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?

This is a great thread, thanks everyone.
I’ve just downloaded the app and will scan everything in my cupboards tomorrow.
I’ve already had a couple of surprises whilst testing it….
salted hula hoops are a 3 on Nova and so are my brand of cream crackers! Definitely not what I would have expected and might make it a bit easier than I thought it would be.
I’m going to aim for cutting out as much of category 4 as I can as a first step. We already eat pretty well and have a lot cooked from scratch so if that’s all I end up doing, I reckon that will be a good start

We have:

Supermarket bread with slightly better ingredients

Soreen

Crisps (only buy baked crisps but still v bad! We only eat crisps at the weekend)

100% Peanut butter
Marmite
Margarine (olive)
Nutella
Potato waffles
Vegan quorn sausages
Vegan mince
We still love sweets

Things I've stopped buying
Baked beans
Cheap bread
Tortilla wraps
Fried crisps
Fruit yoyos
Margarine (cheap stuff)
Pre grated cheese
Supermarket ice cream (we only buy local ice cream now)
Biscuits
Cheap pasta
Ham
All smoked meats
Smoked cheese
Chicken dippers

We're on a tight budget and we have a mix of vegan and meaty meals. But have vegan sausages as a quick meal option rather than chicken nuggets.

My stomach has been much less bloated since I stopped having tortilla wraps for lunch. The ingredients were absolutely ridiculous! I always thought they were healthy 😕 (I used to buy them from Aldi and Lidl!)

Peanut butter and marmite are not UPFs 😊

Yay! Thanks @NoAprilFool 😊

This thread has been really great and it’s also good to see most people on here aren’t being obsessive about cutting out everything, just cutting down. I have to say I feel so much better for cutting back, and have lost 10lb in just a couple of weeks (combined with a diet but by eating more whole foods and wasting less of my allowance on crap I’ve felt much more satisfied and less likely to overeat).

Older kids are still eating some stuff I’d prefer them not to, BUT they are teenager/pre teen and I’m happy that their main meals and breakfasts have been so much better, as have my middle child’s packed lunches. Baby is off the baby yogurts that sneakily included maize starch and loving natural yogurt with fruit.

Feel totally betrayed! Thought it would be processed not UPF. Remember the ads “Just hazelnut”

I had a huge jar that must be out of date I know because I got it when I was pregnant with DS2 who is now 2 years old! Just fancied some on toast.

What app did you download please? I think I saw one mentioned earlier on the thread but can’t find it now

https://world.openfoodfacts.org/

The app link is at the top of the page 🙂

Thanks @GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin 😊

Has anyone got a good tortilla wrap recipe? Mine never work as well as I would like.

We are pretty good - I don’t eat any, DS and DH eat - few. Largely because DH refuses to learn to cook, but that’s another thread!

Oatly. - I’ll switch to making my own oat milk at some point.

Supermarket bread products. This is a hard one to cut out for me, no local bakery and while I do make my own bread pretty often I need to keep up with packed lunches!

Baked beans. I’m working on my own recipe to freeze, it’s not perfect yet though.

Canned soup. This is a DH one for quick lunches when I’m working weekends.

Vegan mince. I’ve stopped buying it now, but working through what’s in the fridge. Happily, everyone here eats lentils!

Another one feeling betrayed by Nutella. I think we can wean ourselves off it or reduce how much we can consume.

However Nutella is used in everything in Europe. Custard, cookies, cake, ice cream, they literally whip Nutella up with cream for a pudding and have it with pastries every morning. When I lived there they sold Nutella in huge jars and it was consumed by everyone daily 😂

And now I fancy Nutella

I've just remembered "the breakfast man" used to come around every morning with an offering of Nutella croissants 😂

Like an ice cream van but pastries!

These are the supermarket breads I eat but the app linked on this thread said they are both UPF when I scanned them. It also said my weetabix, whole earth peanut butter, crosta and mollica products and marmite are upf which others on this thread have said isn’t the case so now I just don’t know!

