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

Thank you to the suggestions on thread for frozen bone broth, will give that a whirl.

OP - you don’t need to eat bread. The idea that homemade sourdough is a health food yet homemade standard loaf is unhealthy is nonsense. The additives and stabilisers are the issue.

we bought a bread maker, it takes less then 5 mins to set it going at night, I have a fresh load the next morning, do that every other day for a standard “sandwich” loaf. Once a week we buy a sourdough loaf from a local baker, but as it’s not mass produced, we pay nearly £7 for that, it’s therefore a weekend treat.

I wouldn’t make my own jam, just buy good quality preserves. Look at the ingredients, it’s mainly sugar and fruit then go for it. The main ingredient in jam is sugar so if you are trying to have a healthier diet, replacing shop bought with home made ain’t going to do much. Try an organic nut butter instead. (If you need to stir it to get the oils back in before spreading, you know it’s a good one).

But why on earth would you buy stock cubes? Of course they’re UPF. I make soup a lot and would never use a stock cube. If you haven’t got any leftover chicken bones from a Sunday lunch or whatever, just use a few veg instead to make a veg stock.

Oh that's good - thanks! I just assumed.

Not picking on you particularly, but Miso is not a UPF. It's a fermented food - one of the things that are recommended that we eat regularly in preference to UPFs.

There's a reason why the phrase "perfection is the art of good" exists.

Me! I bake a sourdough weekly. It's the only bread we eat apart from sourdough flatbreads that I also make. We use stock cubes. It doesn't have to be a 100% UPF free diet to be healthy. Ready meals, biscuits, crisps and their ilk are where you need to avoid UPFs.

No Ocado deliveries anywhere near us, thanks though.
Maybe Sourdough is an acquired taste, but I honestly find it just unpleasant.

This. I eat mostly homemade food and plenty fruit and vegetables but I have quite frankly better things to be worrying about and spending my time on than worrying about the health implications of one stock cube and boiling up a load of bones and vegetables every time I need to use stock to make grave.

A cube of Oxo is not going to transform the quality of an otherwise healthy, nutritious meal made with natural ingredients into a Pot Noodle.

Some things are not worth being overly pedantic about.

We need to be careful about levels of processing and foods that are nutritious, but before mass-scale food production, food was expensive for a balanced diet and there was a major issue with mal-nutriton. It wasn't all a halcyon era of optimal health, especially in urban areas.

Procuring and processing food has since the beginning of humanity been one of our biggest and most time consuming challenges.

The harm you are so worried about is caused by commercially driven efforts to make it cheap and easy. Unless the only shop you have access to is a newsagent you don’t have to give in to it.

M & S do some lovely crisps which are just potatoes, oil, and salt, I adore crisps and for me choosing these 99% of the time over a packet of Frazzles (God I love Frazzles) is good enough.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m actually a peasant, and not in any meaningful way rich despite enjoying a lovely 21st c lifestyle, that would be the envy of an 18th c aristocrat.

It’s built on bad foundations - I can travel the world, buy endless amounts of clothes, eat a wide variety of food from around the world, fill my home with furniture and furnishings and labour saving devices.

But if I want to eat organic, unadulterated, locally sourced, seasonal food, and wear clothes that aren’t made by children working in slave conditions and out of fabrics that destroy the environment, suddenly my money doesn’t stretch as far. Time, energy and labour are limited commodities too.

It’s definitely not easy @MyHealthyMission and it’s not fair that convenience comes at such a high price. Particularly when, for most people, it’s not a person choice between working outside the home or devoting hours to cooking; it’s an economic necessity.

I use the Yuka app when I’m shopping so I can pick from the best of a bad lot, and just do my best where I can. Try not to let perfection be the enemy of better.

Nobody is being forced. Imagine if food wasn’t mass-produced, and contained no preservatives and everyone bought UPF free bread instead. You’d have to visit a bakery every day to buy it because it would go stale after a few hours. It would also cost three times as much because of the labour involved in making it. The alternative is to mass-produce it, but then it must contain preservatives to give it a long shelf life to account for transportation. Or you make it yourself.

Unless you know of some magic science that nobody else has discovered for keeping bread fresh, there’s no alternative.

Came here to say this!

Also food shouldnt really be cheap should it? It takes a lot to grow and cultivate crops and raise livestock.

How cheap and easy was it when we had to hunt our own or wait for it to fatten and grow?

Bloody sourdough again. I started a thread about this, bloody sick of hearing about the stuff.

Also I dongt use stock cubes, you dont need to

I only like it if it has no rye in it. Ocado do a good white one

have you got a recipe please? I know you can make sourfaux which is a sourdough mix with added yeast and there is a method where you switch from cycle to cycle to get the long ferment rise but I'd love a genuine no faff breadmaker sourdough recipe!

Who is forcing people?

We’re all capable of reading the ingredients of packaging and making a decision on whether or not we want to eat it or not, and if not knowing what something is, looking it up on our phones.

You either make it yourself or pay the bit extra to buy the foods without upfs. There are plenty of options out there.

Making sourdough is easy though, it’s nearly all waiting. Or am I missing something?

My dd eats only whole foods and now we’re used to it, it’s quite easy.
regards to stock, we’ve been blown away by how little the difference is between a stock cube and nothing- well just water.
boiling bones isn’t that hard, she’s got an oxtail stew on the go right now.
will do a chicken after we’ve had a roast etc

You’re not the only one, my dh absolutely refuses to eat sourdough!

Am I the only one who finds Sourdough bread revolting? And, before anyone comments, yes it is 'proper' Sourdough made by a local baker and not supermarket 'fake' Sourdough. Give me standard wholegrain any day!

It’s very difficult to make your own versions of UPFs but it’s definitely not impossible to eat a UPF free diet. Just eat whole, natural foods ie oats, spelt, lentils, potatoes, vegetables etc. You don’t need to be making your own sourdough breads and beef stocks to be healthy, that’s just unsustainable and unnecessary