To wonder how anyone can live on so much processed food?

[MummyMumMumMummy]

Let me start by saying I’m not by any means a health freak. I have periods where we’ll have frozen pizzas, frozen beige food and cans of beans for dinner.. but it makes me feel so so rough!

For example, in the last week we’ve eating frozen pizza, a McDonald’s, a night of cheese and biscuits, and we’ve had beans on toast, ready meals like lasagna or currys. This is just down to using what left in the house before doing a food shop and I feel awful. I feel slow, my anxiety is high, I have aches and pains and I just feel generally ‘bleurgh’

This happens every time I swap out out usual cook from scratch lots of veg type meals to these ready made quick and processed foods.

but my point is; does anyone else feel this way?

I have friends who quite consistently live on beige food and ‘hate’ veg. DH before we started dating would literally only eat beans on toast and frozen pizza. He still enjoys them from time to time but even he prefer home cooked meals with lots of veg now.

I’m not in any way judging anyone’s diet, I don’t care what you eat it doesn’t affect me. I just wonder whether other people feel such a strong physical sense of being healthier in mind and body (that sounds super green!) when they eat more organic, fresh foods?

It’s crazy though as eating healthy can be different for different people.

For example if I ate

weetabix and a banana for breakfast
tomato soup and a brown roll for lunch
a jacket potato, beans and salad for dinner
fruit and yogurt for snacks

then I would consider this quite a good day of eating as I ate no takeaways, beige freezer food, cakes, chocolate, crisps, biscuits etc BUT weetabix, tomato soup, bread, beans and yogurt are all considered UPF.

Do people feel healthier when they eat healthy food? Well Durrr! Of course they do.

Do some people have the option of eating healthy food? No, so “how do people live on so much processed food”. The answer is, they have no choice.

Yes, absolutely. We are vegetarian and I try to make wholefood meals daily. I remember having a vegetarian Domino's and I spent the next day lying around as I was so lethargic from the processed rubbish!

I think people just get used to feeling low level shit and think that’s just the way it is.

I lost quite a bit of a weight and I was amazed at the energy I had and how much better I just felt generally. I thought being lethargic, tired and aches and pains were just life.

I ate too much processed food in my early 20s (couldn't cook, university accommodation with awful cooking facilities) but didn't really feel any negative health effects. Possibly because I didn't have much to compare it to. Now my diet is mostly home-cooked/fresh food and I feel great, but there have been so many life changes that it's hard to really pinpoint the exact reasons.

I will say that starting to WFH and stopping commuting/working in an office in the late 2000s was transformative for my mental and physical health, almost overnight.

And that sluggish/lumpen/tired feeling is directly connected to exercise more than diet. If I can't exercise, it doesn't matter how well I'm eating - my mood and energy levels plummet.

In terms of food if I've had a week of eating heavy, rich or greasy meals - home-cooked or not - my body will start craving fresh fruit and veg.

'I feel awful. I feel slow, my anxiety is high, I have aches and pains and I just feel generally ‘bleurgh’
I feel exactly like this.
I think it's even more so that I got older.
I remember going through a time at uni, around 13 years ago where I ate lots of junk and I can't remember it making me feel a certain way.
I get a tummy ache and feel bunged up as you do when I eat too much crap now.

I do thank you hope you have a great day

I always think that I love junk food/ready meals but when we go on holiday and i eat lots of take out and microwave meals I get half way through the week and have to have a couple of days of proper food, chicken, salmon, salad and veg etc...I just feel bloated, sluggish and a bit run down...I just thought it was me lol

Yes I feel so much better, the healthier I eat. I think though that if your regular diet is lots of processed and convenience foods you’re so used to it that you just don’t realise how less energy you have - that’s just your standard baseline

I feel so much better eating healthy food and exercising.

Good skin, lots of energy, zero health issues, look younger than I am etc.

Diet is extremely important and I think a bad diet and lazy lifestyle is to blame for a lot of illness.

I definitely agree - I have recently majorly cleaned up my diet in a bid to lose weight but I feel so much better in myself it’s amazing!! All I can think is it’s because I am having more fresh fruit and veg to fill me. Good incentive to stay on the right track tho!!

