What do you eat each day if you are UPF - Free?

[Lifeisinshambles]

I’ve been gluten free and trying to cook from scratch a lot more the last few months. Now I’m at the stage where I want to start prepping some lunches for work, and really take the best care of my diet as possible, whilst also keeping it relatively easy. This is what I’ve got so far;

Breakfast -
Coffee with hazelnut milk
Multivitamin

Lunch -
Homemade soup (Miso tofu & rice, Chicken veg & rice, Chickpea & potato etc, all with lots of veg)
Vegetable egg muffin
Baby bel
Dark chocolate nut clusters (Literally just dark chocolate, coconut oil and lots of nuts mixed together, I always crave something sweet after eating now that I have quit vaping!)

Dinners -
Anything! Thai curry, Spaghetti bolognese, Turkish pasta, Stir fry etc. Homemade, upf free & lots of veg of course. We use gf lentil pasta.

Dessert -
Greek yogurt with Fruit, Nut mix (Walnuts, Pumpkin seeds, Chia seeds & Flax seeds), Honey and Cinnamon
or
Oatmeal with Fruit, Peanut butter, Honey and Cinnamon

I have spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years abusing my health and my body, now that I’m in the start of my 20’s I want to take control of my health again. I’ve quit vaping after being addicted for over 6 years (although still having a cigarette now and then when I need to!!), I have a fairly active job, and I already enjoy cooking. This is the final step!

If you eat upf free, what do you eat on a typical day?

In the winter I make soup to take in for lunches, or dal.

In the summer I tend to do a salad box. Home made coleslaw (with an oil and vinegar or lime juice dressing), some beans or chickpeas (from a tin), tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, some betroot - raw or cooked.

There's usually enough left over bits of salad in fridge to make it interesting. I did a sweet potato salad at the weekend that I just finished the leftovers off yesterday.

I'll have some fish or chicken or something else as protein with it.

I eat a lot of eggs, oats and bananas for breakfast. Not all together.

Evening meals often come down to a bit of a ‘meat plus couple of veg’ type things - I often do tray bakes where I can just chuck lots of veg in together with the meat.

These then good leftover lunches too.

Salad or veg with protein such as fish or steak. No breakfast. Small portions of the same twice a day. Boring but tasty. Homemade sauces if I can be bothered or bruschetta without the bread as a side with balsamic. It really hit home lately that the adult I love most in the world who had been athletic fit and healthy but had severe crohns ate upf due to time and classed as his safe foods is in the final stages of cancer in stomach region. May be a coincidence but all the years of eating what he thought what the right thing for him may be his demise. It’s been food for thought literally. I’m no expert but it’s sobering

Basically just veggies, pulses, and whole grains in various configurations with fruit and nuts for snacks.

For instance, yesterday I had fruit and a handful of nuts/seeds for breakfast, chickpea and veg soup for lunch, and lentil bolognese with courgetti for dinner.

Today, I had a banana and a few dates for breakfast, lunch will be lentil daal, and dinner will be vegan jambalaya.

Veg, salad, berries, herbs. Lean meat and lots of fish. Eggs, some cheese, some good butter, kefir, Greek yoghurt, pulses eg lentils, barley. Olive oil.

Lots of home made soup, and protein with veg or salad basically. Breakfast is Greek kefir yoghurt and berries with non upf muesli. Drinks are black coffee, herbal tea and lots of water.

You can take soup or previous night's leftovers for lunch, or take an omelette or frittata.

No upfs, no sugar, no alcohol, no refined carbs. Oddly I have gone off all these things since I started eating healthily.

I know, very saintly!

I eat a lot because I do a fair amount of training. I have been 100% upf free in the past, now more largely avoiding.

Straight after training- homemade bread with peanut butter or energy balls made from nut butter, seeds, oats

Breakfast - I use a lot of recipes from Rupy Aujla's Doctor's Kitchen as they can be made in advance. Things like shakshuka, carrot and peas with ginger, overnight chia seeds.

