Low UPF diet - to think the experts weren’t lying?

This lady on TikTok is on a mission to search out products with real ingredients. Not all are brilliant, but she’s highlighting changes some supermarkets are making such as bake at home rolls with real ingredients, ice lollies that are just orange juice and sugar etc. she’s worth a follow.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdrXXAa8/

Yeah I don’t drink it for nutritional purposes either but I don’t think it’s anything to
worry about in the grand scheme of things . Especially if your overall diet is good.

Heres what Dr CVT author of Ultra Processed People said of it.

“While some oat milks do meet the definition of UPF,’ says Van Tulleken, ‘they’re not the most harmful type. They contain no artificial sweetenersor phosphoric acid. However, they’re somewhat harmful, in the way any UPF is’, as they’re low in nutrients and don’t fill you up. As for non-UPF oat milks, they’re ‘not particularly bad’, says Van Tulleken. ‘I don’t want to demonise oat milk!’ Still, it’s liquid calories. ‘You consume it quickly and it’s not very satiating, so it may predispose you to weight gain.’

I don’t drink it on its own to fill me up but I do add it to some nutritious foods which are satiating and help keep me from snacking.
As far I’m aware, it’s not causing me to gain weight, so I’m good - everything in moderation.

I guess.

I see friends drinking endless oat milk lattes though and I wonder what all this oat milk does to people’s blood sugar. Plus it’s so processed.

I don’t think many people have milk for nutritional purposes tbh, especially not if it’s just in the odd coffee. It’s more taste - for me anyway!

Nutrition wise I focus more on what I’m eating, milk in my two coffees a day isn’t a big concern and such a small percentage of what’s going into my body so I’d rather choose taste. However I’m obviously trying to cut down on UPFs generally.

I was talking more from a nutritional point of view.

It’s really nice and creamy but with a subtle taste. I don’t have a sweet tooth and so find even unsweetened nut milks a bit too sweet for me. Oat milk in a coffee gives it a nice touch of creaminess without the taste being overpowered by it. I believe it’s one of the better ones environmentally too.

I’ve found a recipe online that includes using a date and some cashew nuts too to replicate Oatly’s creamy taste - I’ll report back if it’s anything remotely similar! 😂

“Comparing oat-based milk analogs and traditional milk, we found that from different perspectives, both have their own characteristics and are suitable for different populations. In the background of “double carbon”, plant-based milk has a greater advantage from an overall environmental perspective and has a lower impact than dairy in terms of land use as well as water and greenhouse gas emissions…,From the perspective of nutritional value, milk contains higher amounts of protein and is high-quality protein. However, the plant protein industry has recently experienced rapid growth with increased health awareness and consciousness of sustainable development (Kumar et al., 2020). For calcium supplementation, the calcium content can be increased by adding the calcium fortifier calcium carbonate/calcium phosphate to oat milk. Moreover, oat milk is richer in unsaturated fatty acids and contains a variety of bioactive components as well as dietary fiber, which have the effect of preventing disease. Plant-based milk was first produced to solve nutritional problems for lactose-intolerant people, then championed by vegetarians, and is now prized by environmental advocates who argue that it requires far less energy to produce than traditional milk. For those who are not suitable for milk, such as lactose-intolerant people and people with milk protein allergies, when we choose the plant-based milk we need, opting for oat base milk analogs that have been fortified with nutrients is a better option and to ingest enough nutrients from other diets.”

Extract from a study on oat milk https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10534225/

I think the key thing to note is different types of milk are suitable for different people and there are obviously variations even within those foods, so some oat milk will be better for you than others. It’s the same with a lot of foods really.

Exactly.

Cows milk tastes rotten to me, whereas I love the taste of oat milk AND I think I’m slightly lactose intolerant so it makes me feel rubbish too.

Also agree with the vegan angle. Although I’m not a vegan currently, it’s something I would consider in the future for the reasons you outline.

There are other alternatives some of which I do consume, but I revert to oat milk most times as I find it’s delicious especially in my morning oats 😍

I buy store bought ones but there’s some easy recipes for making it on YouTube.

@Tinseltuttifruitti your post regarding junk food ingredients made me think of this image which I've shared before. It's from the US, not the UK but I find it pretty shocking.

Oat milk drinkers - Plenish do one that is just oats, water and salt.

This study on the effects of plant-based milk drinks might be interesting to anyone who isn’t aware:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9914410/

More research clearly needed.

There are other alternatives if you‘re lactose intolerant.

