Ultra Processed Food- how much do you eat?

[pigeonpies]

Reading an article about ultra processed foods (UPF) and the link to poor health. Not rocket science I suppose, we all know the risks. But today is for me thinking because a lot of food typically targeted at kids ( sugary cereals ex)

I want to change the way my family eat. AIBU to think this will be more difficult than I imagine?

I thought we were doing ok but then saw how much stuff in my kitchen is ultra professed!

In theory cooking from natural foods feels great but not always practical!

If you are already followed a low UPF way of living I'd like to hear the sort of things you eat!

Thanks

I cannot see the problem with canned pulses

The ultra-high heats used in canning kills of lots of vitamins and minerals in things like beans and pulses, more so that the normal cooking or boiling does. But they are still better than

@SoUmmYeah

I cannot see the problem with canned pulses

The ultra-high heats used in canning kills of lots of vitamins and minerals in things like beans and pulses, more so that the normal cooking or boiling does. But they are still better than

Minerals won't disappear at high heat - so canned and dried beans will have the same amount of iron, magnesium etc. Vitamins B and C are easily denatured by heat, so would be lost whatever your cooking method. I still can't see the difference between canned and dried pulses in nutritional terms.

I mainly eat a plant based diet but I do have some cheese every few days. I have a lot of nuts and olives, avocado, vegetables, oils, no ready meals, no take aways (no one delivers to my home, middle of nowhere has its benefits!), v little in the way of processed foods but I do eat vegan sausages as they are so good (and I'm not perfect, nor I am striving to be).

I cook fresh every day, we use Gousto (which incidentally doesn't really make my life that much easier, I still have to chop, mix and prep). I drink little alcohol but if I do drink, it'll be good red wine or silver tequila.

I don't eat bread, rice, pasta, Quorn, and obviously, no meat or fish, also no cereal, biscuits or cakes, but I love Stilton and crackers and have these once a week or so. I drink loads of water. I love Oatly Barrista milk in my coffee, its wonderful in a latte and I simply don't have the time or inclination to make my own plant milk!

We go out to dinner once a week.

Food today has been latte with oat milk, nuts, olives, lunch - grilled halloumi, avocado, grilled tomatoes and chopped salad with homemade vegan mayo and pesto, dinner will be chilli and ginger aubergine stir fry (from Gousto) snacks - carrots and humous. Pudding will be kefir with grated dark chocolate, with a home made low sugar caramel sauce. I love my food and am not hungry.

I'm 46, v good skin, loads of energy, mood steady.

@PetuniaPot

The businesses push the "everything in moderation" ,"part of a balanced diet" messages because that sounds very reasonable. Meanwhile they are designing food like substances to be compulsively eaten with little end satisfaction.🤷

Totally agree. they're saying "well, we told you it should only be part of a 'balanced' diet so it's your fault if you can't control yourself" when they have designed the foodstuff to be eaten to excess.

@leafinthewind

I don’t think canned beans (plain ones) are UPF. I found the soil association’s pdf on it all much more helpful

www.soilassociation.org/media/21669/ultra-processed-foods_soil-association-report.pdf

I have found a few weeks of Hello Fresh and Gousto have given me tons of ideas of really lovely, healthy meal ideas.

I think eating and shopping habits have a lot to do with it. Most of us buy and eat pretty much the same food on a regular basis and that becomes “normal” for is. Doing a “reset” might take a few weeks but it’s doable.

P.s. I have very little time so often do really quick simple meals using things things like canned pulses and frozen vegetables.

I think your upbringing makes a difference too. My mum mostly cooked dinner from scratch but most other foods in our diet apart from the odd homemade cake were UPF.

My DH’s family on the other hand made pretty much made everything from scratch. He’d never had soup that wasn’t home made, any beans were soaked at home and cooked in pressure cooker, they always had home made bread. They didn’t have snacks/treats unless they baked them.

It’s made my life quite easy to be very low on the UPFs now as he makes the bread and one of us generally bakes something each week for us to have as a snack.

We do have pre made soups and tinned beans though 😂

I sometimes buy these very cheap ASDA smart price crisps that only have 3 ingredients. Are they simply processed rather than UP?

groceries.asda.com/product/large-multipack-crisps-10-packs/asda-smart-price-ready-salted-multipack-crisps/34125

this is way too perfectionist for me.

