Fresh fruits from the market, vegetables straight from the farm, and hot bread from the bakery have long been associated with healthy eating. But in today's fast-paced world, packaged bread, ready-to-eat meals, frozen vegetables, and other packaged foods have become a part of everyday life for millions of people. Now, a recent video of Sadhguru has sparked a fresh conversation about whether these foods are really good for us.
Sadhguru's Packaged Food Warning Goes Viral
In the video, Sadhguru claimed that most packaged food people consume today is already one to three months old. He suggested that such foods can make people feel sluggish and sleepy because they are no longer "alive." While his comments have gone viral on social media, nutrition experts say the issue is far more complex.
Talking about modern eating habits, Sadhguru compared packaged food with fresh produce and questioned how fresh the food people consume really is. He said, "Most of the food that you eat is at least 1-3 months old. Nobody is even expecting warm bread anymore." He goes on to say that eating packaged food increases your body's inertia and causes you to sleep more and more. "If you go on a fruit diet for a week, suddenly you will see that easily 1-2 hours of sleep will get cut down simply because it's fresh and alive," he said.
According to him, eating fresh fruits and freshly prepared meals helps the body function better, while older packaged foods create "inertia," making people feel lazy or sleepy. His comments encourage people to choose fresh, natural foods more often.
Fresh Food Is Always Better, Says Nutritionist
Clinical nutritionist Rupali Datta agrees that freshly prepared meals made with seasonal ingredients should always be the first preference. "True, food cooked with fresh ingredients which are seasonal is the best blueprint for healthy eating. While packaged food, ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat foods may be safe as per food standards, nothing replaces fresh," she says.
According to dietitian and certified diabetes educator Archana Batra, while whole foods is a great habit, it is not correct to say that all packaged or refrigerated foods are "dead" or that they will make people sleepy. Batra says the nutritional quality of food depends much more on what it contains, how it is processed, and its overall nutrient profile than simply how long it has been stored.
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Experts point out that not all packaged foods fall into the same category. For example, pasteurised milk, yoghurt, frozen fruits, frozen vegetables, whole-grain bread, oats, and canned beans are all packaged foods. They are processed mainly to improve food safety, increase shelf life, and reduce food waste. And that doesn't necessarily make them bad.
Does Packaged Food Really Make You Sleep More?
According to Archana Batra, there is no strong scientific evidence showing that packaged foods themselves increase sleep requirements or make people consistently feel sluggish.
Instead, feeling sleepy after eating is usually caused by factors like eating very large meals, poor hydration or lack of proper sleep. Similarly, Batra says there is no reliable scientific evidence that switching to only fresh fruits for a week will reduce a person's sleep requirement by one to two hours.
Despite the debate, both experts agree that eating more fresh food is always a good idea.