Avoiding Ultra-Processed Foods Thread anyone?

[Treezan82]

I watched the recent documentary on Ultra-Processed foods and just generally would like to improve my health. Anyone else?

We already eat a lot of home-cooked food and make our own pasta sauces etc but def still room for improvement.

Some obvious swaps I plan to make:

Frozen pizza - home made pizza
Frozen nuggets - home made nuggets
Bake cake or biscuits at the weekend and that's it - don't buy any of the packaged stuff

Some things I'm stuck on:

Kids' breakfast. They love toast and cereal and both are full of unpronounceable ingredients. They love fruit too but need something else to fill them up.

Yoghurts - again, kids love them but are there any brands that aren't so full of crap?

Noodles - we just eat plain ones as part of home cooked recipes but even they contain potassium carbonate.

Would love to hear your swaps/alternatives/healthy, veggie-packed recipes!

Sorry, don't know where my paragraphs went...

There was an interesting thread about the program in Telly Addicts

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/4256432-Did-anyone-watch-What-are-we-feeding-our-kids-on-BBC1?msgid=107924926

Natural yoghurt might be worth a try? It won’t taste as sweet as most yoghurts, but you could try adding in some fresh / frozen fruit (defrosted first).

Or porridge. You just need porridge oats and milk / water. Cooking porridge only takes a couple of minutes in the microwave. Again, you can add fruit or seeds.

Eggs are also a breakfast option, but one that we never have time for on a school morning.

Yogurts- try Rachel’s or Yeo. Much better than petits filous

Toast - bread should contain flour, water, yeast and salt. If you buy a fresh loaf from the bakery section of a supermarket it shouldn't be heavily processed. Or if you don't have a bakery nearby, when you do find one, buy a few sliced loaves and store them in the freezer and then toast them a couple of slices at a time straight from freezer. Kids always prefer processed bread. You have to wean them off!

I’ve been looking through the stuff in our cupboards that I would call convenience foods. Many of the ready made sauces are absolutely fine - pasta and curry sauces are easily available without artificial ingredients. Chinese type sauces are worse. The ready made baked goods seem to be the biggest culprit in our house. Not surprising really when you think how long they last compared to homemade cakes and biscuits etc

I'll join. The same as you, we were pretty good but with 4 children under 10, we had got in to a bad habit of saying yes for ease and buying jars and packets where a few years ago I wouldn't. I am determined to get back to where we were a few years ago.
We already do a proper breakfast everyday, even if it's just fruit, yogurt and nuts. Home made granola is really easy and delicious.
I am going back to baking cakes and biscuits, family sized bags of plain crisps so they don't pick up a couple of bags a day, greek yogurt and honey, wedges instead of frozen chips and bread from the local bakery.
I've just stopped buying squash, cereal, cereal and snack type bars and frozen procesed food other than fish fingers as my asd daughter eats limited protein so I'm not cutting these out.

I am really struggling for quick lunches that the kids will eat that aren't really carb heavy, if anyone has ideas for those.

I think the key is planning and being organised. I guess I have the luxury of time, being at home with the kids but it's really highlighted how convenient these foods are.

I also make my own sauces, seasoning, etc and trying to avoid most processed foods, didn't watch that show though.

I think one thing you need to get your head around to be successful is that you can't always find exact replacements, you really just need to eat some different foods. Not all processed foods are practical or easy to make at home.

My breakfast is quite often just oats, mashed up banana and some blueberries.

I wouldnt make my own yogurt but it's probably easier to find a kefir that's minimally processed with natural ingredients rather than yogurt and you're still getting your probiotics.

Snacks - fruits, nuts, seeds.

Meals lots of salads, cooked veg, fish/meat/lentils/beans, maybe a homemade sauce(maybe not bother), maybe rice or potatoes as a side rather than pasta or bread based dishes which are a little trickier.

I will make courgette noodles instead for pasta. I just bought a thing to make them for like £10.

I use lettuce for wraps instead of buying or making tortillas.

Occasionally still buy the odd processed thing but just try to find what has the most natural ingredients and try to limit my consumption... that way even though it's more expensive I'm eating it less often so I actually spend less money on it anyway.

I probably spend less money (i know you didn't ask about money) on food than most people.

Natural yoghurt with fruit mixed in is a good shout. I definitely think the kids will take some weaning - they love Rice Krispie Shapes at the moment... Weetabix will be a tough sell. For me and dh, I don't think we would miss the Ultra-Processed stuff per-se, it is more the time and organisation it will take to skip them out. I guess that's why they are called convenience food!

