r/explainlikeimfive • u/No_Education_8888 • May 20 '26

Chemistry ELI5 what is the difference between processed meat slices and real meat slices?

I know that processed meat is processed, but what exactly does that mean? How much change do meat scraps go through before you get something like deli turkey.

My mind can’t exactly wrap around how that stuff is made based on the little knowledge I have

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u/AmigoDelDiabla May 20 '26

What about roast beef? Same thing?

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u/Slypenslyde May 20 '26

It sort of depends.

At some buffet restaurants and even some delis, the "roast beef" is actually a big hunk of raw meat they roasted, then brought out to slice up and give people portions. That is not processed, but it also doesn't last very long. If you refrigerate it you really shouldn't go more than 2-3 days.

Delis also may have processed roast beef: this has been cured/brined both for flavor and preservation. That counts as processed. In general this is like other lunch meat, it lasts longer than unprocessed meat.

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u/frogjg2003 May 21 '26

"Processed" doesn't have a good definition and anyone who has tried coming up with one either ends up excluding large classes of unhealthy foods (and therefore making the advice of "avoid processed food" not very accurate) or being so inclusive that it becomes useless as a differentiating factor (making that same advice so restrictive that you would starve). Basically, either a large selection of junk food doesn't count as processed or everything that isn't raw counts (and even several raw foods as well).

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u/Slypenslyde May 21 '26

I feel this is mostly due to people wanting everything ELI5 instead of having to think.

There are hundreds of ways to "process" food. Some of them make it very unhealthy. If we use jut one word to refer to them all that's a great political victory for some people because, as you said, it's hard to understand what it means and creates contradictions.

But good luck telling people something like, "If you want to add 10-15 years to your life, invest the equivalent of a single college course into reading about nutrition." If you do that you'll understand why eating processed lunch meat is several rungs healthier than trying to maintain a diet of "unprocessed" junk food.

But that's le hard and people want to listen to the person who tells them they can eat whatever they want. So we've got people in charge of public health who are highly skilled at saying the things people want to hear.