Reducing unltra processed food

[Illbefinejustbloodyfine]

Is there a good website/page i could follow that isnt extreme? But more realistic?

I could definitely do better. This week’s meals for example:
chicken ham, mushroom and leek pie with veg. The ham is upf (left over from Sunday roast) and used a stock pot and shop puff pastry.
beetroot bhajis with naan and raita. Bought the naan.
Chicken casserole and veg. Stock pot again.
Chicken fajitas. Shop bought wraps.
Cooked breakfast. Bacon upf, sausage upf (although they were the naked ones), hash browns upf, baked beans upf. Egg, mushroom, spinach, tomatoes, sourdough not upf.
prawn pad Thai- not sure about the noodles. They only have three ingredients. Fish sauce upf.
Roast. Gravy will probably be bisto tbh.

I have previously made my own tortillas and naan but not very successfully. The family prefer the shop ones and it’s much easier on a busy weeknight. I make my own bread but still buy supermarket bread for the bulk of it. I sometimes make my own stock but often can’t be bothered and storing it is a problem as the freezer is always full of meat/veg/leftovers.

The children’s breakfasts are the worst here. At the moment my battle is getting them to eat anything at all in the morning so what they eat is less of a priority but it’s often shite- toast, Cheerios etc.

I'm still to be convinced that UPFs are actively bad for you, as opposed to people with diets high in UPFs not eating anything healthy. Alcohol is actively bad for you - moderate consumption increases risks of many diseases, high consumption can kill you.

Unprocessed or minimally processed fruit, veg, legumes, fungi, eggs & fish is definitely good for you.

Are UPFs actively harmful - in which case we should completely or nearly avoid them? Or is it the lack of fruit & veg & other healthy foods that causes harm?

TLDR - not convinced a few crackers and packet of crisps in an otherwise healthy diet makes much difference.

Just cook from scratch and cook extra portions and freeze if suitable so you have “ready meals” for when you need them. But fine to use some conveniences eg canned tomatoes and beans, frozen vegetables and with things like bread just buy ones with fewer odd sounding ingredients (fortified minerals aside)

Oh and don’t worry about things like stock in an otherwise scratch cooked meal, we are not going to be adversely impacted by a knorr stock pot. Lots of fresh veggies, uncured meat etc = healthy

@EricTheHalfASleeve I go round in circles a bit with this. Most of the time I think a couple of slices of supermarket bread in an otherwise unprocessed lunch is not actively harmful, other times I worry that the emulsifiers etc are damaging.

I read that one of the main issues with upf is that it’s addictive and that people just keep eating it. One of the examples was coco pops, people eat a bowlful then go back for more. I read something else that says some people are predisposed to this and it does seem to be true for my family- none of us would do this, we’d just eat our bowlful and be done.

My main concern is long term health tbh, we’ve had a few family members die very suddenly after cancer diagnosis’ and I want to prevent that by making us all as healthy as I can if it’s at all possible. I just don’t know whether supermarket bread and stock pots are bad, or if it’s more important that we’re eating a range of fruit and veg and mostly home cooked food.

a few people have said they make fresh bread but struggle to finish it before it goes stale. I always slice and freeze my bread so this isn’t a problem

I agree, scratch and batch..I make a lot of homemade soup. You can make your own crisps really easily, I have a mandolin which will cut spuds or any root veg thing, then oven bake.

I think the answer to the breakfast struggles is not to have certain things in the house at all. I absolutely never buy breakfast cereal. In my mind it’s about as nutritious and healthy as sawdust. My children love it as they’ve had it at hotels and would eat it all day long but ts not food and doesbt set them up well. Bakery/home made bread with non-UPF peanut butter or nitrate free bacon or eggs is a winner. Protein at breakfast is non-negotiable as it has such an impact on blood sugar stability over the day

I thought the reason processed food was bad is because of the high content of salt, sugar and fat. Combined with instant availability, it is preventing people from having a nutritious diet as they were filling up on high calorie crap. Baking a cake from scratch will have the same effect. You'll probably eat more of it though, as it will taste better.

The Yuka app is quite good. You can scan the barcode or type in the name of the product and it will tell you whether it’s UPF and if it is will recommend an alternative item for you.

Jason’s sourdough bread isn’t too bad as are the Crosto and Mollico wraps and pittas. Bread makers make life easy and I also found that using my rice cooker to make porridge made breakfasts a doddle. But you could also buy UPF free cereals using the Yuka app for inspiration.

When making the switch with family, my top tip is not to try to do too much at once. Swop out all the easy stuff overnight - they won’t notice that you are suddenly using Mutti tinned tomatoes or kallo stock cubes rather than your usual and they’ll probably be delighted if you start making homemade flapjacks and a cake once a week so won’t notice biscuits being phased out. But they may want to hang on to favourite cereals or confectionary or drinks for quite a while and if you are otherwise reducing the rest that’s OK

Just don't buy anything in a jar ,Tin or packet

We have gradually been reducing our UPFs over the past year or so. I aim for reduction but not perfection...... it's really hard to totally avoid them if you ever want to eat outside of the house! The average diet in the UK is over 50% UPF.......the rates are higher for children. I aim for 80% UPF free for our family and then don't worry about the other 20%.

We started with swapping out our biggest UPF culprits. Bread is now Jasons or Crosta and Mollica for things like wraps or I make my own and freeze it when I have time.

Yoghurt is now just swapped to plain greek yoghurt with fruit.

Ham and other cured meats have been dramatically reduced as they're not great for you anyway. We buy more parma ham or serrano as it's usually just pork and salt and any bacon we buy is nitrate free. M&S have a range of sausages at the moment in the Only Ingredients range that are just six natural ingredients so I'll buy them. But this stuff is occasionally rather than daily or even weekly.

Cereal is now porridge oats or one of the single ingredient cereal boxes (Shredded Wheat, Sainsbury's or Morrisons do puffs that are just wheat, M&S have cornflakes that are 100% corn.)

I'll make my own pasta sauce or buy one of the jarred brands that are OK (Heinz with the white labels, Mutti and M&S all have jarred pasta sauce that are UPF free.)

You can have things like crisps and biscuits if you want them and we definitely still buy them but again make sure these are occasional treats rather than a daily part of our diet. Plain salted crisps are often just potatoes, oil and salt and all butter shortbread is often OK but you do need to check the packets to find the brands that don't have emulsifiers, artificial flavourings and other weird stuff in them.

Switch.the.upf on Instagram and the Reducing Ultra Processed Food Facebook group are really useful.

In general, if you focus on whole foods and cooking from scratch more, read the ingredient labels and don't buy anything with ingredients you wouldn't find in your kitchen then you can't go far wrong. And aim for reduction rather than total elimination.

I tend to agree that in a generally healthy and whole food diet the occasional McDonald's isn't going to do you any harm. But I do worry about the increasing rates of bowel cancer in younger people and the research coming out about exactly how bad UPFs are for us.....so I think any move consumers can make towards UPF free food is a positive thing.

@Ieswe I read a study about obesity reasons recently. The author showed that weight gain went through the roof for all parts of society the same time food manufacturers increased the amount of flavourings, additives, processed ingredients and reduced the "real food" parts.

That was a US study which especially highlighted corn syrup but the author also showed that the UK wasn't far behind.

Add the increase to advertisement, both parents working and needing fast and easy food plus the decrease of physical activity at the same time and you have a developed world with weight issues.

There are reasons that certain preservaties are now banned in food, or colourings.