I always feel rubbish after eating lots of processed foods. WE had no kitchen for a while due to a build and ate lots of ding meals - felt rubbish (kids did too) and we were so grateful to get our kitchen back afterwards.

Well, no, loads of people don't. I just don't notice a difference.
Can't relate at all.

Defo! I go through phases where I am ultra motivated and make super health foods & avoid the junk, and I always feel great. Unfortunately being busy with work, kids, house, life, I find it hard to stick too so often end up back to processed crap :( I find whatever I am eating regularly is what I crave! So eating healthy, I crave healthy & vice versa! I feel, sleep and look a million times better when I am eating well

Do people feel healthier when they eat healthy food? Well Durrr! Of course they do.

Well, not everyone does, as is evidenced by the responses on this thread.

Diet makes little/no difference to me - exercise is what matters.

I went on holiday to America and we really over indulged, eating out etc by the time we left I was craving fresh fruit!

Yes! This is exactly how I feel. I don’t know why, I only make healthy choices because if I don’t I feel unwell. I would love to eat macdonalds and pizza everyday 🤣 but I feel terrible if I do. I can’t sleep, feel sluggish and just generally unwell. This started for me following an illness, I was very unwell in hospital due to a prescribed drug interaction, every since I can’t tolerate processed food 🤔 unsure why or what the link is, but it’s been years.

Don't eat the processed stuff, it is poison, causes so many health problems that people don't realise is linked to the food, from cancer to autoimmunie problems to joint pain.

Some people are sensitive to it, others not so much, we all process food differently and absorb it differently. One person can eat 3000kcal and another of the same weight can only eat 2000kcal. So not hard and fast rules.

Your body is telling you it cannot handle the processed stuff, work out your own unique plan based on your body feedback.

Yes, I definitely feel more sluggish the more processed/junk foods I have! I’m semi fit but even when I was ultra fit pre kids, I could tell the difference when exercising if I’d eaten badly or not!

I wonder if it’s the gluten that’s making you feel sluggish?

Many people don't realise how bad they're actually feeling because their baseline for feeling good is really low.
Eating a diet of mainly processed food will be making people feel rubbish but so many people think it's just how they are.

I cook mostly from scratch to save money but I don't overly notice a difference if we have a week eating crap like when we go on holiday.

I never buy organic unless it is the only option. I just don't see the point and the price jump makes it unrealistic for my family.

Ooh actually I struggled in America! I felt awful after a week and craved salad soo badly. I remember being in a pool in Las Vegas and telling dp how much I wanted a Nandos.

I am a 'plain' cook, like my mother was. We had home cooked meals every night when I was a kid, but was potatoes (my dad still doesn't think it's a meal without spuds), boiled veg and whatever cheap meat.

TBF I didn't eat potatoes for two years after leaving home, and these days I steam the veg rather than boiling the vitamins out of it, like mother did, but I still cook fundamentally what I grew up with.
My husband cooks every other night and he is more adventurous, but my point is we have rather made 'cooking from scratch' into this huge, complicated business that makes people feel they need to go to catering college to be able to do it. People end up eating processed foods because they think they can't cook.
It's not hard to bung some spuds in a pan, steam some veg and shove a bit of meat in the oven (or vegetarian alternative). That's cooking from scratch, it doesn't take hours and you don't have to be Delia Smith. But we have gone down the route of its either got to have 47 herbs in it, a type of bean you can't spell and take three hours to cook, or it's a frozen pizza.
I definitely would feel more crap if I ate pizza or takeaway every night. I definitely eat too many biscuits as it is. But l am not a chef, don't love cooking so, like my mother, I keep it simple and hearty.

@Utterbunkum it's true that it's not hard to cook from scratch but even doing the simple meal you suggested uses up 3 pans and probably a bunch of utensils.
When people are pressed for time, they don't want to deal with all that.

I think it's easier to do one pan dishes or at the most 2. They can be simple too but still effort if you're pressed for time.