Lunch - batchcooked stew generally with basic protein and a lot of pulses or veg.

Dinner - generally nuts / cheese, fruit

I don’t eat breakfast, I eat lunch - mostly something like a Greek salad or smoked salmon and eggs. Sometimes dinner leftovers too.
Dinners are always home made cooking, a big variety but essentially something like meat, a carb (potatoes, rice, pasta) and some veg. But all cooked without jarred sauces or packet mixes, no ready meals. If we have bread it will be homemade bread of some kind - naan, chapati, focaccia, whatever goes with what we’re eating.
Thankful for dh as he does all the cooking and never fails to whip up a feast!
tonight is scallop gratin, garlic prawns and something else fishy.

ETA I’m not 100% UPF free but I’d say a good 90%. Growing up the percentages were switched and I was the complete opposite!
I go out to eat a lot and mostly try to choose things that are good for me and that makes me enjoy it all the more but from time to time I will have a burger and chips guilt free!

Today I had:
Greek yoghurt with berries and peanut butter
Sourdough toast with poached eggs and avocado and a satsuma
Salmon with brocolli & tomatoes

and a bar of chocolate with my coffee mid afternoon and I'm drinking a koppaberg cider now so not entirely healthy and upf free 😂

Suggest you ditch the nut milk- not great.

Today I had 2% Fage about 250gms - raspberries, a small banana and mixed seeds.

Lunch was a bit weird today - 1/2 avocado, small amount of Wensleydale cheese, an apple, a plum and 1 square of 75% dark choc.

I usually have a full salad with either cottage cheese, eggs, or sardines.
Some days I have soup- homemade lentil & carrot, pea and spinach, or mixed veg.

Dinner was homemade shepherds pie with puy lentils in it, steamed kale and carrots. Pudding was a mix of apple & blackberry crumble (oat and nut topping- not wheat flour) and more yoghurt.

I had an afternoon snack of an oatcake and almond butter.

Several cups of caffeine free Earl Grey and water.

That sounds lovely
Whatsup with hazelnut milk?

Are some of these diets not hugely expensive (and time consuming)? I’d love to eat like this but the price of meat and fish has sky rocketed (fish especially) and I barely have time to cook the meals I do with young DC.

Just wondering how people manage really both financially and time wise

Yesterday I had...

Overnight oats, 40g oats, a grated pear, a chopped fig, half a teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg and 100ml almond milk.

(I'm dairy intolerant - I'm aware that almond milk is upf but have to make this compromise).

2 hard boiled eggs, 2 slices of homemade wholemeal bread, lettuce, rocket and spinach.

Baked cod with parsley and lemon, roasted tomatoes, onions and asparagus drizzled with a little olive oil.

Plus coffee, herbal tea, an apple and a teaspoon of peanut butter.

Time wise, yes it can be. I find that I do lots of planning ahead and batch cooking and I always have meals and bread in the freezer.

At the moment my freezer contains wholemeal bread, potato bread, a beef curry, bolognaise, tomato leek and bacon pasta sauce, chickpea burger mixture, spicy lentil soup, butternut squash soup, a pile of apple oat bars, cod portions, etc.

I enjoy the planning, cooking and eating though so I don't mind.

It's not expensive at all if you don't buy things like cakes, biscuits, crisps, sweets and make a lot of vegetarian meals. I make a chickpea and spinach curry that would feed 4 for next to nothing.

Surely, your usual meals include either meat, or fish, or eggs or pulses?

What are you eating now?

I can't honestly say I'm UPF free as I'll have things like a bag of crisps. But our meals are definitely UPF free. I eat a lot of whole fruit and veg - breakfast this morning was an apple, two bananas and some nuts. By far the cheapest way to go too.

@LisaNando @Lifeisinshambles Plenish do nut milks that are just spring water, nuts and seasalt so non UPF

Following

Some of the cheaper brands of ready salted crisps are upf-free @curious79.

