Not necessarily. It's well established the better alternative/compromise would be for us (northerners) to mostly eat exotic fruits that have been deep frozen locally, as soon as reaped. Unlike canned fruits they retain all their nutritional qualities, don't require additives, travel better and for cheaper (and without the % of losses) and, if it's done right, they're good and have a decent texture.

And yes, it might mean making compromises about how you use them in the kitchen, and to eat more local fresh fruits when they're in season when we can, and when possible store some up for winter.

Part of the problem is the obsession with getting "fresh produce" all through the year that's anything but fresh (and may not be all that natural either... dyes, preservatives, stuff to make them glossy, the texture destroyed because they've been kept at a certain temperature to slow rippening for weeks) ... and a simple trip to the south to eat the real thing also show they're not so great in taste either. It's often as simple as realizing that a strawberry shortcake isn't a good choice in January if you live in Vermont and it's better to make a cake with a coulis made from frozen strawberries instead, or better yet, to use stored up apples and wait June for the strawberries.

The other obsession to fight is "plastic perfection". People are more and more out of touch with real food and what it ought to look like. Those oranges get dyed not because people have developed totally unreasonable expectations about the appearance of such fruits, wanting them to be of uniform sizes and shapes and colors, and to meet those ridiculous standards without massive losses, the producers have no choice to cheat. A fair percentage of the produce end up being processed (for juice, for e.g.) as it can't meet the standards for selling fresh, which inflates the prices of the fresh produce (making it appear as the alternative as the best quality, to many!) People are stunned to learn things like they're beloved mini-carrots are actually larger carrots mechanically cut into mini-carrots. Etc.

A very good book to read (if you can find it in a library, because it's basically too expensive to buy) is Modernist Cuisine. The first volume as an in-depth and very scientific survey about "processed food" (a little frightening, but it also dispels some myths.. if often myths about stuff considered proven that scientifically really isn't).

There's also plenty of absurd trends. Those shredded carrots and prepared lettuce and mixes can be very dangerous. Should a small quantity be contaminated with salmonella, during process the fact they've been grated and shredded would spread it to very large batches, and they're typically eaten raw, often considered already washed! It's very often with this type of products and with so-called "bio" products that contamination problems have surfaced. Science had brought sanitation to good standards, and now new risks are introduced by processing food mechanically for which there's really no good reason but laziness (not to get into the whole thing about kitchen skills having regressed so much that it takes people forever to accomplish the simplest tasks, or to the big amounts of time lost slavishly following recipes for simple dishes because people no longer understand what they're doing).

The worst is that so many people no longer limit themselves to buying heavily processed food for the really time consuming stuff (like bread, though it's possibly not such a good idea) but for nearly everything. People will go up in arms because the most harmless natural red dye used in a smoothie is a bug, or would be horrified seeing a pig head in a butcher shop, but they will eat totally gross abominations like hot dogs without a fuss.

Of course, to each his own. But we have yet to see the first generation who basically ate processed food, heavy in sugar, sodium and additives for all their lives grow old.