Republicans have long been an anti-science party, rejecting and legislating against climate science, fluoridation, the Big Bang, and evolution. This decade, they have expanded their nefarious net by combatting vaccines, Pasteurization, and our subject for this post, processed foods.

Like many lightning rod terms, processed foods is largely undefined – though it should properly include many traits that those who putatively oppose them would be OK with. This includes the food being smoked, cured, salted, dried, frozen, or pickled.

One particular food that was singled out for demonization this year was veggie burgers. But it wasn’t just the meat that was fake, it was the studies, found Vox reporter Marina Bolotnikova.

The claim emerged from a study on plant-based “ultra-processed” foods by nutrition researchers at the University of São Paulo and Imperial College London. However, plant-based meats represented just .2 percent of the calories consumed in this study. Also of note, the likes of Impossible and Beyond Burgers were not yet a thing when these studies were conducted.

Ultra-processed food is an undefined term, but the presumption is that anything so called is bad and needs to be avoided and likely regulated, if not banned. While a pet project of RFK Jr. (Does he really get to be the one Kennedy who gets to live?), the foods were originally attacked by far-left Earthy types before becoming a MAGA magnet.

Bolotnikova writes that the scientists who work to construct dietary guidelines determined that there was scant evidence to support the study’s claim. This will do little to assuage those who see not a food product but a poison foisted upon us by a faceless, uncaring behemoth.

Of course, a healthy diet will consist of fruits instead of Fruity Pebbles, protein over Pop-Tarts, and calcium rather than cake. But automatically consigning all foods that are anything but all-natural into the boogeyman category is unwise and unjustified.

Bolotnikova quoted Harvard epidemiology and nutrition professor Walter Willett, who said, “You look at these papers, and it’s still very hard to pin down what the definition really is. Bolotnikova added, “It’s a concept prone to illogical free association, lumping together Cheetos with ultra-healthy fermented beans.”

A process is merely a way of doing things, so a food being processed is not by itself a good or bad thing. Bolotnikova notes that Twinkies and Oreos are unhealthy because they’ve been processed in a way that replaces valuable nutrients with sugar and fructose. contrast, a food could be processed in a way that added nutrients and vitamins. Indeed, Bolotnikova notes that healthy options such as whole-grain bread and tofu fall under the demonized ultra-processed umbrella.

Consigning a huge swath of foods to an evil and poorly-defined category makes it easier for Kennedy and other charlatans to attack them, lambaste those who feed it to their children, and to call for bans, regardless of where the evidence points.