To ask for your recipes which reduce or don't use ultra processed foods?

[nutbrownhare15]

The recent coverage of UPFs has been a bit of a wake up call for me in terms of the family diet. Read this report today https://www.firststepsnutrition.org/upfs-marketed-for-infants-and-young-children 😱Convenience is a big factor, but it's become habit as well and we tend to eat the same sort of dishes on rotation, the freezer is stocked with UPFs and my kids are used to having UPFs for snacks. I'm not looking to exclude them from our diet completely just ways to reduce them or reduce the amount of processing in the foods we do eat. So I'm asking if people could share quick and easy recipes that their kids find palatable to expand our repertoire including for snacks. One thing I'll be doing is getting the bread maker back out to make more fresh bread. We are a vegetarian household but I'm not asking for exclusively vege recipes in case this thread helps others.

Can I ask if a fruit yoghurt that shows ingredients as ‘Milk, sugar, rhubarb’ is a UPF?

I really think not, but then various websites say fruit yoghurt is a UPF because it has sugar added!

Sugar is a kitchen ingredient!

For those interested I found this podcast really good in explaining the science behind UPF.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2023/may/17/from-the-archive-how-ultra-processed-food-took-over-your-shopping-basket-podcast

Most fruit yoghurts are UPF but if it's just fruit, yoghurt and sugar that sounds fine.

Using the freezer really helps - make big batches of sauces or meals and freeze the excess. Plus it is also good for frozen berries and veg. A breadmaker is valuable too - not just for bread but doughs gor pizza and naan. We have an ice cream maker too which gets a lot of use especially in the summer.

There is more work involved unfortunately but there are definitely shortcuts that make it easier, and the products are so much better.

I have spoilt my family by making homemade wraps and none of us can go back to bought ones as they taste rubbish. Just got a tortilla press which will hopefully make it less of a faff!

Shopping wisely can help a lot as it's often possible to find a swap that's processed rather than UPF.

Thanks - they’re the Longley Farm ones, if anyone wants a non-UPF fruit yoghurt.

I think you're confused about the thread's title - the OP specifically referred to Ultra Processed Foods - a term which is increasingly understood (by MNers and more widely around the world) to signify ingredients which are industrially (rather than domestically) processed. You can read more about this at
https://www.soilassociation.org/causes-campaigns/ultra-processed-foods/
or
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/feb/13/how-ultra-processed-food-took-over-your-shopping-basket-brazil-carlos-monteiro

If you want even more detail about why people care about this important health issue, there are lots of sources listed here which would give you more insight: www.soilassociation.org/media/25411/evidence-review-nov21-to-oct22-summary-for-website.pdf

Yes, chickpeas are 'processed' in that after you've picked them, you shell them, and then dry them so they can be stored over the winter. Sun dried tomatoes are processed in that they're left to dry in the sun, so they can be stored over the winter. etc.
Please don't pretend that there is less processing involved in getting a lamb from its natural (living) state into a stew! (Do you slaughter and butcher your own?)

And I have no idea what "Sunday dinner" means to you; I imagine we all eat very different meals on Sundays so it's a bit of a meaningless phrase.

It sounds like you've just come onto the thread to have a go at the OP, rather than to contribute any helpful advice or recipes. Why bother?

@DataNotLore it's not very hard. Yet many people I know majority of their diet is UPF. My friend who I used to live with with will eat majority UPF. Breakfast some cereal like Frosties. Lunch ham sandwich, crisps and a fruit yoghurt, biscuits for a snack, Dinner pasta with a ready-made pasta sauce with a shop bought pudding like sticky toffee. She will have the odd bit of fruit, and some veg on the side of fish fingers but the majority is UPF.

We use gusto which stops us reaching for convenience food. They’ve got a good vegetarian selection (that’s all I order).

Pasta and stir fries are quick and easy

Fajitas. Make your own flat breads - Jamie Oliver has a really quick and easy recipe

Make flapjacks and biscuits for snacks. Houmous - even shop bought - is good.

Nah.

This all sounds far too much like the orthorexic horrors that were paleo and clean eating.

Another chunk of anxiety and guilt for mainly women, to deal with.

The ingredients for it are often quite expensive, imported and hard to get in more deprived areas.

I cook like my Nana most of the time. Simple stuff, grown locally as much as possible. Roasting a local chicken later 😎

If people want to shell out for imported, activated chia seeds that are no more a superfood than apples from the park, or cabbage from the farm in the hills, they're welcome to it. Pretending that it's something special or clever is just silly.

