To think it's impossible to eat a UPF free diet as an ordinary person?

I’m really surprised by the ‘it’s impossible’ comments, of course it isn’t. And regarding spending 6 hours on sourdough, isn’t it obvious to just not eat it if it takes that much time?!

dd has had today -
poached eggs x 4, blackberries from the garden, kiwis and a pomegranate.

she made an oxtail stew with oxtail, rosemary from the garden, soffrito, leeks and butternut. She’s made mash to go with it from potatoes and Kerry gold.

I mean this in the nicest way possible but I think the way you are thinking about all of this is a bit irrational/rigid - sorry. To me that is like saying you want to cut down on alcohol but that if you have a glass of wine one night you might as well drink a bottle of vodka after it.

This is a great example of where 'good' is far better than 'perfect'. The 'good' diet you do have is better than the 'perfect' one you don't.

We eat a lot of good food, and a few UPFs too. I focus on the largest proportion of our diet being UPF free and choose UPFs occasionally when they help us meet a particular goal like being portable for travel or having a treat.

For example, all our meals are generally UPF free but the kids love sauces and condiments so they have those sometimes.
Snack foods allow us flexibility to eat out and about. These are largely upf free (homemade yoghurt pouches, chopped veggies, fruit) but I add in some things like cheese strings or crackers because I can't make those.
Other UPFs I just don't have in the house because otherwise we'd eat them. We might occasionally purchase, but make the effort to go out and buy them rather than including in our weekly shop

You can, of course you can
A beef stockcube is also an option, in an otherwise healthy diet though, and the smell of boiling bones would have me heaving.
Some folk on limited budgets cannot really afford to have the oven on for 4 hours either, even on low.

I cannot stand the texture of soft porridge oats either, I'd rather have yoghurt with berries and seeds/oats than porridge!

You can make homemade beef stock cubes. Bones are cheap from the butcher. You can just boil the fuck out of them or go fancy and make demi glacé. You freeze the resulting gloop in ice cube trays and it lasts for ages in the freezer.

I know it's a pain but it is possible. I make chicken stock every week and it takes 5 minutes to put together plus 4 hours doing its own thing in a very low oven.

I disagree.
A hood ham stock cube can actually be really useful when making lentil and vegetable soup.
Each to their own.

You dont have to make sourdough to go UPF free bread, I have a breadmaker, it takes seconds to put the ingredients together for a white loaf and all organic, non UPF ingredients

Rightio. 😴

Soup should be made with stock. Cubes are disgusting & full of crap.

Just keep the bones from whenever you have meat, make stock & freeze it for when you want soup. Boiling bones is so easy!

@OtherS When you say ‘oats with milk’ do you mean just that? I’d love to eat porridge as I like the taste of oats but struggle massively with the warmth and texture of it.

Even the thought of ‘overnight’ oats with yoghurt going claggy and separated in the fridge turns me off.

Just oats with milk could be a go - er!

I also think it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Until a few months back we ate LOADS of UPFs, and then I did an overhaul and have tried to improve our eating. I think we’re about 95% UPF free at home now, and we spend pretty much the same as we did before. It pushes food prep to about 5 hours a week for me, which really isn’t all that much.

I’d rather be happier in the knowledge that we’re 95% ‘healthier’, than let a stock cube sabotage my efforts!

I earn £100k+, work 50-60hrs a week and don’t eat any upf

I don’t find it that hard tbh. I’m not an 100% fanatic but generally we try where possible to eat unprocessed

I don’t make bread. I buy a sour Dough or rye loaf from our local bakery.

I make most other basic breads like naan/ pizza/ scones/ flat bread. All pretty easy

i don’t worry about stock. I buy a dried powder variety from Alnatura which has natural ingredients so it’s good enough for me.

I have tried to cut down on upfs this year, but there are several compromises.
I use shop bought mayonnaise, teriyaki, bbq sauce etc I buy wraps and bread.
But I also make lots of meals from scratch.
I had an ED for 7 or 8 years in my teens/early 20s and wasted a lot of my life reading labels. Im OK with not making my own mayo or bread if the rest of what I eating reasonably healthy

Although diet coke is my absolute worst crime!

You just do what you can. Mostly upf free is better than not.

