn't mean so much "flour you didnt grind at home", but more "these meats have been ground and mixed with spices and cured" or "they made the speghetti sauce at the factory" or "artificial flavorings and lots of added sugar!".

Not all processing is bad, per se: Factories can make red sauce pretty darn healthy if they want. But what usually happens is that the sauces are filled with a good deal of fat, salt, and sugar along with other things you'd never actually put in food at home (not all of which are bad, but some are misleading - food coloring, for example). They do this because... well, they researched this and found there are 'bonus taste points' if they have the right combination of flavors and feels.

And there is a lot of politics and lobbying to keep the labels more confusing and to use special ingredient names so people don't really know what is in it. Sometimes even when you are trying to avoid something, it is really difficult to figure it all out.

And really, what would probably be needed is some sort of push for healthier processed foods without the weird ingredients. Some things will probably always be bad in excess - cured meats, for example, but we can do better with the others.