Megan Kimble ate only unprocessed foods for a year.

I’m here because of tomatoes. Six months earlier, I committed to a year of unprocessed eating, one in which I’d explore how we process food — locally and industrially, individually and collectively. I’d prepared my own flour, sugar, wine, salt, milk and meat. And now, in the heat of Tucson’s tomato season, I wanted to learn how to preserve food for the coming winter without the help of cold storage.

As it turned out, it would take me most of the year to figure out what makes food processed. With a few exceptions — say, a raw, foraged mushroom — all food has undergone some processing, by way of harvest, packaging or heat, before landing on our plates. Often, that’s a good thing.

But increasingly, it is not. If we understand the difference between an apple and a bag of Chex Mix, and if that difference matters for the health of our bodies and the environment, then the question of what makes a food too processed also matters.

I had to start somewhere, so I began with the belief that a food was unprocessed if I could theoretically make it in my home kitchen. I could — and did — grind wheat berries into flour, though I couldn’t take that flour and sift out its endosperm and bleach it into fluffy whiteness. I could gather honey and grind nuts into butter, but I wouldn’t refine sugar, stock up on chemicals or mix emulsifiers.

I am lucky that I can choose to spend $20 every week at my local farmers market, but ultimately, the best way to make fresh, local, organic foods more accessible is to rewrite the farm bill, the legislation that supported industrial growers of corn, cotton, wheat, rice and soybeans to the tune of 70 percent of total subsidies between 1995 and 2010. The reason organic broccoli costs more than processed corn is because, for the most part, our government doesn’t subsidize organic broccoli growers. Still, that doesn’t mean consumers don’t have responsibility. The money we spend on food has the power to change the way the system works — or perpetuate the status quo.

For me, eating unprocessed food has become routine. Four years later, my diet is still about 90 percent unprocessed. I feel better, stronger and fuller. And I’ve found a sense of community in the place I live. While it’s true that dollars spent on local businesses are dollars withheld from unaccountable corporations, it’s also true that spending money better can make for a more lovely Sunday morning — and a more delicious Sunday dinner.