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?

Loads. I'm vegetarian but don't eat eggs or drink milk. I eat loads of fruit and veg too. Honestly how much processed food I eat is the least of my worries.

Exactly. When I say loads it's not like we don't cook. We do plenty, but as a vegetarian I eat quorn and veg sausage too. Plus all you mentioned!

Loads of the foods people are listing are processed (pretty much fine, e.g olive oil, peanut butter from 100% nuts, tofu etc.) not Ultra Processed which is completely different - e.g. contains loads of ingredients like emulsifiers, manmade sweeteners etc. e.g fake meats, spread etc. Real butter is not ultra processed for example!

As pp pointed out, almost all food we eat is processed to some degree.

Its ultra processed food that is a cause for concern.

The NOVA classification of good processing is a great reference point if you’re confused about what UPF actually is

NOVA classification

The less ingredients in something the better it is. So butter is better for you (in small quantities) than a low fat spread which has a long list of ingredients. I tried the 50 different foods a week challenge which is basically eating food in its natural form without anything added. It starts off easy but gets harder as the week goes on, because if you say have an apple every day that only counts as 1 food. It does make you think about what you're eating though.

Yes I was confused by that. I should think peanut butter and butter are fine.

GF bread.

GF pasta.

Occasional peanut butter.

Occasional baked beans, hotdogs and sausages.

Rest of the stuff is processed, not ultraprocessed - cheese, cured meat, olives, pickles, tinned tomatoes, spices, nuts, that kind of thing.

I'm not concerned.

Fake meat is definitely not unknown outside the UK.
Plenty of meat replacement products in Germany, actually more than in the UK supermarkets. Not sure about other places, but can imagine it’s similar in other EU countries and the States at least.

Not a huge amount of UPF- Hellmans mayo, nut milk, occasionally low carb bread. Probably 95% non UPF (I’ve been trying to avoid it for a while).

My teenage kids OTOH eat crisps, Kitkats, hating, you name it. Am hoping that having meals of non-Upf food will offset it all a bit.

im veggie and was horrified by how processed the veg alternatives are but I still eat them once a week for ease and protein.

ive started making my own biscuits instead of buying them & am attempting bread this week. Last weeks attempt nearly broke our teeth!

can’t manage to wean my kids off cereals but they are aware of UPF.

they are addictive; don’t fill you up and there are some studies about brain fog I believe. It’s very hard to eliminate them completely from your diet but even having an awareness has to be good as more informed choices can be made.

I don’t really understand why these foods are a problem? I’m pescatarian too and it sounds like we cook in quite similar ways - eg making pasta sauce from scratch and adding veggie mince. I don’t feel worried about it because I feel like my diet contains plenty of vegetables, pulses, fruit, fish, eggs etc. A few Linda McCartney sausages a week, plus some veggie meatballs another night or whatever are just a nice way to add protein in an easy way when you maybe don’t feel like making something more elaborate. Are these foods really a problem worth getting stressed about? I don’t mean to sound critical (I hope my comment isn’t coming off that way!) - I just don’t get it.

I meant veggie cultures where they know how to cook veggies. Not Germany.

There seems to be some confusion as to what ultra-processed foods are. Food can be processed, but ultra processed foods contain ingredients the ordinary person wouldn’t cook with. So, for example, you would cook with milk but you wouldn’t cook with milk protein. These are the things we’re not designed to eat and we don’t know what their effects are. There’s a lot of research happening on UPF and how it affects our guts (and, in turn, our brains as the two appear to be very closely linked) and its not coming out in the UPF’s favour.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_food

I do eat some UPFs but it’s generally in the form of condiments such as ketchup or mayonnaise, so only in small quantities. I occasionally have takeaways - and then I’m of a “Hang it, I’ll have whatever I want” mind - but generally I eat fruit, vegetables, dairy, some meat (but only very occasionally continental meat or bacon/sausages) and pulses. I have granola but I make my own, I’ll have a pudding of some description but I’ll have made it myself. Bread is generally sourdough from a local bakery that’s just starter, flour and water.

However, I recognise that this is because I have the time and money to do so.

I think you are right. Jam is processed, unless you go for one of the really reduced sugar ones. I have a jam that is fruit sugar and pectin, which is what I also put in jam I make myself.

In which case if it is reduced sugar it is often UPF because they add in extras to make up for the lack of sugar.

Butter is totally fine. It's like cheese, they are processed but not ultra processed.

@Daffodilsandbagels There’s research coming out that suggests they really aren’t good for us. We aren’t designed to eat these foods and we don’t know what effect they truly have but none of it looks good.

