Ultra-Highly Processed Foods

[TheRealMBJ]

At risk of sounding defensive here but I almost always cook from scratch and very seldom resort to pre-prepared or oven dinners (,maybe once a month)

However, all of this talk recently that demonises Ultra-processed foods is another stick to beat working mothers with.

Sometimes I feel something has to give and I can't always plan, shop, execute a fully cooked from scratch meal every night of the week.

YABU - Get your Arese into Gear woman and organise your life

YANBU - this is just another way to make woman feel guilty. Get the fish fingers out!

This. And the people who claim, well my child will only eat chicken nuggets, fish fingers, chips, pizza etc. All of these foods can be cooked from scratch as well.

It's clean eating with another hat on

No, it isn't. It is being aware of the ramifications of eating a diet of fast foods of dubious origin, ludicrous amounts of salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats, acrylamides, E-numbers, and emulsifiers, in the name of cheap and easy 'meals'.

By writing it off as some trendy fad, you are inviting non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, and vascular dementia, for starters.

Also, increasing your risk of ovarian cancer, among other cancers, as per:

Ultra-processed food consumption, cancer risk and cancer mortality: a large-scale prospective analysis within the UK Biobank - eClinicalMedicine (thelancet.com)

I agree. @DataNotLore this is going to be the biggest health scandal since tobacco.

Clean eating avoids all processed foods

This is just about avoiding UPF so you can still have cheese and frozen and tinned veg

I do think there’s a touch too much hysteria about it if I’m being honest. I totally understand how on a macro level, UPF are contributing to obesity and disease and of course a diet based on chicken nuggets and Pringles is good for nobody. But when you get to the point where you’re worrying about ketchup (who eats more than a couple of tablespoons of ketchup a week?) or whether the coconut milk you’re putting in your home made curry counts as ultra processed or not, I do wonder what difference it really makes. Presumably there’s some sort of dose-response relationship wherein you’re not immediately doomed to dementia for eating a small amount of emulsifiers.

@lemonchiffonpie

E300 better known as vitamin C, E101 or rather vitamin B2 and E948 which is in fact oxygen

medium.com/@reggs/seven-facts-you-didnt-know-about-e-numbers-9700e2343f53#:~:text=For%20instance%2C%20a%20few%20E,which%20is%20in%20fact%20oxygen.

Agreed.

Cook most of what you eat at home.

Not too much, mostly plants.

Enjoy!

From what I read, it's more that they don't really know what xanthan gum might do as it's a relatively new. According to Chris Van Tullekan, xanthan gum "is quite revolting. It's the slime that bacteria produce to allow them to cling to surfaces. Think of xanthan gum next time you scrape the gunk from your dishwasher filter."
I’m also GF and use it when I bake. I’m sufficiently revolted as to try not to!

Tinned doesn’t necessarily equal upf. The issue isn’t with tinned or processed foods, it’s with products that are so processed that they lose all semblance of the original food. A very basic ‘rule’ is the food should have no more than five ingredients, all of which you should be able to find in your own kitchen. So sugar - fine (in moderation obviously), high fructose corn syrup - not fine. Tinned tomatoes - fine, most ketchup - not fine. Natural Greek yogurt - fine, most flavoured yogurts aimed at children - not fine.

It’s extremely tough to completely eliminate upf but once you start looking at labels you at least begin to understand what you are eating and how many so called ‘healthy options’ really aren’t healthy.

I see this as information, not as a stick to beat mothers with. In our house it’s dh who brings in most of the shite as I’ve always generally cooked from scratch, but after reading about upf I now make far more staples than I used to such as bread and ice cream. However I only do this when I have time. The kids know not to expect fresh bread every morning but if it’s there it’s a bonus. They also know how to make it themselves (which dd does sometimes as she loves bread).

You’re neither. If you listen to the book, the author repeatedly says that it’s not anyone’s fault. The blame lies squarely with big corporations trying to push down costs to maximise profits but using more and more chemical additives.

I’ve always tried to cook from scratch mainly because I enjoy cooking so it’s a bit of me time to stick on an audiobook and have peace in the kitchen. However it doesn’t always work out that way due to life.

