What UPF do you secretly love, and will never give up?

[SushiSheep]

I love a fish finger sandwich, in a white bread bap 🙌🏻

Not sorry.

You?

White bread with butter
Ready made chicken Kiev's where the garlic butter just goes everywhere

Oooh yeah. Chicken Kievs. Lovely.

Well I'm finding it hard to buy supermarket bread that isn't UPF, but I don't really eat it

Love a bit of haribo mind.

Bacon sandwiches

Isn't this odd?

don't you enjoy life and good health ? You are trading that for sone food ?

Fish fingers and chocolate here - make my own white bread so can be smug there

Seems to be a suggested link in your post between eating ultra-processed foods and dying early. But if your death is in some way related to the food you eat, you aren't just going to die in your sleep one day after feeling fine for years. I imagine dying of diet-related diseases is painful and long. It's not something I'd choose, to be honest.

It’s till better than the alternative. Cardiac Care Units are full of the fit and active.

Oh god. I thought I was quite good re UPFs, always cook from scratch etc but I had forgotten about condiments. Do I need to make my own mustard?

I don’t think I could ever give up the odd packet of crisps either.

Honestly? I consume a diet that would make Nigel Slater purr. Home cooked, local where possible, natural, unfussy.

But as far as I’m concerned food is something to be enjoyed. There are enough sources of guilt and disappointment in the world without the odd Crunchie bar being one of them.

It’s all got pretty screwed up, and very, very boring.

I don’t think anyone is saying you can’t have the odd Crunchie (or packet of crisps in my case). But there are list of people who, for various reasons, are living off a diet that is predominantly UPF and this is seriously harming them. The corporate determinants of health are now starting to be recognised and acknowledged in the public sphere, I’m all for it.

All of it.
I do try to eat healthy and have reduced UPF consumption, but I won't give anything up completely.
My friend makes me laugh. She's got herself into a right tizz about UPFs, yet she drinks roughly a bottle of wine every night.

I suspect my diet is predominantly UPFs but not 100% sure what classes as one. The last thing I would ever give up would be Pepsi Max and takeaways if they count.

"The alternative" as in being alive when the oil runs out, etc? You don't need to seek an early death to avoid these situations you speak of. Minimising ultra-processed foods in your diet doesn't mean you'll live to be 300 years old...

Argh dammit, shouldn’t have started this thread - now I’m hungry 😅

Indeed.

But food writers like Joanna Blythman and Michael Pollan have been saying these things for decades. See also my 78 Provencale mother and her like.

What they haven’t done is monetise that message into a highly lucrative business (Zoe) based on pretty half-baked science. It’s not like that’s going to make any positive difference to addressing the complex social, economic, political and cultural factors contributing to the crisis. It will just make several thousand middle class orthorexics terrified of mayonnaise in jars.

Very presumptuous.

I have chronic rare autoimmune issues including lupus and Addisons disease. None of which are food related. So I’d rather enjoy whatever I want to eat; thanks. Health is not guaranteed by avoiding UPFs. I do eat a balanced, healthy diet but I won’t avoid a few bars of chocolate or a McDonald’s on the bet that it might make me live a little longer.

Weetabix

I do like oven chips

don't you enjoy life and good health ? You are trading that for sone food ?

^

Who are you, Confucius

Osem chicken powder

UPFs - Utterly Pointless Fuss

Bacon butties.
Orange Twirls

Sausage rolls

See also my 80 year old sausage roll and ready meal eating mother and her like.

I read his book, my main takeaway (see what I did there) was to eat more, different plant-based foods.

@CommeIlFaut totally agree re Zoe and the like but I think more people are avoiding or reducing UPFs because of the public discourse, and most without blowing a fortune on Zoe’s blue muffins and the like. I think there will always be an elitist wellness market but I don’t think anti-UPF discourse is part of that.