I'm an ordinary person on an ordinary salary.

I have coffee with double cream for breakfast.

For lunch, I have something like chicken and bacon with homemade mayonnaise and salad or tuna with homemade mayonnaise and salad. Tuna is tinned. But it's only tuna and spring water. Or soup.

For dinner, I have fish/meat and veg or salad.

I make soup from scratch and make my own stock/bone broth. I make chilli from scratch with guacamole made from scratch. I buy soured cream. Or spaghetti bolognese, carbonara or curries made from scratch.

I'm not fussed about chocolate or crisps so they're not an issue.

I eat Greek yoghurt with honey and flaxseed for breakfast, or sometimes oats with milk. Lunch can be salad with chopped nuts and either no dressing or a little balsamic, lemon juice or olive oil. Otherwise I have an omelette, or batch cook soups and stews using fresh ingredients. Dinner is meat or fish with steamed vegetables, and sometimes potatoes or rice. The only place I would ever have UPF is a stock cube, and I use Kallo which I think have the least objectional ingredients. But I prefer to make my own stock, and if I'm ever making a stew or something where the broth matters, I'll always make my own. Bones are pretty cheap and it's easy to do, if a bit disgusting. And you do get a lot of stock from just a few bones. You don't even need to add in veg and herbs, just dump them in a pressure cooker with a splash of cider vinegar and some salt. I'm autoimmune so went very extreme cutting out UPFs a few years ago and I've never looked back, real food usually tastes so much better and it doesn't take me any longer. And my condition remains in remission, even though nowadays I do allow myself some treats.

As I'm sure others have said while there is pretty good evidence linking diets that are high in UPF with worse health outcomes, I'm pretty sure it's been shown that this is largely (a) because UPFs tend to have more saturated fat, salt and sugar and (b) because UPFs are generally more palatable and accessible/easy to prepare and eat compared to unprocessed whole food meaning they are easier to consume to excess. That doesn't mean that there's anything inherently harmful in the processing of the foods (I know there's a theory that the stabilisers, emulsifiers and preservatives used in processing may be harmful but I've not seen any credible evidence of this). It also doesn't mean there aren't 'unhealthy' whole/unprocessed foods - if you were to eat half a kilo of butter and sugar it would be just as unhealthy as a packet of delicious factory made biscuits, it's just most people would never sit down to eat the former whereas (MN land aside where we're all stuffed on a single lettuce leaf) most people could put away a packet of biscuits pretty readily. So really it makes complete sense that there are diminishing returns from entirely eliminating UPF from your diet - if you currently do eat quite a lot of it sure, great choice to replace ready meals and takeaways with home cooked meals and hyper palatable biscuits and crisps with fruit, nuts and so on. But if you're already at a level where your diet is 95%+ non UPF I really think your efforts would be much better targeted in other areas such as prioritising fruit and vegetable variety, making sure you have a good protein and fibre intake etc rather than worrying about the occasional stock cube or slice of supermarket bread - and I hate to break it to you, there's no way a homemade soup made with your own stock, home baked sourdough then a bar of chocolate is healthier than a homemade soup with a stock cube, bakery roll and a bowl of fruit and yoghurt or similar - not to say you shouldn't have the chocolate, knock yourself out but don't kid yourself you've somehow 'earned' the chocolate by not having any other UPF that day, it doesn't work that way...

I don't think a single beef stock cube makes freshly made soup into UPF.

If most of the food you eat is unprocessed - oats or natural yoghurt or eggs for breakfast, home made soup and salads for lunch, meat and three veg for dinner, fruit for snacks, that's pretty healthy.

I love crisps, but I only eat ready salted. I really don't think eating some potatoes with oil and salt will lead me to an early grave.

I find avocados utterly repulsive too.
I promise I do eat some healthy foods though. 🤣

I use the occasional stock cube. I don't see them as a huge problem as part of an overall balanced diet.

And you recognise that there’s no need to eat it.

Avocados are touted everywhere as being a marvelous thing for health (ignoring the environmental and humanitarian impact of their production for a moment) but I can’t stand the taste or the texture of them, so I don’t eat them.

That’s the thing OP, The enormous proliferation of our species is due to our omnivorous nature. And our thumbs.

Make a different type of soup?