We recently made home made pizza and it was really nice to make with the kids - I think we will do it again but batch cook a few and freeze. We both work full time so we still need quick dinners.

Weetabix isn't great, it still has a fair amount of sugar in it. The only cereals that don't contain sugar are porridge oats, Shredded wheat and some mueslis (but you'd have to check the ingredients as lots have sugar and other things you wouldn't want).

I boil several eggs at once so we can have boiled eggs with toast for breakfast once a week rather than cereal.

@Taswama

I boil several eggs at once so we can have boiled eggs with toast for breakfast once a week rather than cereal.

That's a good idea but what bread do you use? Looking at the packaging of our usual Hovis Granary the bread is worse than the cereal!

I am trying to do the same. My children have been eating either bran flakes (not perfect but much more minimal processing than some things) or plain oats with natural yoghurt and pomegranate seeds on plus a drizzle of honey. Quite sweet all in all. My daughter has a nut allergy but if not you could add flaked almonds for additional sweetness.

As for snacks it’s hard to find a straight swap for crisps isn’t it. Interested to hear ideas on this one. I wonder how easy it is to make breadsticks?! I also hear you can cook potato skins in the oven (saves on waste too!)

I'd like to join in. I'm fairly conscientious and make most meals from scratch but it's a constant battle with the kids to minimise processed food at other times. Any tips for school lunches greatly recieved. They are the bane of my life!
For breakfast we make our own meusli - organic oats, mixed seeds, either dry or fresh fruit and yoghurt/homemade kefir. And the kids have crunchy nut cornflakes

Homemade cheese crackers and yummy and a good alternative to crisps and breadsticks. Easy to make with kids too.

if you're up for making your own bread then the Old Fashioned Sandwich Loaf recipe in Nigella's new book is really easy and makes great toast. I'm terrible at baking bread but this one works well.

Kids' lunches - I make welsh rarebit muffins, frittata, roast chicken drumsticks with salad.

we're pretty good food-wise. I don't use jars/pastes, make my own pizza, fish fingers etc (home-made fish fingers are so much nicer they're worth the faff) and have recently moved to salad-based lunches to reduce my bread consumption. I do need to sort out drinks though. Kids won't drink water so we get through loads of sugar-free squash, and as I'm on a bit of diet Pepsi Max is my current treat of choice.

Breakfast - I'm going to try to do porridge instead or cereals. I also sometimes make my own granola which is lush.
Bread - I have an under-used breadmaker already so just need to get in the habit of putting it on overnight.
Yoghurt - I'm going to stop buying the kids stuff and just do greek yoghurt with honey or fruit
Definitely going to start baking my own cakes and biscuits more regularly.
More cooking from scratch and less freezer food in general.

My kids absolutely love squash - is there a good, less processed version? Or just diluted fruit juice, but I usually avoid juice due to the sugar.

You won't find any suitable bread if you are looking for packaged stuff like Hovis. They are full of preservatives for longer shelf life. You will need to find a bakery or make your own. As a pp said, get the loaf sliced and freeze it then take slices out to toast when needed.

We always avoid sugary yoghurts but I don’t see anything wrong with full fat Greek yoghurt or plain yoghurt. We add stewed fruit, banana , walnuts , honey...
We’ve been making our own pizzas for a while just by eye for speed and they haven’t been too bad but could probably get better at it. I wouldn’t mind trying dried oregano on though we do have the fresh type growing in the garden!
I love that lots more people are moving to this and back to basic ingredients. I remember an old lady saying it was nice seeing a toddler being given a banana when ours was hungry on a bus once as she said she usually just saw toddlers being given packets

What about homemade fruity flapjacks for breakfast.
Fresh pancakes with fruit.
Homemade cinnamon swirls. All pretty sugary I know!
Good old boiled eggs.
Overnight oats.

As others said I’ve also been buying bakery bread instead of regular, and also making a lot of flapjacks to have as snack. So hard to be organised when you’re working though!

For convenience options - I think Walkers ready salted crisps only have sunflower oil and salt (and potato obviously). Sainsbury’s own brand too. And McCain Naked oven chips don’t have any dodgy coatings - just potato and sunflower oil.

I made fishfingers and chips today and it went down better than our usual frozen stuff.
We also had omelette for lunch.