In Defense of Processed Food

An iconoclastic celebration of canned, packaged, and preserved foods.

By turns a scientific, feminist, and economic critique, this book gleefully attacks received wisdom about the dangers of processed food. Anastacia Marx de Salcedo argues that, in fact, most processed foods are relatively healthy and that their consumption is an undisputed boon to women’s equality--since the burdens of cooking disproportionately fall on women. In de Salcedo’s account, processed foods take too much blame for the negative effects of modern sedentary life, and alternative food systems are doomed to economic dysfunction. Ultimately, de Salcedo embraces the preserved foods in her pantry and encourages the reader to do the same.

Anastacia Marx de Salcedo is a public health consultant and writer, whose features and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, Salon, Slate, and Vice, and on PBS and NPR blogs. Her books include Eat Like a Pig, Run Like a Horse. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts