If you and your children eat a low- UPF diet, what does a typical day or week of meals and snacks look like?

[Uffadoo]

I'm watching a documentary about UPFs (ultra processed foods) and it's made me realise that I think we have far too many in our home. I would really like to cut this down, we have a 9month old, 2 year old, 7 year old and 12 year old. The baby, 7 and 12 year old will eat absolutely anything but the 2 year old can be picky to the point of having lost weight in the past and was referred to a dietician and paediatrician (she has now put on weight and generally eats much better but not always great). I do make a lot of things from scratch but a couple of nights a week, after clubs, I might stick on frozen pizzas or chicken nuggets. Snacks in particular tend to be UPFs (we do have yoghurt and fruit often as snacks too though).

I would love to hear what a day or week of meals and snacks looks like for you and your family to get some inspiration. Is there any tips for foods that you can get that wouldn't be UPFs if you get them elsewhere? For example DD2 loves sausages, if I get sausages made by the butcher would that be better or are they a no go?

My children are adults now but when younger I used to cook everything from scratch.
Breakfast was typically eggs of some kind or sometimes toast with cheese or peanut butter.
Lunch usually a packed lunch and I would make things like pasta salad, mini quiches, sandwiches, soup, mini cheese. fruit and yoghurt.
Dinner were staples like cottage pie, spaghetti bolognese, salmon etc. I used to use a lot of Jamie Oliver's recipes. I enjoy cooking so I didn't mind.

Batch cooking helped a lot as did quick meals like stir fry's, baked potatoes, chicken wraps etc

It's impossible to eliminate all UPFs so I would try and follow a 70/20 or 80/20 rule.

Things like sausages, bacon etc would be a treat food that we would have once or twice a month. With sausages I'd say as long as you're buying ones with high meat content (85-90%) then I wouldn't worry too much.

The biggest problem was snacking so I used to make things like home baking, granola bars, nuts etc.

I think like most things in life UPFs are fine in moderation.

i guess the question is what do you eat that is a UPF?
my dh makes bread biscuits and pizza shells. i make muffins.
all soup homemade, beans bought dried and soaked overnight as needed.
my tinned items are few and far between. at the most tomato paste. once a year i buy a a couple flats of tomatoes; quarter and freeze half, blend 1/4 and freeze, make tomato sauce and freeze the other quarter
on fb i see plenty of south asian families who sell samosa's from their home.
contact some local bakeries and see how close to home their product line is (mine does excellent veggie mushroom rolls vs sausage rolls).
do you have access to a farmers market i can even get local dried kidney beans that need no presoaking.
make your own jam and jelly that's super easy.

i’ve been working on this at home - not perfect - but I just but took stock of what we were eating as was surprised by the amount of UPFs that had snuck into our diet. I mainly worked on replacing the items with a better substitute, like better yogurt, better cheese, better bread - homemade cakes instead of biscuits- that type of thing.

kids stables are below;

Porridge, banana and milled seeds for breakfast.

lunch - they have a packed lunch - I cook up chicken breasts as a sandwich filler instead of the ham that they would have had. Otherwise tuna or hummus or cheese (buying better cheese) Yogurt (natural with honey) fruit and chopped up raw veg.

snacks; homemade muffins, soup, peanut butter (100% nut) on bread or on apple slices, hummus on rice cakes, fruit and veg, smoothies made with natural yogurt and frozen fruit, a boiled egg, french toast, oat pancakes.

dinners; Very ordinary dinners that i batch cook at weekends. Shepard’s pie, spag Bol, fajitas, chicken curry. pasta in a hidden veg sauce, fish pie, tuna pasta bake. Plenty of hidden veg and sometimes lentils or beans in those things.

they also eat total crap that they get at parties or play dates. the above is a good day!

When I do buy upfs , like frozen food, I check the ingredients and try and find a better brand. Like my kids like hotdogs and I found Tofu hotdogs that they find acceptable. Or I found a decent veggie burger brand instead of chicken nuggets.

This has been quite a big thing in our leafy MC area and it’s important but I think potentially a feminist and socioeconomic issue. I’ve had lots of chats with other women where their husband is particularly into the UPF agenda but not doing the meal prep, and for low income families removing UPFs can be a cost issue (I know someone will come along and say it’s cheaper to cook from scratch - not always and it doesn’t always work like that).

in addition, whilst the research shows good correlation between UPF consumption and health outcomes it is lacking in detail and causality is not clear. Is it eating UPF at all that’s the issue? Is it that a diet high in UPF may result in being overweight/obseity other health risks? We don’t know. Likely a big issue is how easy it is to overconsume junk food.

So with this in mind, I’m keen on limiting UPF but being sensible about it. We have plenty of processed food around, but I am careful to buy items with only recognisable ingredients. We don’t buy biscuits in general (because I have no self control). I think we do eat well when it comes to dinner, usually something either batch cooked from scratch or some griddled chicken and veg. I have a pressure cooker which is great for quick and easy meal prep. Plenty of pulses, vegetables and fibrous foods. We do have pulses from tins.

So for us the main issues are things like bread, we don’t eat ham/cured meats often as DH is from a Muslim country and just doesn’t eat pork. The kids do eat sausages out and about.

I do wonder whether UPF obsession will show in increasing rates of orthorexia and other eating disorders and for that reason there are no off limit foods and god knows what they eat at after school club.

My 3 year old is fussy.

A few things we have always done:

Bread from bakery - I don’t have time to bake daily bread. But we do make own roti/ pizza dough/ naan.

Full fat Greek yogurt - takes better, cheaper per kg, more calories for kids, less packaging. I buy a 1kg pot every week. Used for with breakfast, as desert or snack. Add honey, fruit, granola if wanted

I bake something each week for ‘sweet snack’. Lost of things I will make extra and freeze so some weeks we just take something out of the freezer. I freezer cookies (raw), scones, mini muffins. If Ds suddenly has last minute friends over I can have snacks without the faff.

I also make tomato based sauces and freeze. It’s easy way to roast some veggies and get fussy child to eat some veg. It lasts ages in freezer, so in summer when we grow tomatoes and other veg I often freezer enough for months. Toddler size separate portions for days I know he won’t eat what we are. I use on homemade pizza also.

Homemade pizza dough is recommended. It’s easy to make, and you can leave dough in fridge up to a week after, so we often make on weekend, ready for quicker weekday dinner. With the tomato sauce already in freezer it’s just assembly really. And far far cheaper

The things we do as snacks often coincide with Aldi's 6 of the week or things on double sticker discount but include
Chopped veg (pepper/cucumber/carrot/sugar snaps/celery)
Frozen peas (they all randomly love this)
Obviously all fruits they especially love berries/chopped apple/melon/pineapple
Plain yoghurt with fruit.
Also DH makes nice flapjacks with some chia seeds in.
On a Saturday I will make sometimes make buckwheat pancakes and have with fruit and maple syrup or egg muffins with cheese.
They are teens now so will also eat loads of shite which I can't control as all earn money BUT will often make the above as their snacks at home.

For breakfasts, I batch bake & freeze apple bread with very coarse wholemeal flour. Or Ds has wholemeal toast with homemade jam. I make jam in the autumn and stash it away. Plus lots of fruit.
Suppers:
cassoulet and brown rice, curries
Chilli & rice
omelettes with salad
Butcher sausages with mash & veg
Stuffed trout baked in paper, with veggies.
Peppers stuffed with herby minced pork
Lots of home made soups - this week celery & Stilton - very easy and quick.
Any grilled meat with veggies and jacket potatoes.
This week veggies are broccoli, mashed buttered swede, leeks, broccoli, onions, carrots etc.
Desserts: bottled fruit and creme fraiche. Fruit pies & crumbles.
Snacks: fruit, toast & jam, home made cheese straws, cheese & cherry tomatoes.

We do eat upfs as well, I'm a working single mum and ds is endlessly hungry, but as a proportion, I aim for less than 25%.

For us it’s mainly been baking for morning snack at school. Stuff like malt loaf, low sugar muffins and biscuits, fruit cake.

I go through phases of making my own bread. I also make my own yoghurt which the kids like eating with stewed fruit which we make from frozen berries and honey. But no need to make your own yoghurt! Can buy plain Greek or natural eyc.

For example DD2 loves sausages

We used to make our own skinless sausages when DC were little.
Pork mince, herbs & seasoning then roll into sausage shapes. They loved them.

I would say we're pretty low in UPFs, more because I find them a waste of money than anything else! So we're not UPF free, but don't eat loads of them.

The key things are making our own bread - we have a bread maker which makes this very easy - and doing big batches of snack items (e.g. mini carrot cakes, cheese scones, banana oat biscuits) which go in the freezer. I also make massive batches of things like lasagna (which doesn't take that much more time than making one) to go into the freezer so we have "ready meals" for busy days.

But we do eat things like sausages without a second thought to be honest. Not every day, but once a week or so.

We eat very very minimal UPF, and I have two children that are the same age as your youngest two - my children eat basically zero UPF actually.

