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?

Processed stuff I eat -

bacon, twice a week (grilled)
baked beans, twice a week
curry sauce (Patak's), once a month
pasta sauce (Dolmio), once a month

If you WFH, making bread is very easy if you have a mixer. I just throw ingredients in, mix for a few minutes. Put it some where warm for 2 hours. Kneed it for a few minutes and stick it in a tin, leave for another hour before baking. Very little interactive time.

I'm going to see how well it freezers.

I've started making my own bread and as @LuciferRising says, it is very straightforward. It's being around for the proving bit that makes it a faff, but if I am WFH it's easy.
I've also started making my own biscuits and cakes. I think I'm eating less of them, they are definitely more filling and it's harder to eat them mindlessly.
I'm trying not to get too hung up on it, but I am taking more care in the supermarkets t read labels.
Great tip on the Waitrose cream cheese, just goes to show it's worth taking time to look

I have another question - is tinned fruit in juice classed as a UPF if it has citric acid (acidity regulator) added? Eg peach slices in juice. I often give that sort of thing to the kids, whizzed up as a cheap, convenient and healthy topping for Greek yogurt, because I’ve always thought it’s a better alternative to fruited yogurts. Can’t find anything on the Open app. My gut feeling is that it probably is UPF but maybe less bad than fruited yogurts.

Thanks!

I typed in just ‘peaches’ on the app and several came up. The cheap Sains ones were a 3 rating but most of the others had missing info

Thank you - I didn’t see those! If they’re in syrup, I can just drain it off

I think any tinned fruit in juice would be preferable to in syrup, even if drained.

I think citric acid is fine isn’t it? I have it in
my kitchen

I would say citric acid is one of those things that is on the less bad side, but I don’t know. It’s in a lot of things! I think for me that would be one to let go because for example, it’s in the cheaper passata and I can’t justify literally an extra pound per jar to not have it in. Will look to see if any cheaper brands don’t have it in.

As a side note, I have had a couple of days of not being strict on UPF at all, and I feel terrible. It’s also interesting that the minute I started having some, I craved more. Back on it today because it’s not worth it.

ive made bagels today, they were relatively simple. I had no idea that they are boiled in water and bicarb before baking. Just had one hot from the oven and it was very pleasant. I shall freeze half. Just water, yeast, flour, salt and sugar.

There is some discussion here about the potential impacts of manufactuered citric acid on the body
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6097542/#:~:text=Citric%20acid%20naturally%20exists%20in,a%20food%20and%20beverage%20additive.

That’s really interesting - thank you.

Think I’m in danger of going down a rabbit hole here and I need to remember that old ‘perfect being the enemy of good’ thing. A bit of puréed tinned fruit even with some citric acid is probably better than a Fruit Corner!

https://www.countryliving.com/uk/create/food-and-drink/recipes/a401/elderflower-cordial/

thanks, this has saved me from using it, I shall use lemon juice instead - this is my next project next weekend

Agreed.

"fake meat is unknown outside the UK"

Inaccurate and stinks of racism attitude @CharlotteRumpling

Butter doesn't have to be kept in the fridge so leave it out in a butter dish and it is easily spreadable.

This works amost all year round, ours is in the butter dish on a work surface even now in this hot weather. The very hottest days of the year I may put the butter dish in the fridge during the day but bring it out again at the end of the day when cooler.

Your diet sounds pretty good from a UPF perspective.

Butter is fine, better than highly processed butter alternative spreads. The ham is probably highly processed but I won't be giving up ham either (maybe cutting down). Not sure about bacon - expect that's a no-no though.

Was that you staring at my trolly in Waitrose?

Is that an App you are using @RedRosette2023 ?

It seems a very good way of identifying which products are Processed and which Ultra Processed. I like the traffic light system and think it would be useful if it could be added to the nutritional information we already get on packaged food re salt, sugar etc. Though as someone else noted, no doubt companies would then increase prices on certain foods to reflect our current interest in UPF .

I'm concerned a lot of the non UPF products mentioned are already out of the price range for many families. An example being very expensive bread or the advice to use extra virgin olive oil for cooking instead of sunflower or vegetable oil. Good advice nutritionally but not everyone can afford it and so will increase pressure on low income parents trying to do the best for their children.

Maybe that explains why Pringles are so addictive? I bloody love them & the old marketing campaign was so true, "once you pop you can't stop".

They never explained that was because of all the chemicals they put in them!

Pringles are so false they initiated their own court case to argue they weren’t crisps at all.. it had tax implications for them.

https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/pringles.htm

Hmm interesting... I know I should give them up but I will still treat myself to some occasionally. I'm only human after all and they are delicious.

Which specialist organic shop please?

@MinimalistMommi Clearspring. Lovely stuff.

Another vote for clearspring. Their oatcakes are one of the few brands that contain no wheat or veg oil. Available from Ocado.

I would look for nitrite/nitrate free ham and bacon. Finnebrogue is one brand that does both, think Waitrose has other nitrite free bacon. Nitrites are really bad for you (carcinogenic).