And I get the animal welfare side of things, (although it’s fairly easy to buy milk from high-welfare cows now). I also kind of get nut milk which at least has some kind of nutrition and doesn’t spike your blood sugar.

I just don’t get oat milk!

I moved to almond which took a while to get used to but is pretty good and excellent in smootheie! (plenish has only almonds water and salt I think - some of them have all sorts of weird stuff in them).

There can be a wide range of reasons. Dietary for a lot of people who can’t tolerate dairy obviously.

For me personally, even as a child I always hated the taste of cows milk, I find it really bitter.

The dairy industry itself is also cruel and environmentally bad (I’m not vegan but completely understand why people are and hope to go that way eventually).

Enjoyment mainly. For me, usually in the form of a coffee based beverage. Can you really not comprehend that? 🤔

I’m intrigued by oat milk drinkers.

Why would anyone drink milk made from oats, salt and oil? Nutritionally what could it possibly add to your diet?

I think there's an Aldi one which is just oats, salt, water and a dash of rapeseed oil. Sadly we're not near one, so have to get the Lidl own brand one which contains one or two weird ingredients. You can make it yourself, but it's a right old faff.

I made my own bread this week using this incredibly easy recipe!

(I have since read that instant yeast could potentially be a upf but honestly it’s such a small quantity and it’s obviously still much healthier than shop bought!) I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to make a loaf of bread!

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/homemade-artisan-bread/

Hi all, haven’t rtft but this week I started reading a little more into it all and trying to switch out UPFs and make more bits from scratch. So far I’ve made some bread, pizza bases, granola, hummus and garlic mayo! Are there any other easy switches/recipes that people care to share? I could do with making rolls and bagels but I assume I’ll need a bread maker for those!

One thing I do need to start start substituting is my oat milk. We’re a house full of Oatly Barista lovers unfortunately but the ingredients list doesn’t look great. I don’t suppose anyone has made their own taste anywhere similar or found a decent substitute?

Agree there's nothing new about obesity or upf and that something has gone badly wrong in the past 30 years or so.

I would love to go back to my childhood in the 80s and 90s and read the labels on our upf foods (called "junk food" then), I suspect they were bad but not nearly as bad as what we have now. In my experience people ate them as snacks or special treats, meals were still whole foods from scratch. Takeaways besides pizza or even ready meals weren't really a thing where I grew up.

Yeah, we had a lot of that stuff in the 80s/90s too. I think it’s for to be at least partially responsible for the increase in cancer and IBS-like diseases in people in their 40s and 50s.

There’s one difference that strikes me though: back then there wasn’t the culture of constant snacking there is now.

We generally ate a meal and then waited until the next one to eat. Now it’s graze, graze, graze, all day long (especially for kids).

Angel delight
Instant whip
St Ivel gold spread
Stork
Chicken tonight
Special K
Muller light
Dairy Lea triangles

All featured in my childhood (80s/90s)
My mum mainly cooked from scratch But was always trying to lose weight and frequently on a diet.she basically moved from overweight to slightly less overweight and back again.

So obviously this type of food had started to infiltrate. But the volume and variety and availability, of UPFs has definitely increased. So many things designed to be eaten "on the go" (pots of instant oats for breakfast, belvita, weetabix smoothie type things - almost encouraging you that you could be doing something more interesting/useful than "wasting time" making breakfast)

In the mid- late 90s my sister turned veggie and of course you could get quorn, Linda McCartney burgers and sausages but the variety of vegan and plant based products now is massive.

I think upfs have become a lot more prolific and like pp said strategically marketed and aimed at making things convenient or quicker while also trying to persuade us they are healthy!

Sorry I must be thick as shit then because if I eat 3000 calories of non-UPF then I'm going to gain weight. In fact, I'll gain weight if I eat 2000 because I have a slow metabolism. I'm probably eating between 1000 and 1500 a day at the moment, sometimes with carbs and sometimes low carbs and am consistently losing about a kilo a week.

I don't calorie "count" in all honesty but I've done enough of it in my life to know that one proportionate meal a day and a small snack for lunch is lower than my body needs to function without losing weight.

I loved those steak bakes.

It’s not an extraordinary claim to say that

• UPFs make us want to eat more compared to non-UPFs
• UPFs disrupt our gut microbiome and metabolic rate
• Because of this, globally, UPFs are partly responsible for making us fatter

That’s what I’m saying, and research to back those claims is widely available.