It was quite easy for us to eliminate UPF after I read up on it, because I've always cooked things from scratch thanks to being a lifelong cheapskate

Maybe you could give us an idea of the things your family eat that ARE upf, and then people can give ideas of ways to replace them with non/low-UPF food?

Sourdough bread when I can afford it. Snacks are dark chocolate, cheese, nuts, fruit and veg. The kids are allowed to bake anything they want because I don't buy upf cake/biscuits any more, so they make a cake or shortbread or something a couple of times a week. Porridge and berries ~cocopops for the asd folk under our roof~ 😁

Home made chicken nuggets using mini breast fillets. Tuna, lentils.
Flatbreads (flour + greek yogurt, cooked in frying pan)

It's hard! And definitely more expensive and time consuming. They eat a lot of greek yogurt and berries.

Also, flexibility is key. Because otherwise, kids can turn into mars bar obsessed sugar addicts the second they get "freedom" to do so (ie secondary school, usually). There's lots there bringing in cans of coke and sweets and selling them for ,7x RRP in the playground 😅

Homemade bread/rolls for breakfast and lunches.

What meat we eat we buy from a local farm shop, so fully organic and local. I cook chicken breasts up and shred them for lunchbox meals.

Make everything from scratxh and buy organic fruit and veg. We do grow some of our own too.

Breakfast-
toast and hm marmalade
Greek yog and berries with toasted seeds
green smoothies

lunches
salads, rolls, wraps. Whatever

dinner
we eat a lot of Asian inspired meals like bibimbap, ramen, sti fry, miso soup, and the things like spag Bol.

we don’t eat much pork at all.

Sausages: just take a look at the ingredients, as long as it is just meat, fat and salt, you are fine. It's when there are ingredients you can't identify that you don't really want to be eating them.

Wow impressed with how much cooking from scratch people are doing.
I know sometimes it’s a bit tricky to figure out exactly what is UPF and what’s not. However I don’t think tinned foods ( especially veg, fruit, beans, pulses etc) are UPF.
UPF are mainly ready meals, jars of pre made pasta sauce, pre made desserts, and supermarket packet bakery products etc I think.
Plant based ‘nuggets’ are probably just as UPF as chicken ones.
Hard to avoid completely but I like the suggestions to try and keep as small proportion of total diet.

I think with young children completely eliminating uPF can be hard, we still eat sausages although try and buy high quality or butchers and yhe odd frozen pizza/chip

But generally a day would be:

Toast with peanut butter/cream cheese, hummus/homemade jam -bread is homemade in a breadmaker. Yoghurt with fruit, porridge, eggs. Breakfast is easy

Lunch: hummus/chicken/cheese/tuna sandwich/pitta. Sardines on toast. Soup. Salad e.g. chicken salad, Greek salad. Homemade pizza toasts

Dinners: just lots of normal dinners, we just don't use packet sauces and often just do homemade wedges instead of oven potatoes type thing. I do lots of tray bakes like roast chicken thighs

It's just about being careful with ingredients, careful with what bread/cheese you eat. It also work well if you work together with family members e.g. my mum makes jam every year, I do big batch of Tom soup and we share etc.

Breakfast - homemade bread from the bread maker with jam or honey or 100% peanut butter.

Lunch generally sandwiches with tuna etc. Plain greek yoghurt with frozen fruit mixed in. Cherry tomatoes, crosta and mollica crostini. Shortbread biscuits at a push, homemade muffins and brownies made in bulk and defrosted as needed.

Snacks - fruit, sometimes carrot and houmous.

Dinner - homemade pizza with dough from bread machine and batch cooked sauce. Various homemade curries with naan (bread maker again), chilli with wraps (ditto), jacket potato, homemade pasta sauces, fish with airfryer chips. I'd love to do stir-frys but DS doesn't seem to like them. I sometimes make a batch of fishcakes and freeze to use as needed. We do have occasional meals with Quorn products for convenience but that's our main UPF source in the week.

It's worth checking labels carefully - most veggie burgers are full of UPF but you can get some which are pretty good which make life much easier. Couldn't do it without my bread machine and freezer though!

I agree plant based is just as bad if not worse! I wanted to buy some sour cream today and picked up a "plant based" version instead. Its main ingredient is rapeseed oil with god knows what added to make it creamy and sour.