I listened to the book recently and it’s very eye opening, particularly coming from a family with a history of stomach problems/cancers and what these additives do to our bodies. There are options out there that aren’t UPF but they are vastly more expensive and as a result of trying to make better choices due to my predisposition to a certain cancer my weekly shopping has increased by £50 a week for my family. I haven’t eliminated UPF completely but feel like if main meals are not UPF we’re doing better than we were.

One very interesting part of the book is where he talked about his daughters ice cre not melting in the sun as it was really not proper ice cream. I’m on holiday and kids grabbed ice cream from the snack bar - one didn’t get eaten and still didn’t melt despite the 30 degree heat.

Unfortunately my DH eats excessive amounts of ketchup so he has been moved on to a slightly better brand. But yes I agree that you can obsess over absolutely everything and that is how the book is summed up.

The thing about working parents and ultra processed food is an excuse. I know loads of people, some with very physical jobs who cook proper food.

It's a zero sum game really. The masses don't really want to pay an extra pound, or spend and extra hour to prepare decent quality food. They want cheap/convenient/palatable. The UPF isn't going anywhere.

I often have to remind myself to use "Good, better, best". Yes, there seems to be a million different expectations of us, all these 'good' things we can do. But there's a limited amount of time and money and energy so it's ok to say 'cooking from scratch is good, but helping my kids with their homework is better' or "deep cleaning the fridge is good but taking a nap is better".
And only you get to decide what is best for you and your family, and it can be different every day and that's ok.

But you can only do that if you know what the risks and problems are ?

Porridge is cheap and easy

Much of the problem is the food culture in the UK. For example if you are working late or travelling and need to get a meal from a station there are zero non UPF options. I live near a relatively wealthy town but there are multiple kebab shops, pizza takeaways but no greengrocers, fishmongers or delis. Yes there is a supermarket but when you walk around it the UPF food predominates the space with heavy marketing and multibuy offers.

I think in the book Chris also talks about the problem of food deserts in the UK where several million people do not live within a 15 minute public transport ride of a healthy food option.

I just do what I can

So today I've had water, tea, squash

Late breakfast of a wrap with avocado, scrambled eggs and tomatoes
Tea will be a salad but with ready cooked chicken from Aldi

I make all my main meals from scratch generally, no jars and I have butter not spread
Swapped my crisps for plain tortilla chips as less ingredients in them. But I'm not making my own bread/mayo/ketchup

What a sensible post.

Oh for sure

It’s also the most recent thing - like clean eating, fasting, paleo, low carb, low fat, f plan, sirt, the one where you don’t have carbs and protein together etc etc

Obviously eating mostly natural food is a good thing, but turning it into a fad is really unhelpful.

Incredibly sensible.

So true. I spend my life seeped in guilt about something or other. Any ailment my kids suffer a part of me think it's my fault because I did this or I didn't do that or I fed them this or they breathed in this... I'm currently pregnant with my third and hadn't realised till 2 months gone.. I had been treating the carpets for moths before I knew.. now I lie awake at night thinking my baby's going to be born with no limbs and a hole in its heart.
It's so silly.
We should just do our best with the knowledge we have available and the resources we have available at the time.
Some women ate struggling and giving their kids ready meals is something they sometimes have to do.
I grew up on ready meals tbh.. my mum cooked from scratch once a week if that. She also chain smoked constantly even in the car with me in it. I have very few health problems as an adult actually I've been blessed with decent health throughout my life so far...
Your kids getting their five a day is quite important and them getting that as part of a ready meal or frozen or out of a tin I'd better than not at all. Ideally we'd all cook from scratch with fresh veg but for the vast majority of women this is not a reality.

This is interesting, have you got a link about fish fingers being "good"?

Sweet Jesus. One minute you are all "It's clean eating with another hat on," then you're quoting Michael Pollan's adage, and then you're flinging back nice E-numbers.

Not all additives are equal. For example, some listed in this
doc, which is titled "What are the most dangerous e-numbers?"

Microsoft Word - Document1 (talkingaboutthescience.com)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.yuka.android

Good as in things added to them that are hazardous to us