Food of the gods, especially the blackcurrant one. Their plain yogurts and cottage cheese are really good too, without upf nasties

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/spinach-sweet-potato-lentil-dhal

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/filipino-chicken-adobo.html

https://juliegoodwin.com.au/frittata/

these sites have a tonne of recipes that don’t use processed food but these are a few of my favourites

I must say I agree with you.

A lamb ready for the pot isn't processed. It's just lamb. Particularly organically raised lamb. Yes, people are involved in preparing it but that doesn't affect the final product.

On fruit yoghurt - the better quality ones are often just yoghurt and fruit (sometimes with maize starch to thicken).

As people have said the best way is to cook with real whole ingredients.

It doesn't have to be time consuming. This week we have had:
Baked haddock fillets with tomatos and olives, steamed minted new potatoes and temderstem broccoli

Pasta with broccoli, garlic, chilli and a bit of crumbled Toulouse sausage meat.

Pan fried sea bass, saute potatoes, carrot slices cooked slowly in butter and garlic and steamed sugar snap peas.

There is nothing wrong in "processed food" per se. We have been processing food for pretty much all of human history.

Bread is a procesed food.

It is when all sorts of additional non food ingredients or hidden sugars and fats are added the problems start.

@DataNotLore i think you’re (wilfully??) misunderstanding. Nobody is saying that chia seeds are better than apples and cabbages. Apples and cabbages are not ultra processed.
In fact, you’re actually advocating for a non UPF diet - food like your Nan made.

there definitely are issue with cost, availability in poorer areas, time. These are real issues and part of why these UPFs have become so ubiquitous.

@WinterDeWinter summed it up beautifully and much more coherently than I can.

I suspect though that you’re just determined to misunderstand

Literally any recipe made from ingredients at home is likely to be low UPF. It's not helpful to be too puritan about jar sauces etc if the bulk of the dish is single ingredients.

East win is to make your own bread and use natural yoghurt and fruit for dessert. It's ok to add sugar in moderation or make homemade cakes.

Tins and jars are good ways of preserving food with minimal processing so don't turn your nose up at them. Check the ingredients. There are four levels on the scale only one is UPF.

No, what I'm genuinely objecting to is the idea that quorn = good, lamb = bad

That's one example.

This is clean eating spits, with a new name.

Wondering why nobody has advocating making their own stock?

Home brew?

Keeping chickens?

Getting a local veg/meat bag?

No, it's all more shit to buy. Which brands etc.

Not convinced.

I guess just avoid foods with lots of added chemicals 🤷‍♀️

I was so excited to get a breadmaker. Made our own bread for about a year. Top of range (then) Panasonic model that everyone raved about.

I was terrible at it. The bread was never nice. Lousy for school sandwiches. Total daily chore and headache to eat it fast enough. So much nicer when we sold breadmaker & went back to supermarket bread instead. Lasts as long as we need it, great for sarnies, presliced. Phew.

Peanut butter is so easy to make, I just wizz a load of peanuts up in my blender and hey presto peanut butter.

I've got the panasonic one, I always use a bread enhancer it makes such a difference

Bread from a decent baker that doesn't use the Chorleywood process is just as good as homemade.

We had a phase of drinking a lot of hot chocolate a while ago. I started to notice that the leftovers congealed really weirdly in the cup from instant CAdburys. The ingredients are astonishing.

Traditional homemade: cocoa powder, milk, sugar (or melted chocolate, hot milk)

Traditional Cadburys drinking chocolate (drum) :Sugar, cocoa powder, acidity regulator (sodium carbonate), flavouring. (made up with milk)

Cadburys Instant hot chocolate sachet:
Sugar, whey powder (from MILK), fat reduced cocoa powder (13 %), glucose syrup, vegetable fats (coconut, palm), skimmed MILK powder, milk chocolate (4 %) (MILK, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fats (palm, shea), emulsifier (E442), flavourings), thickener (E466), salt, MILK protein, anti-caking agent (E551), flavourings, acidity regulator (sodium carbonate), emulsifier (E471), stabiliser (E339).

Cadburys Instant Wispa sachet
Sugar, Skimmed Milk Powder, Maltodextrin, Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder (9 %), Glucose Syrup, Vegetable Fats (Coconut, Palm, Shea), Milk, Thickener (E407), Modified Starch, Anti-Caking Agent (E551), Salt, Emulsifiers (Soya Lecithins, E471, E442, Sunflower Lecithins), Acidity Regulator (Potassium Carbonates), Flavourings (contain Milk), Milk Proteins, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass

Just staggering, you would think you were having more or less the same thing each time.
In the Wispa, cocoa is the smallest ingredient!

oh ignore last sentence. Still, illustrates the increasing processing. I would argue that normal drinking chocolate is maybe only just UPF but the instant ones are awful.