This is an argument commonly raised in favor of a whole food diet: if what you're buying is recognizable, there's less room for tampering. Buying an apple, the

This is an argument commonly raised in favor of a whole food diet: if what you're buying is recognizable, there's less room for tampering. Buying an apple, there could be pesticide residue on the skin, but buying applesauce, goodness knows what they put in there, intentionally or otherwise. And in fact, this is advice I've encountered when buying spices (which tends to be international and a lot of middlemen): buy whole to reduce the chances of adulteration. Whole cinnamon is hard to fake; ground cinnamon could contain literally anything. While no defense is perfect, and you'd generally like to know and trust the source of your food (and this is an important piece of the puzzle), preferring things in a visually verifiable whole format does offer a way to limit the possible or likely damage. It works in restaurants, too: you can order an unadorned steak, and might still worry about peanut oil residue from the grill, but it beats ordering stir fry and wondering what the abundant gloopy sauce is made of and if the cook even fully knows or if he gets it out of a can too.