Hello Mary!
I understand what you mean and I agree. But in some countries, This processed food is simply cheaper. And I don't mean junk food, but processed flours, sugar, and red meat. Precisely due to the type of mass production of these foods, not organic and industrialized, they are cheaper. Even when some of us have notions of what is best for our body and what we should consume, some of us live in developing countries, countries with severe economic crises like mine, or whose minimum salaries are less than $ 5 a month (the case from my country) it is difficult to try to maintain a healthy pattern of food consumption.
From vegan I had to go vegetarian; and as a vegetarian I just had to go back to a diet that included chicken and fish. Although for me it was not that difficult (after 2 years of veganism and 6 of vegetarianism), for my 7-year-old daughter, a vegetarian by birth, it was. But the most difficult thing for both of them was to stop consuming local handcrafted foods (such as casabe, a kind of very thin and firm cassava bread, and cachapas, a kind of pancake made with ground sweet corn) and increase the flour in our diet. of processed corn, with which we prepare our traditional arepas.
Although we have never consumed sugar in abundance, processed flours do their job, perhaps not as aggressive as sugar, but just as harmful.
I loved your article.
Regards