People don't understand that basic task like washing is "processing" the food and can be frustrating when talking to them about this subject.
That's not about understanding, that's deliberate obfuscation. If people cannot (or don't want to) distinguish between a faucet and a blender, there is no further discussion to be had.
I don't know if that is true when speaking to the general public about this. They usually think processed food means toxic chemicals were added.
Certain podcasters/influences/etc are absolutely misleading people either for the views or to sell people a "detox" tea they can drop ship from China.
Food that is merely washed might be processed, but is not ultra-processed according to the Nova classification [1]. There's an actual criteria that's being applied in these studies that concern ultra-processed food.