I need a list of ULTRA processed food and processed food

[LaurieFairyCake]

Internet searching just throws up people arguing about it

Is the (agreeable) difference that processed food is completely recognisable raw ingredients turned into something

• like fruit turned into jam/yeast into marmite

And ULTRA processed food is occasional ingredients with a longer list of additives - stabilisers/gum/E numbers/ ?

Basically I want to be able to compile my own list of food to avoid - and find replacements for things I eat every day (crisps that aren't crisps like Quavers and Wotsits)

And is Ryvita a processed food - basically baked wheat ? But not ultra processed? - I eat them every day !

Your ryvita (didn't know they still made that, my mother used to eat it!) looks fine as far as upf goes.

Regarding pasta your English Grandma might not have eaten it but your Italian Nonna certainly would have done!

This explains it:
educhange.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NOVA-Classification-Reference-Sheet.pdf

I am very cynically wondering if the introduction of ultra processed food and their distinction from processed foods is to make processed foods less of the villain. Previously, processed foods were the devil in all healthy eating advice.

I try to buy and use ingredients myself. But there’s no profit in ingredients…

It depends how it's done doesn't it.

Like the difference pointed out earlier between cold pressed and more refined oils.

Or chicken nuggets made from reconstituted chicken vs fillets.

These type of lists try to boil it down to simple categories when it's a complex spectrum of processed-ness.

Just to throw another spanner in the works - I've started to wonder if other things end up in processed foods that aren't an added ingredient, therefore not even listed.
These huge factories use so much machinery, machinery which needs oiling and cleaning. Surely traces of these engineering oils and cleaning chemicals end up in our food?

I would imagine so. Also other ingredients from the production line.

Eg Cadburys Bournville has recently had to list milk powder as an ingredient because even though it isn't part of the recipe, there's enough in there from the production line to have to legally be listed.
Ready Brek is another, its ingredients are milk free but it often causes allergic reactions in dairy allergic people (more so than other "may contains") because of high levels of cross contamination on the production line.

But if you use typical cleaning products in your home you're probably also getting traces of fairy liquid or dishwasher tablets or dettol or whatever in your food anyway.

I read that if an item contains ingredients you wouldn't have in your kitchen at home, it is ultra processed. I watched a documentary on this.

To be honest, anything that I haven't made myself and is from a supermarket seems ultra processed. Bread, crackers, even.

Same could be said for food you cook and home

I live near the factory which makes a well-known brand of pasty, and there are all sorts of rumours locally about some of the extra ingredients!

Like many things in life, it's a question of balance. Eating UPF occasionally is not going to do you any harm (I'm looking at you Mr Kipling mini Battenburgs) just try not to have them too often.

Best food advice is from Michael Pollan - Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

Thank you! I do use butter sometimes but will try to use it more. And to look out for lard in the shops!

Thank you for that little rabbit hole. I thoroughly enjoyed it (it being nothing I didn’t know in general terms, but the specifics were eye opening and it was well presented. DD is going to be devastated, though. I’ve got rather lax lately)

My own personal view is that I buy ingredients. It’s does mean you have to dick about in the kitchen all the time cooking every damn thing yourself from scratch, though, which is a bit tedious (hence why I’ve been lax). I’ll happily buy something ready made if the contents read like a recipe. So if I could follow it in my kitchen and get the the stuff in the packet, it’s fine. And I only worry about it at home. I don’t eat out enough regularly for it to make an impact. I’m looking for eighty percent good, not 100% perfection. (I’ve really lapsed lately, though and needed a boost)

The Kevin Hall experiment was fascinating. And the scientist talking about people living with long term obesity - I knew conventional dieting was crap, but only 1 in 4000 managing to recover without specialist support? No wonder it’s an epidemic, and despite it all, there is no help. Or only the ‘eat less move more’ variety. Which seems to be thoroughly denbunked by Actual Science every time I look, and is STILL the official line? That’s failing a whole slew of people. It made me sad.

