“Political category” seems, a bit strong? Like, sure, the literal meaning of “processed” is not what people are trying to get at. But, clearly, “those processing steps that are done today in the food production process which were not done N years ago” is a thing we can talk about. (by “processing step” I do not include things like “cleaning the equipment”, just steps which are intended to modify the ingredients in some particular way. So, things like, hydrogenation. This also shall not be construed as indicating that I think all steps that were done N years ago were better than steps done today.)
“Political category” seems, a bit strong? Like, sure, the literal meaning of “processed” is not what people are trying to get at. But, clearly, “those processing steps that are done today in the food production process which were not done N years ago” is a thing we can talk about. (by “processing step” I do not include things like “cleaning the equipment”, just steps which are intended to modify the ingredients in some particular way. So, things like, hydrogenation. This also shall not be construed as indicating that I think all steps that were done N years ago were better than steps done today.)