Low sugar Baked beans -- too "cooked", & ruined by 1 part per 200 of Stevia

Whole grain rye bread from Lidl? Ruined by 1% inverted sugar syrup

Soft cream cheese from (anywhere)? Ruined by 'thickeners'

Fruit juice? "too purified"

Discussion has taught me to ignore such discussions about risks of UPF. Threshold for "good enough" is forever impossible.

Gu Free From mini lemon cheesecakes (fight me)

😂

I think I'll just ignore all this UPF tbh.
My teens occasionally eat crisps, biscuits and the usual rubbish but I also feed them things like homemade chilli (with quorn 😱), spag bol, curry, cottage pie etc etc, use tinned tomatoes, tinned kidney beans etc loads of veg and that's supposed to be as bad as Shirley down the road feeding her kids burger and chips every night?? Nah.....

There's so much confusion around this though isn't there? For eg a poster is talking about 0% fat Greek yogurt - 'normal' Greek yogurt has fat in it, so the 0% has gone through another process to remove the fat. And probably has sugar added to it, and stabiliser, to make up for the loss of fat.

Not necessarily. If you buy plain unsweetened Greek yoghurt like Fage or the supermarket own brand equivalents, it's just yoghurt with the fat taken out. No sugar or anything else.

It sounds as though there is some confusion about what UPFs are. This explains it all clearly: www.fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf

@ElephantsNest thank you!

Thanks to this thread I decided to make my son homemade chicken tenders instead of bought ones. So, organic chicken mini fillets, one free range egg and some panko.

Does this count as non-processed?

Wine is fermented, so healthy, right

Not a lot. I don't eat any breakfast cereals, and seldom have biscuits or crisps.

I will sometimes eat deep fried "real" food in a pub for instance - or fish and chips, the deep frying rendering otherwise simple ingredients pretty unhealthy.

The most processed thing I eat regularly is bread, but not as much as many people, as I have lunch at home therefore don't default to sandwiches as many people do (they are very transportable!)

I don't think anything I eat has trans fats apart from deep fried aforementioned. I haven't eaten margarine or spreads since childhood, I switched to real butter aged 16 and haven't looked back.

Probably the dirtiest thing I drink is mass produced Prosecco and the occasional Pepsi max.

Food cooked mainly from scratch with the occasional takeaway

Oh wait, I forgot, bacon and ham, once or twice a week, but they are pretty far removed from how they were when the animal is slaughtered.

Sounds pretty good to me @ohnoohnoohnononononoo

From what I can tell dried yeast is classed as a UPF as is baking powder which means home baking isn't better. This is so confusing!

@SisterNight

From what I can tell dried yeast is classed as a UPF as is baking powder which means home baking isn't better. This is so confusing!

That's too bloody far. Ffs

Dried yeast and baking powder are not UPF - they are group 2 - processed culinary ingredients that are rarely eaten alone. It’s a bit of effort but if you read the link it does explain quite well what’s what.

From the link:

...Some common ultra-processed products are carbonated soft drinks; sweet, fatty or salty packaged snacks; candies (confectionery); mass produced packaged breads and buns, cookies (biscuits), pastries, cakes and cake mixes; margarine and other spreads; sweetened breakfast ‘cereals’ and fruit yoghurt and ‘energy’ drinks; pre-prepared meat, cheese, pasta and pizza dishes; poultry and fish ‘nuggets’ and ‘sticks’; sausages, burgers, hot dogs and other reconstituted meat products; powdered and packaged ‘instant’ soups, noodles and desserts;...

Simple swaps I made are:

Supermarket bread to bakery sourdough
Margarine to butter
Pringles to mixed nuts, dry roasted at home with sea salt
Ready made chicken nuggets to chicken strips coated in egg and breadcrumbs then baked in the oven.
Fruit yoghurt to plain live yoghurt - mix in high fruit jam and or fresh fruit.

@Cecillie

If the same article, said anything made in factory and wrapped in plastic. I cook from scratch but often use quorn mince as veggie in house, would quorn mince count as upf ?

Quorn is actually one of the most processed foods you can get