@Orcubed I think the app is not perfect, also watch out because sometimes (assuming you’re in the UK) it will show a different country’s version which might be UPF if the ingredients are different.

Also, I think as has been discussed before, even if some supermarket bread is UPF, at least if you’re going for one with fewer ingredients and less rubbish in it’s probably better than nothing as a swap. Interesting about the Crosta and mollica products- which ones do you have? I bought the wraps to use for fajitas- haven’t tried them yet.

On a side note- my eldest two kids took themselves off to Tesco last night to buy some ‘treats’ for their Saturday night film- I inwardly sighed when they came back with a tube of sour cream and onion Pringles and a tub of ben and Jerry’s, but I am ok with them having these very occasionally, just not buying buying them habitually to have in the house.

Pringles actually used to be a staple of our picnics and things, but the ingredients are one of the worst and longest lists I’ve come across.

I am surprised people are surprised about Nutella 🙈
Of course it's in many sweets, it is assumed people won't have all of them 😁 Bit of Nutella there and there is fine. 😁

These are the supermarket breads I eat but the app linked on this thread said they are both UPF when I scanned them. It also said my weetabix, whole earth peanut butter, crosta and mollica products and marmite are upf which others on this thread have said isn’t the case so now I just don’t know!

That's so weird, I've just checked and the Jason loaf is literally flour, salt, and the fermentation starter which is again just flour. Bertinet likewise. Granted, they're processed, but I woulnd't have thought ultra-processed.
I've never used the app though tbf, I tend to just cook most things from scratch and then ingredient check the bits and pieces I do buy that I don't make myself, like bread and oatcakes. I mostly try and ensure that I steer clear of anything that contains bulking agents, stabilisers, perservatives etc - all the stuff I wouldn't have in my own kitchen or know where to buy. And I swerve seed oils now too which is a faff, and try and eat mostly organic.

Honestly, I don't really care either way.

Growing up, we had quite a lot of processed food. My mum has many admirable qualities, but cooking isn't really one of them, so I didn't have a lot of good modelling of behaviour.

Nowadays, I like to cook, but don't have the time or energy to rustle up something from scratch every day. Today for instance, we having Birdseye lamb grills (which are probably made of awful stuff, but we all love them!), a few oven chips, and a mound of spring greens.

@FrostyFifi @maybein2022 I only downloaded the app this morning as a result of the thread and don’t think I’ll be keeping it, just doesn’t seem accurate enough/to have many of the products we buy. Better to rely on common sense I think. Plus we have several different dietary requirements in our household so some upf is inevitable to meet those, we’re never going to eliminate it completely.

@maybein2022 we have the torinesi breadsticks and the flatbreads at the moment. The pizza is really good too

I was going to download the app but I don’t think I will. It’s common sense as you say. If you check the ingredients list on the things you buy and there’s a big list of stuff that doesn’t sound like food, it’s UFP.

This is a very interesting and informative thread. Can I ask what do people do for kids lunches? To avoid UPFs eg sandwiches, beans on toast and so on

I used to make/roast with a homemade marinade chicken drumsticks for my dd, add in chopped melon, crackers and cheddar instead of cheese strings which was the rage back then., cherry tomato and a piece of homemade cake

@seeyouinanotherlifewhenwearebothcats packed lunches or lunch at home? My middle child has packed lunches and I do sandwiches with the least crap supermarket bread I can, butter and roast chicken and salad or cheese, lots of vegetables eg tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and a couple of pieces of fruit. If I’ve made them, maybe a homemade biscuit or cake. I’ve cut out crisps, chocolate bars, chocolate biscuits etc BUT I am lucky that he likes all the healthy stuff anyway.

@maybein2022 both I suppose. My eldest will be taking packed lunches from September onwards - he is sandwich obsessed - and my youngest is 3. Some good ideas here, thanks!

I wonder how much of school dinners are UPF?