What do people think about pre prepared meals such as cook? Does it count as ultra processed becuase it is made commercially or are the processes purely what you would use at home?
www.cookfood.net/products/lasagne-al-forno/

For me, Cook meals are acceptable. Those ingredients are all good. I try and avoid seed oils but rapeseed oil is so far down that list of ingredients, if I’m needing a convenience meal then I will let that slide 😄

I've noticed an enormous impact on my sleep when I cut out UPFs. On the days that I have a shop bought cake etc I'm up 3-4 times in the night. When everything I eat is from scratch (including homemade bread) I don't wake.

Having just looked up calcium carbonate The Grocer tells me it is one of the four fortifications added to flour by law - so my Aldi bread is actually fine. I really don't have time to make the kind of bread my kids would actually eat. We used to have a bread maker and they didn't like the results so I got rid of it. I've done no knead and they don't like that either.

I have tried making mumtella and my food processor isn't up to it because it always comes out grainy which kids won't eat (again - they are the consumers of Nutella here). I'd be interested to know which processor people use to make a nice smooth spread?

Zombie thread

Useful thread still @WhenIWasAFieldMyself

I bought a grain mill at the end of last year to mill my own flour. I picked it up for a reasonable price. It's quite satisfying to use.

Sorry - my fault, I meant to post on the live thread doh

@LaurieFairyCake Good luck waiting for the labelling of UHP foods. Think how long its taken for the nutritional labelling of foods to become standard. It'll never happen because, lets be honest, would you buy a food which was labelled UHP.
You don't have to be a nutrition expert (I taught Nutrition for years but so much has changed) but basically it comes down to common sense. Don't be scared of Enumbers - that was just a standardisation 'tool' for use by food manufacturers to make food labelling across Europe understandable for each country. Many really common ingredients such as salt, citric acid, bicarbonate of soda had a number attached to them - a code if you like.
If you made a batch of fairy cakes you'd know what was in them......wouldn't you? If you use butter - yes, but if you use a baking spread.......then maybe not since those fats were oils once and have been converted to solid fat but adding hydrogen - not in of itself harmful, but the product created is more problematic. You won't find this on the wrapper but it might say 'made from hydrogenated vegetable oil'
So, Laurie it is something you are going to have to live with if it bothers you. As several posters have said it's a question of knowledge and moderation. If your diet is basically good with fresh food where possible than the occasional UHP food will not be a problem.

No its not easily identifiable because its a 'thing' that people/scientists/nutritionists have put into a category but their definitions will vary.

If anyone thinks that something like Ryvita is UP then they are an idiot.

People proclaiming to make their own bread, scratch cooking need to understand that by doing that they too are creating a processed food, not an UP food but processing food to make another food. (this is what I do, I have to cook most things from scratch due to a particular diet Im on)

Just eat mainly fresh plant based products (where you can), a little dairy, a little meat, some fish, lots of water and you'll be fine.

I can nearly always taste and smell washing up liquid and dishwasher chemicals on plastic pots/lunch pots and some plates too.

On the subject of UPFs if there is one good thing Im hoping will come out of this new fad Im hoping for the removal of artificial sweetners in things that have no business being 'sweet'.

You will always have to use your own judgement because a list will go out of date.

'Processed' just means it been made edible or more palatable. We process wheat grain into flour because we can't chew or digest dried grain.

'Wholefood' means its has minimal processing. A raisin is a dried grape. White flour has had one or two more steps of processing than wholewheat flour, which uses the whole grain and includes the bran and germ.

Quick rule of thumb; UPF is not a wholefood, its been processed beyond what you could do in your kitchen, it has an unusually long sell by date compared to what you'd make at home.

Ryvita - typical ingredients are things like whole grain rye flour, currants, cane sugar, whole grain wheat flour, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, whole grain kibbled rye, whole grain oat flakes, honey.

Not UPF, normal processed food, you could make it yourself in your kitchen.

'Little Betty's Kitchen' single portion of cake in a packet with fake 'cream' filling and a sell by date of 3 years - UPF.