>>1216 (OP)
My opinion is that you should "Buy it from sources you 'know' they dont' fuck with it,". In the US, anything that is 'certified organic' isn't fucked with, but that "certified" part drives the price up because certifications are a bureaucratic extra.
As for food being fucked with, here's what I've heard (USA-based info):
>Coffee
Mass-produced coffee (Foldgers, maxwell house, etc) is typically overcooked as fuck. the "dark" or "french roast" stands for "fucking charred to inedible bullshit,". The best coffee I've ever had was from a local brewer in a tourist-trap type-town. Our city also has several roasters, but for some reason one is run by a hippie who allows his workers to work barefoot, and another I stopped going to because they openly joined the woke club two years ago.
>Grain-foods and oats
Heard something about machine oils and chemicals leeching into it because "factory conditions". Don't know much else. When in doubt, buy in bulk from local sources or find the versions that are unprocessed as possible.
>Meats
Years ago, I heardbig box stores putting sawdust into ground beef, not sure if it's like that now.
>Fish
Heard a rumor that big box stores were dyeing their salmon meat to make it look more appealing.
>Milk and butter
If the concern is Bovine Growth Hormone and other shit like that. I would avoid big box stores (walmart, sam's club, costco), they're well up there for following profit creep and either putting shady shit in or cutting shit to get that new increase.
Butter and heavy cream are expensive anyway. which sucks, because it feels like butter never needed to be expensive.
>Chips
Not much I know about other than "consistently fucked and abused by The Grocery Shrink Ray". I heard some schizo-rumor about corn chips having some kind of fetus-based hormone that gets people addicted to them, but I think it more has to do with their own eating habits.
>Cheese
Block cheese is a lot less sketchy than shredded. It lasts longer too.
I don't know how to feel about the "American cheese is not actually cheese" thing. If we're talking about what cheese is technically defined as, then it's a cultured milk that has solidified into a hard state that can be melted at temperatures. and if it says has milk in it, then it's likely a real cheese. The question is "what the fuck is it when it isn't curdled milk?" calling it a "cheese product" is just disingenuous.
Also, for most cottage cheeses, you can actually let them go a few weeks past their date. heard that from a rando who worked in a dairy farm.
>Yogurt
In my opinion, grocery store yogurt sucks dick. Most of the ~$1.00 yogurt cups you see at grocery stores are basically flavorless fruit puddings with no probiotic benefits. Dannon is the worst, activia doesn't even have live cultures in it. Greek yogurt and skyr can be used as starter cultures for your own yogurt, but in general, thermophilic cultures yield a lot less actual yogurt per gallon of milk, and the store-bought ones get chalky and gross over time if you try to reculture them repeatedly.
Personally, I've been having great results with heirloom mesophilic yogurts. and when you culture those, you can keep some in the freezer as starter cubes, melt them in the fridge overnight, and then culture them throughout the day. Plus, what you put in as milk is what you get out as yogurt.
>Bread
Uncle Scooby really really 'really' doesn't like store-bought bread. I don't blame him either. Every bread I've made by hand, no matter if it's using grocery store ingredients is always at least ten times better than the crap bread you get in grocery stores. Maybe a proper baker's bread would be better but that gets pretty expensive if you're not baking it.
Speaking of bread, what's a good ratio of bread flour to ground-up oats for a more-fibrous bread?
>Other info
Look up "The Wolfe Pit" on youtube. He does a lot of good "trying shitty grocery store foods for the sake of views and science,", and recipes for those on shoestring budgets.