We are very low UPF but it can be time intense and requires organisation/planning. I am fortunate that I was brought up with a diet low in UPF with 2 working parents so it is easier to emulate when you have seen someone else manage it. Also need a well stocked store, lots of spices and freezer

Breakfast is usually porridge for children with ground nuts, seeds and fruit plus maple/honey/dates for sweetness. I don’t usually have breakfast

Lunch is a hot one - wholewheat pasta with veg sauce/salad with tofu and quinoa/black beans and quinoa cooked Mexican style/toasties with lots of vegetables and cheese/soup and bread/eggs/stir fries
We keep premade lentil/quinoa pouches in store cupboard for the last minute occasions when no time to prepare. We usually make bread and wraps but also keep some of the better ones in freezer (Jason’s/Crosta Mollica etc)

Dinner: we are south Asian and usually have a traditional meal which lends itself well to homemade food such as a daal with rice. Daals are super easy - temper spices, chuck in a pressure cooker and job done
Also make double/triple quantities when I have time and then keep portions in freezer for those days when no time to cook

Snacks for me and DH usually nuts and fruit. Kids have same at home but nuts not allowed at school so will try make other things and freeze then defrost one at a time

I follow several who make homemade snacks on insta and use this for inspiration

I make my own bread. There is not an awful lot of work involved if you have a mixer, just a lot of waiting. We mainly avoid UPF - before DD started school we avoided them altogether, but it is impossible with parties, the amount of sweets that come home from birthdays, activities etc. So slightly more relaxed now. General meals are:
Breakfast - porridge, yoghurt with fruit oats nuts seeds, Eggs on toast, eggy bread, I make buckwheat blueberry pancakes on sundays
Lunch - Normally packed lunch is pasta with a homemade sauce, fruit and veg, and a homemade snack - I make one a week, this week is is strawberry banana bread. I also batch cook mini quiches, pizza roll ups so those go in instead of the pasta
Dinner - we are vegetarian so lots of pulses - chilli, chickpea curry, jacket potato (make our own baked beans), homemade pizza, dahl, more pasta and homemade sauces
Snacks - I make a batch of something every week - some stays out for that week and some goes in the freezer for lunchboxes or to get out when needed. So I make cookies, brownies, breadsticks, flapjacks, banana bread etc. Try to make a low sugar version but not always. We also have greek yoghurt and fruit.
We do probably spend quite a lot of time cooking, but I normally have a stash of food eg pasta sauces in the freezer for lazy days. I make a big batch of hidden veg pasta sauce every so often and use this for pasta, pizza, you could use for chicken if meat eaters. Gets some veggies in v fussy DD.
ETA: We both work full time, DD is at primary school. I do work from home now which helps as I can stick the bread in the mixer before I sit down to work, make cookies at lunchtime. I was still doing all this before covid though when I was commuting to London so it is doable. Especially if you batch freeze. We would make double of dinners so we didn't have to cook every night.

When cooking from scratch I make extra which can be frozen and ta-da becomes a home made ready meal. Eg last Friday eldest was home alone and had home made shepherds pie, with carrots and brussels from the garden, I'd simply dished an extra portion out incl the veg into a microwave bowl and snapped on the lid and frozen it a couple of weeks ago.

Snacks/cake homemade flapjack and millionaire's shortbread are current favourites, lasts forever, just cut to smaller pieces than your eyes tell you and it lasts longer and is enjoyed more.

I found it easier when the kids were smaller! Teenagers don’t seem to relish home baked goodies in the same way… reminded of my brother who went through a stage of buying really cheap white bread from the corner shop in rejection of my parents’ preferred sourdough loaves! Our UPF consumption is all snacks for the teens to take to school… I probably need to work on finding alternatives for that - crisps type things…

I also do some batch cooking and we certainly are not all no UPF. Crisps are our downfall. 😂

We eat very little upf. Breakfast is homemade granola or porridge.
Lunch is normally left overseas from dinner or sometimes we have Jason's sourdough bread which is upf free for something on toast.
Dinner this week has been;
Homemade aloo gobhi with homemade nan and homemade mango chutney.
Lasagna made from Scratch.
Baked fish with homemade pesto, roasted new potato's and broccoli.
Macaroni cheese with cauliflower and broccoli.
Homemade falafel with homemade pitta bread and salad.
Crosta and mollica pizza with homemade chips.
If you look carefully there are some good upf free options in supermarkets. Costa and mollica are good but not all products are upf free. Hunter gather does upf free mayonnaise. And Pipers Farm do upf free sausages.
All snacks are Greek yoghurt, fruit or homemade cakes or biscuits. The benefit of homemaking any cakes is you can reduce the sugar content. I always reduce sugar in cake recipes by 50%.