I would say reducing UPFs needn't be expensive or time-consuming but can be really inconvenient. I feel I have to plan ahead because it's hard to find stuff that is both UPF-free and satisfying out-and-about.

My breakfast tends to be based on Greek yogurt or eggs. Dinners are salad, soup or leftovers. Tea tends to be curries, stirfries, chillis etc. Snacks are the problem for me because I love chocolate bars. I think aiming for 80:20 is good enough.

Salmon is definitely the most expensive thing we eat.
We have mince meals like chilli or spag bol which tend to be cheaper, or chicken curry with chicken thighs, and make double to freeze.
Also quick meals like pasta pesto - some shop bought pestos are full of emulsifiers and potato starch, some are just basil, oil, cheese and pine nuts. You need to read ingredients and it's not necessarily the most expensive brands that are less processed.
I also do things like pitta pizzas for kids tea with are quick and cheap.

How to keep costs down:

Never waste any kind of food- plan carefully to avoid.
Eat smaller portions of the more expensive cuts of meat and the more expensive fish.
Explore the cheaper fish in season eg mackerel
Learn how to cook the cheaper cuts of meat - they are often the tastiest. Be adventurous. If you are lucky enough to have a local butcher and fishmonger, use them.
Make soup and stock from leftovers . Also a good way of using up veg that's past its best.
If you have the funds and space buy a standalone freezer or get one second hand. That way you can take advantage of supermarket yellow sticker items. Mine has paid for itself many, many times over.
Note you can freeze hard cheese and butter. Cheese loses its texture however.
A stick blender, slow cooker and pressure cooker will really help. Good Christmas presents.
Good luck and happy cooking.

I don’t eat breakfast. Instead I have brunch after my workout, usually around 10.30-11. Dinner around 6-ish, with a piece of fruit somewhere in between.

Brunch:
2-egg omelette + a bit of salad or leftover veggies
or a fair sized salad with boiled egg(s) and/or can of tuna or leftover chicken, salmon etc.

Dinner:
1/3 protein (chicken or fish/seafood mostly, occasional steak), cooked very simple, i.e. panfried in a little olive or avocado oil, flavoured with herbs (parsley , fresh coriander or basil), ginger, garlic, mustard and/or spices (cumin, coriander, chilli etc)
2/3 vegetables - anything that’s in season, either steamed or stir fried, or a massive salad of lots of different vegetables and dressed in punchy dressings (mustard or horseradish vinaigrette, lemon and EVOO, yoghurt or Asian), plus herbs (parsley or dill mostly)

Basically I just eat fresh food flavoured with herbs, lemon, Greek yoghurt, miso paste, soy or fish sauce, ginger and/or a few spices.

ETA: I usually cook double portions of meat/fish and vegetables to save time, and I make batches of salad dressing. I also use a lot of pulses - lentils and chickpeas - especially in salads. And soups, especially in winter.

Thanks but I don't drink plant milks now. I used to buy almond milk but having worked out how few almonds are in it, and it's mainly water, I won't buy it.
There is increasing research into how dairy is good for you - re. bowel cancer - so I'm sticking with real milk. I used to think I was dairy intolerant but having experimented over the years, I'm not.

Salmon is definitely the most expensive thing we eat.

You can often substitute tinned salmon (pink is fine rather than red.) Use it to make fish cakes, or with pasta, or in something like kedgeree (instead of smoked haddock.)

If you bulk out your meals with veg, brown rice and pasta, it isn't expensive.

I batch cook brown rice and puy lentils, or pearl barley, then add fried courgettes, aubergines, peppers and tomatoes at each meal. I might add garlic or olives for flavour and maybe a dollop of feta or goats cheese. I also make an acv, olive oil and lemon dressing or balsamic for speed. In winter it’s usually soup; any vegetables I have and tinned borlotti or butter beans etc boiled in stock and liquidised. Giving up shop bought sweet treats is still a major struggle though.