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.

It should be obvious that avoiding UPFs means not buying things like Quorn and stock cubes, but instead cooking with the kind of foods your gran would recognise.

Show me a Gran that didn’t use Oxo

I don't use much milk. Have quite a few cups of tea during the day but use literally just a splash of milk in them as I like my tea very very strong.

I make a cheese sauce about once a fortnight for meals like lasagne.

Probably easiest just to continue using oat milk. We eat pretty healthily on the whole - home made soups, home made pasta sauces, both veggie so lots of veg, lentils, beans etc so maybe worrying about milk is unnecessary

I don't think anyone is saying sugar.is perfectly fine, just that it isn't UPF and artificial sweeteners (which generally are UPF) are often not an improvement. I try to eat a low UPF diet and I also try to manage my refined sugar and carb intake to avoid blood sugar spikes. These work quite well together and add up to a Mediterraneanish diet i.e. plenty of fruit, veg and protein with carbs and some healthy fats like olive oil. Which is fairly consistent with dietary advice for the last few decades, just recognises that e.g. an Italian ready meal is not the same as the homemade equivalent even if it seems superficially similar.

Shelf stable organic Oatly and Plenish brand are just oats and water. No gums.

Nancy Birtwhistle has in recent days shown on Instagram a recipe for golden syrup. Just sugar water and lemon juice.

Mine didn't, I think she'd be rolling in her gravy at the thought of granules

Oatly actually uses an enzymatic process to release starch and sugar from the oats so is technically still UPF. Enzymes are processing aids so not declared on back of pack

Check out tim.spector on Instagram, he explains a lot about UPF.

In hot weather, I love different salads, one is a peeled uncooked beetroot grated with a clove of garlic crushed, some EVOO, raw cider vinegar and topped with dry toasted seeds of choice.

Homemade coleslaw with peanuts

Roasted veg with red lentil pasta

Kefir yogurt with fruit & seeds

I just basically search through recipes and see what I can change out etc. Start a little at a time and keep adding more upf meals and eventually you will be eating UPF.

Interesting...

I just checked the back of Lyle's Golden Syrup, and it only has one ingredient... but that's "Partially Inverted Refiners Syrup"... 🤔😵‍💫

I could be wrong but I think that is just the technical name for sugar syrup.

Was just giving suggestion for flapjacks etc.
The recipe was mainly to save money. But the hour on the hob on lowest setting, rules it out for me.

It’s a bit foolish to write off the voices that are saying ‘the food industry lies to us’ on the basis that… the food industry has precious lied to us.

Previously lied

It is.

They heat it and add citric acid to it.

Good to know, thanks! The 'partially inverted' bit sounded a little off-putting...

Sounds like a yoga move.

It is processed, you say so yourself "people involved in preparing it." It's just not ultra processed, which for example might be a lamb curry ready meal with artificial thickeners and flavours.

Exactly this. I can easily have just one piece of homemade chocolate cake, but I bought a betty crocker mix once and couldn't stop eating it !

It’s not processed, it’s in its original form even if it’s been trimmed of fat, rolled into a shape etc. Look up the Nova classification system.