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?

@Bubbles254 wow - that's incredible, well done.

I had a 4 week stint of eating healthily, then had a fluey/cold thing last week and lapsed for a few days, nothing hugely unhealthy, put more processed than home cooked - the cold thing has gone, but feeling achy and lethargic😣

Oh, meant to say, the one exception to that being fried food. Doesnt matter whether it's natural food fried or processed food fried but the oil makes me feel sick, heavy and greasy. Which is almost certainly psychological.

I agree. Much prefer a plate of vegetables over beige food.

It's not your imagination, OP.

"A decade ago, his son Tom, then a student at Aberystwyth University, volunteered, as an experiment, to eat just McDonald’s food for 10 days. Tom reported feeling good for three days, but then became lethargic and unwell. While he didn’t gain weight, Spector says, “what was really worrying was that he lost about 30% of his microbial species, and even now, his microbiome is below average”."

‘I was overeating’: the Zoe nutrition app founders on diet, raising millions and the perfect microbiome | Food & drink industry | The Guardian

@miniaturepixieonacid its almost certainly the seed oil it was fried in. Inflammatory crap.

Is anyone else reading OP's posts with a Gwyneth Paltrow voice in their head?

@Butchyrestingface you should smell the candles I make..

No. I think we have come to a sorry place if being concerned for health and eating well is seen as some niche thing for an out of touch celebrity. The OP's first post said that she felt sluggish after eating too much junk food. Gwyneth P is borderline orthorexic, and would never touch junk food in the first place.

Yeah I agree with you OP. If I don't eat scratch cooked foods and go for easy jars or something, I feel like crap the next day.

We use Jamie 30 minute meals a lot of we are pushed for time. I hate junk food.

There is nothing easy or convenient about feeling ill the next day.

Most people don't notice because they always have a high level of UPF and the feeling you've described is "normal". It is only if you give up and realise you feel "great" afterwards (I eat a lot of UPF, give up for a time, but then go back as I'm an emotional eater).

Yes I think this is most likely

Perhaps you are intolerant to some preservatives / flavourings etc that are common in processed food? Just by the impact you feel seems more like a digestive sensitivity to me

Same here OP. When I eat junk/UPF I do feel icky- bloated, and just not well over all.

Definitely feel more sluggish when I eat processed foods. Fried food makes me feel nauseous. Don’t think OP is being judgemental, many people feel the same way… and we do all pay for it in terms of health care needs.

OP you are judging it.

Anyway, the reason people live on beige food is because they don't like other stuff, it's the lowest common denominator when everyone likes different things, they don't like cooking, they are too lazy to cook, they are rubbish at cooking, or they don't have time when they come in from work, or there's nothing else in the freezer that day and they forgot to defrost something.

As an example, I had pasta with jar pesto this evening as we are away for the weekend and so didn't have much choice in the house. I did finish off a bag of salad as well, though.

So do I, I tend to live homemade soup in the winter and salad in the summer but the stock is ultra processed so that would be shocking to most MNers, it seems. I am far too lazy to make my own stock.

I try and stick to low fat, low carb, low sugar and enjoy fruit veg and salad - if I don’t I feel more sluggish
I can’t eat most ‘beige’ foods anyway as am gluten free and have recently found am lactose intolerant
I am still fat and drink far too much as it’s one of the few ‘treats’ left in my life!
The biggest difference I notice is when I’ve been on holiday abroad and come home craving a bigger variety of fresh foods

We mainly eat fresh fruit, veg, meat and fish. Occasionally I crave a fish finger sandwich or a M&S ready meal or if dd has had cooked dinner at school I might give her some super noodles. We don’t really have much freezer space so we don’t buy things like chicken nuggets or other processed foods other than fish fingers. We have a plot on the allotment so we eat seasonal fruit and veg (which at the moment is mainly sprouts and broccoli). We do get McDonald’s or fish and chips occasionally.

Op: again, I’m not judging. It makes no difference to me whether anyone else is eating

Op’s title: To wonder how anyone can live on so much processed food?

Sounds judgmental

I’m with you, 2 weeks ago I was inundated with work , hubby was on all day to late night shifts and and the older kids where playing up for 5 days we ate at least a crap meal food as mc Donald frozen pizzas, store bought lasagna etc . My digestive system was a mess by the end of those days and I was feeling lethargic . I couldn’t live that way , I can’t grasp how people live that way

I'd much rather have a big bowl of Kale and bean stew (made from scratch obvs). It's like some people don't even care about their gut microbiome.

Closely followed by fish finger butty!

When dd2 was a week old she was admitted back into hospital, onto a children’s ward not
Paediatric. As I was breastfeeding I was fed from the children’s trolley. I felt so ill after 2
meals. Nothing fresh, nothing not beige.
Fortunately I lived literally 5 mins walk from the hospital so I escaped via a market stall went home with three sweetcorn cons and inhaled them. I was back on the ward with one the hour with bags of grapes and apples and got future visitors to bring in orange juice and more fruit.
I notice when travelling I get instantly constipated without large quantities of fruit and veg.
@MummyMumMumMummy you’re not wrong.

If anything, I think it's the other way around. I'm more likely to eat processed food for a week because I'm feeling like shit, rather than feeling like shit because I've eaten processed food, if you see what I mean.

I was just thinking something similar, @ManateeFair! I'm feeling pretty crap atm "because" I've been living off crisps, toast and chocolate the past few days. Then it occurred to me that I've been chomping instant-energy, comforting, fatty & salty foods as that's what my very tired body wants and it doesn't feel like cooking.

When less knackered, I do eat quite a lot of fruit & veg and almost always cook from scratch. I agree with PP that it's different horses for courses, though, and that things alter with age. As I get older, I've had to reduce dietary fibre as it was causing very obvious problems. More white bread, hurrah 😋

Takeaways and ready meals aren't unhealthy, OP.

My god, I'd be locked in the bathroom for 24 hours after that 😂