Something that has been mushed up from its original form to the point of being unrecognizable, bonus points for a bunch of different things mixed together, extra bonus points for containing things that were once in a big reaction vat.
Flour is like the granddaddy of all processed foods. Yes, it is processed. Modern nutrition studies tend to suck, because they are laughably narrow. Flour is probably the biggest thing we have been capable of studying on a population scale. Throughout history, flour has made many populations unhealthy and fat.
Olive oil is hugely controversial. Don't expect an answer on that.
Processing foods tends to remove the stuff which is good for you. That's why "whole" grain is advocated. You would do even better to selectively eat the wheat germ! So let me make the controversial but empirically true statement that it's possible to make a food more healthy by processing it. The reason processed foods are bad is because of our taste bud and business incentives.
That's why it's extremely problematic to focus on food processing, as opposed to an underlying nutrient understanding. The first thing that goes when we process foods is the fiber, and this is missing nutrient number 1 in the American diet.
As long we lack an ability to talk about the truly root issues with diet, reducing processed foods will do nothing (given sufficient time). Companies will figure out a way to call something unprocessed, but still give the same bad composition of nutrients.
Maybe olive oil, without doing much research, might be an exception where it is not harmful, as long as you know where it is coming from and has not been adulterated or diluted.
One of the problem with processed food is that it allows large quantities, which often means lower quality. Also, you don't see what it's actually being made of.
For example, in the olives article, it cited an instance of sub-standard, damaged olives being used to make olive oil
Even beyond that, it has lots of omega-6s. This is supposed to be competitive in cell chemistry with omega-3s, and the ratio is massively tilted in the omega-6 direction today.
And there's always the anti-fat faction. It's also a high calorie-density food. Like many of these topics, some people will argue that calorie density is irrelevant, but other people will disagree with them.
Ok, fine, but do you realize you stepped in to make a clarification for what other commenter might have meant by "processed" where that commenter (ChuckNorris89) explicitly said to both: 1. not eat processed food, 2. eat pasta and olive oil?