Dr Chris can Tulleken has just written a book on the subject, and Prof Tim Spector has written about UPFs too. If you search you’ll find interviews with/articles by them.

There’s a whole big thing about how these foods are marketed, as they often are sold as being “high fibre”, “added vitamins” , “high protein” etc etc but that’s quietly not mentioning all the ultra processed ingredients. Sadly, vegetarian foods are some of the worst for containing crap.

Most of what you list aren’t ‘highly processed” food really. Tim Spector says baked beans are fine. We have fruit and fibre cereal, whole meal bread, occasionally Quorn sausages, whole meal pasta. But mostly unprocessed foods. Always have natural yoghurt, cook from scratch.

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin yes and for me it’s definitely about eating stuff that’s not recognisable in the ingredients! I do occasionally have a Lloyd grossman curry sauce & actually his stuff contains very little rubbish. But processed I guess. But stuff that is unrecognisable- I just don’t want to eat it anymore!

I dont think pasta is UPF either. Instant noodles would be.

It’s funny, I was going to start a thread on this today. I am really trying to cut down on UPF (ultra processed food) for the kids and us, but I am always so confused about it- I understand that UPFs are things that usually have a long list of ingredients, but are, for example, all breads you can buy in supermarkets UPFs? I found one today that looked ok but on closer inspection I found it had barley malt extract in which I know is UPF.

What about if I made the kids a cake with butter, sugar, eggs and flour? What about jam? Cheese?! What about oven chips if they’re the ones with just potato and oil- no coatings etc?

It’s so hard. One change I’ve made this week is to not buy ham for my middle child’s packed lunch and roasted a whole chicken for his sandwiches instead- but then he likes mayo in it which is apparently UPF…

I’m definitely aware of cutting down but it’s hard to know what counts and what are the worst offenders.

Probably quite similar to you op.

Weetabix
Bread/Bagels
Quorn mince
Baked beans
Ham
Store bought fishcakes
The occasional jar
Cheese
Yoghurts
Crisps
Store bought sauces

I do cook most evenings, we don't have sugary cereals, if we have cake it usually homemade and we don't eat loads of junk food all the time.

I'd love to make absolutely everything from scratch but realistically I have a job, two children, children's hobbies to ferry them around to, a house to keep clean.

Can't do everything 🤷‍♀️

You know bowel cancer isn't caused by processed food 100%. To say that people who have bowel cancer have caused it themselves is actually very offensive

We don’t eat any UPF’s, we’ve completely removed it from our diets. I recently went through the Zoe project testing and it was fascinating getting my results.

Everything we eat from breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner is cooked from scratch. I have to be very organised and have lots of bases in my freezer for the week ahead.

We have gotten rid of the ‘treat’ drawer and have nuts, seeds, fruit, 90% dark chocolate etc now. I read the gummy bear ingredients list to my kids and they were horrified what goes in it.

after listening to all the recent research from Tim Spector and others I’m more than happy to eat this way. It’s had an unexpected impact on my body too. I’ve lost weight, my cholesterol has gone down, I’m not lethargic anymore, I don’t have massive sugar highs, I’m more awake and alert and have way more energy. So I’m going to carry on eating this way as it’s made a huge difference for me personally.

I think your list is pretty similar to us - so I thought we were pretty good because we always make dinner from scratch. Problem is though all the other meals able snacks!

I’m really trying to improve (since I listened to the podcast that preceded this book and felt really quite disgusted!). In particular I don’t want my one year old DD to be eating very much UPF at all. So for example I’ve started:

• making my own granola
• making my own hummus/tzatziki/guacamole/salsa when previously I’d probably have just bought it
• making my own oatcakes
• switching to steel cut oats
• making flavoured yoghurt for DD by adding fruit purée to Greek yogurt

all of these home made things are obviously still processed but don’t have the stabilisers/emulsifiers/mould inhibitors/preservatives etc

I’m trying with the bread and I did get a bread maker but who has the time!

so we do eat processed:

• bread and bagels
• cereal (though I always make porridge for DD)
• baked beans occasionally
• tacos/tortillas
• crisps
• processed meats like sausages/salami etc though never for DD and trying to reduce it (though I had a bacon roll this morning so….)
• Hot chocolate
• tonic (for my gin)
• condiments like mayo/soy sauce/ chutney etc

also obviously we use pasta/noodles/cous cous/porridge oats/ olive oil etc all of which are processed but not ultra processed.