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?

@Mumsday so I should have explained on the honey. So when I got all my results back from the Zoe testing, I scored 0 on honey. For me personally it’s one of the worst things I could eat as it causes massive sugar spikes. So I have switched to the apples as I score 70 on apples.

But you’re right, it’s not a UPF

Ah, got it.

Very little, can only think of Kallo low-salt stock cubes off the top of my head. If I'm travelling or hiking I usually take Nature Valley bars, which isn't great. And sometimes I have a 'treat' but usually only when I eat out, which is all too rare. I do have a weakness for crisps but usually resist, when I get some it's Kettle Chips as they only have potato, oil and salt. And if I fancy a real pig out in front of the telly I like cottage cheese and Dr Karg Spelt Crackers 😋. Sounds like I'm super healthy when I write it down but don't think I am, just find it as easy to make meat & veg or a chickpea stew etc as I would to use processed food so why would I bother. I do drink rather more wine and coffee than I should and they've definitely been thoroughly processed!

Chris recommends 80/20.

Using today as an example (probably worse than normal as a day out with the kids.

Ive eaten-
yogurts
pasta
diarylea jumbo tubes
solero
Diet Coke

Yogurts, pasta and protein bar are staples for me.

I don’t often eat them but do like Doritos, chocolate that sort of thing too.

I rarely have a frozen oven tea. Our main meals are mostly non UPF its the snacks.

I think some things on that list are worse than others. For example bread, some bread can have only flour and salt and yeast as ingredients. Some have loads of other shit. I generally think things I couldn't make myself are the worst eg cereals are worse than bread. But not sure if that's just in my head. What's wrong with peanut butter where the ingredient is just peanuts and nothing else?

I've started making baked beans, they freeze and reheat well and are a million times nicer than the canned type.

Personally I hardly eat any UPF. My kids eat more than I would like but still fewer than most kids and I guess I have to just accept that as a good thing.

I’m a single parent and work 4 days a week and I always cook from scratch by the way, so I think it’s a myth that this is impossible. It really doesn’t take long to make some fish or meat, potatoes and vegetables.

I don’t eat any kind of cereals and never really eat bread. When we do it’s not UPF.

My diet is mostly meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, salads, nuts, seeds, fruit, full fat Greek yoghurt, cheese, butter, olive oil, spices, herbs.

I’ll have the occasional pudding or ice cream but generally homemade, and the occasional bag of crisps (weakness). The main thing would be bacon and ham I suppose, but that’s not often.

I don’t even think about buying UPF tbh. They’re just not in my diet and I would never think to buy them.

I sometimes think people buy them out of habit?

Quite concerned how many times yogurt made appearance on the thread... Unless people are talking about flavoured ones

You must know that your list isn't that bad.

Weetabix and shredded wheat are not UPF, neither is tofu or pasta. I had a good look at supermarket bread ingredients this week, that is UPF. I have stopped buying it.

This UPF thing is a fad and another excuse as to why the majority of the country is now overweight/obese. People like to be told it's not their fault it's the nasty food scientists and their chemicals...

Chris defines UPF as anything with ingredients you wouldn’t find in your kitchen.

There have been so many foods mentioned here that just aren’t ultra processed or unhealthy: butter, pasta, Greek yogurt, lentils, peanut butter, bananas (!). The ingredients in Tesco hummus are chickpeas, oil, water, tahini, salt and lemon juice. What’s wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong with trying to cook more from scratch, but seriously, I cannot get wound up about not making everything from scratch.

Have you listened to the podcasts or read the book?

Honestly I thought the same and just thought a calorie was a calorie and that obese people just lack self control. It’s absolutely enlightening and everything he says is backed with real data and studies.

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0BL1M9XCL?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow

I am coeliac so my GF pasta has emulsifiers in which make it UPF.

When you look at the chemical compounds in things not considered ultra processed you wouldn't also find these in your kitchen. The majority of the chemicals are found in nature they're not lab created frankenfoods.

Lots of yogurts are.

Corner yogurts, kids ones.

I second PP comments that everyone is not speaking from the same page with the definition of UPF. From OP alone, I was under the impression that Whole Earth Peanut Butter, Fruit Yoyos, Weetabix and Shredded Wheat are not UPF. And I also thought some some shop bought humous and jams are not UPF (don't know which one OP is buying ofc)

I do as much as I can to avoid regularly having UPF in our diet- veggie diet consists mainly of vegetables, pulses, whole grains and cheeses. Meals pretty much always made at home and try avoid buying any food with unknown ingredients on the label. Bread, yoghurt, cakes, biscuits are made at home rather than from a packet (although eat far more of the sweet stuff than I should). I have been trying to cut down on sauces and use powdered spices to make my own with ingredients such as yoghurt (still work in progress and easier with cuisines I am more familiar with).

I have been listening to the podcasts and also following Zoe for a while, I am really keen on the Zoe programme but the cost is a bit too much at the moment. My next step is to follow Zoe's advice for using beans rather than pasta in meals but not got there yet!

A lot of foods are lab created and those are UPF, that’s the point.

As far as I understand blueberries don’t have to be labelled by their compounds but as a whole. Because they’re a whole food.

Aldi and Lidl do a good peanut butter, 100% nuts, nothing else, they also do Almond butter which is also very nice.

Not so much nowadays as I had to change my diet due to health issues but I still eat:

Hellmans Mayo
Sacla Pesto
Bread/flatbreads
Packet marinades for chicken (there is a Polish one I really like that I can't recreate)

That's probably it to be honest unless I am eating out there maybe processed stuff I guess.

So the flavoured ones

If you are pescatarian you can cut out the vegan cheese and butter and eat normal cheese and butter. That's an easy win.

I know I'm going to sound really annoying but none. I have MS and for several years I've been making changes to my diet and lifestyle - habit stacking if you will - in order to feel the best I can, and this has lead me to eating only unprocessed food that I make myself. I feel great, my symptoms are massively reduced, and now I'm in the swing of it I don't find it hard.

HOWEVER I don't work and I don't have young children to cook for. If I did I would find feeding us all unprocessed food extremely difficult. Food manufacturers, restaurants, society in general make it much easier and cheaper to eat ultra processed foods. I believe it's a massive health and environmental issue that can only be tackled by the government.

@CosyCoffee
thats inspo 💪🏼 I try really hard but am not at 100%

Interesting to hear the impact it’s had on your health.