To ask what highly processed food you eat?

[Lifeswhatyoumakeit73]

I haven’t read the Dr Chris book yet about highly processed food but I have read other stuff & it’s made me super conscious of how much HPF we eat. I cook mainly from scratch but as a family of 3 pescatarians & me who is mainly plant based but eats eggs, I realise I need to look at what we eat & make some changes. I cook from scratch as much as I can but I am a busy mum who works full time so we do reply on some HPF. Looking in my cupboards:

We have:

• baked beans
• veggie sausages
• veggie mince
• oat milk
• vegan cheese
• vegan butter
• Tacos
• crackers, crisps, bread sticks
• shop bought houmous
• shreddies, weetabix
• caramel wafers
• yoyos
• couple tins veggie chilli
• peanut butter (whole earth so just peanuts but still bad apparently)
• jam
• seeded bread sliced
• bagels

How bad is that? How does it compare to others? I use veggie mince to make a spag Bol from scratch but will, for example, use lentils instead.

i feel like most of our food is cooked fresh but judging by this list, we have a lot of processed crap that I hadn’t registered.

Aibu to ask you to share so I can compare?

Noting if you get shelf stable organic as just oats/water/salt or the Jord oat and hemp from fridge. Otherwise they have guar gum & stabilisers in them.

• the above was re oat milk

Mmmmm. Caramel Whispas.

I'm hungry.

I think it’s helpful to consider the intent and purpose of processing. Some foods are processed because that enables us to eat and store them. Others are processed to make them more attractive, addictive and cheaper which is when processing because an inherently bad thing.

I always think the 'food your granny would recognise' is... dated? I'm in my late 30s and my grannies are both no longer with us and would be in their 90s if they were - they both thought ready meals and convenience meals were wondrous time and drudgery savers that they embraced whole-heartedly! I feed my children a lot less processed food than I ate in the 80s/90s - I'm just much more conscious of the downsides than my mum was then.

My Dad tells me my Great grandma would roll in her grave if she knew there was such a think as frozen yorkshires 😂 same sort of thing I suppose.

We didn’t have much UPF growing up. I probably cook more challenging meals. It was more meat and two veg when we were kids.

Cathedral city mature cheddar cheese v their vegan ‘cheese’
I think a lot of people think the plant based options are healthy.
In Op’s case the 3 pescatarians swapping to dairy cheese is an easy change.

I was merrily giving my baby the Yeo Organic baby yogurts that said sweetened with fruit, which it is. Looked closer and the ingredients include ‘organic maize starch’ which I think counts as a UPF. It’s so hard. Obviously natural yogurt mixed with fruit would be not UPF but sometimes convenience and you think you’re making a good choice by not buying, for example, Petit filous. Also so confused about cooking oil, for ages was told rapeseed oil best to cook in, NOT olive. Now being told rapeseed is terrible?!

Wow, why on earth is fructose added to cheese?

I really do think it is difficult to switch out UPF in our society. I've looked at food for today and think I'll make some changes.

B - Protein smooties with vegan protein powder, banana, chia seeds, and flax. After I've finished the powder I'm swapping for greek yoghurt and will simply eat rather than drink breakfast.

L - Poached eggs on seeded toast with clover and peashoots and ketshup. I have butter in the fridge but it annoys me when it won't spread. I can switch to that. Bread is a worry. It is full if crap. I can make my own easily enough though. No idea what I'll do for ketshup. Do I care about that?

D - homemade cauliflower cheese and salad. No UPF here.

Wraps tomorrow. I found a wrap recipe but it is a pain to make them. A quick meal turns into a lengthy one.

All of it, you name it. Smash!

I think people get a bit confused about the difference between processed and ultra processed. Things like cheese, etc are processed but they are not bad. It’s the ultra processed foods that we need to worry about.

@LuciferRising apparently the normal Heinz tomato ketchup is processed, not ultra processed. The reduced sugar one is UPF, presumably because it has all the extra ‘ingredients’ in to replace the sugar.

This is in today's Guardian:

I should have added, it's written by the author of Ultra-Processed People, Dr Chris van Tulleken.

@maybein2022 i switched a while back from shop yoghurts to plain Greek yoghurt for the kids with fruit added. I get those bags of frozen berries and cook them up in the pan then cool and freeze half of the compote and keep the other half in the fridge. Then mix it into the bowl or plain yoghurt and add some honey if they like. Mine like the frozen mango cooked up and then whizzed they best! It takes only a few mins to cook some frozen berries on the hob then you have a big tub to last for a while.

@Longwhiskers thanks, that’s a good idea. How long would you keep the compote in the fridge for? My kids love mango- does the frozen stuff need cooking or just defrosting and whizzing? Thanks!

@maybein2022 I think it generally stays in the fridge for about a week or is eaten by then anyway. One weird child likes the Berry compote on muesli and bran flakes! The mango I cook slowly to soften it up enough to be whizzed. We don’t add sugar to that one as mango is so sweet. Aldi also do frozen apple slices and you can make purée for yoghurt from those too 😊

@Longwhiskers thanks so much, one change to make once the current yogurts are used up!

For those thinking of switching bread, Crosta & Mollica have a big range and only contain flour/olive oil/salt. Their piadinas are good for wraps. I E seen their products in most supermarkets https://www.crostamollica.com/products/bakery

Thank you. Bread is the one UPF thing my kids eat that I would struggle to cut out.

The bread looks lovely thanks for linking.

https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-four-seasons-breakfast-topper-350g/4088600214757
I always have this in freezer plus mixed frozen berries etc.
It’s just fruit - add to natural Greek yoghurt or Icelandic skyr.
It’s cheaper than buying individual flavoured yoghurts too.

I eat pretty healthily and cook mostly from scratch, but we still eat a lot of processed food!

-nut butters (Pip and Nut and Manilife - peanut butter and almond butter) we eat this every day
-supermarket bread - again we eat it every day
-Nairns oat cakes
-fruit yo-yos (bear ones)
-crisps
-dark chocolate
-baked beans
-supermarket hummus (but always search for non ultra processed ones)
-gherkins (again, search for ones without sugar / not as ultra processed)
-tinned olives
-organix kids treats
-vegan sausages
-occasional ice cream

I think it’s practically impossible to live in the modern world and avoid eating processed food.

www.mightydrinks.com/powdered-oat-milk.list only 3 ingredients so might give it a try as better than some other vegan milks and I just use in coffee.
Plenish brand milks are simple ingredients but not great in coffee