If you are not reducing your intake of UPF…

[maybein2022]

… with all the media attention on UPF at the moment and so much research coming out about it. Interested to know. If you’re NOT reducing your intake of it, is it because you’re not able to (finances/accessibility/time), because you don’t want to or don’t think it’s a problem, you and/or your kids are neurodivergent and a lot of ‘safe’ foods are UPF or other reasons.

YANBU: I am reducing mine/my family’s intake
YABU: I am not for reasons listed above (or other reasons)

The biggest change I've made for me and my family is not to eat processed meat .This is not just because they are UPFs but because there's good solid evidence, collated by the WHO and others, that these are carcinogenic mainly through the nitrates used to preserve them. I also don't want to eat meat full of antibiotics and that leaks watery stuff when you cook it.

I eat meat, usually steak or chicken, about once a month, bacon sandwich if it really gets to me, and my family are vegetarian so it doesn't arise.

Beyond that, I am not that motivated to make a change. I do eat plain yoghurt with added fruit (no fruity/flavoured yogs most of the time) and seeds for breakfast, but I also have a few bowls of cereal per week, I know cereal is not amazing stuff but I find it easy to eat and if I don't fancy anything else I'll eat that.

I sometimes use ready meals, sometimes don't. Not motivated to bake my own bread...

So- my attitude is take out the worst of it, accept some will be in there as that's the food available to us (like UPF bread) and do your best. I don't have the time or the energy to completely remove them from my diet and it would be expensive to do so as well (if you made your own bread using lovely local organic flour, it is great, but I don't have the time/will to spend on that).

Well obviously I can’t speak for everyone else who says they cook from scratch. But I do actually mean cooking with whole foods and not with anything that comes out of a jar. I was doing this before the non-UPF trend anyway - I think cooking is more fun this way and my sauces taste better than anything out of a jar 😁

Do people really do things like make their own baked beans, ketchup, etc?!

Yes because reducing UPF’s has cured my 20 year+ chronic IBS and helped me lose 4st in weight

A lot of UPF’s are essentially pre digested compounds of foods and the sugar, additives lack of fibre etc can play havoc with sensitive bowels.

I don’t even really miss the taste now I can tell the difference and enjoy other foods a lot more.

People talk about UPF hysteria being the latest fad

However obesity levels are skyrocketing so there must be a cause

Personally I cut out all UPF & only ate meat/eggs/butter - lost 10kg in 8 weeks & no longer suffered from tiredness at 3pm

Then entered a new relationship with a UPF eating fiend & fell off the wagon due to not wanting to be impolite at mealtimes

8kg quickly crept up in a similar timespan & wouldn't you know it, I needed a coffee every 3pm due to feeling lethargic

So on personal anecdotal evidence can say avoidance of UPF & sugar does have merit when it comes to health & weight loss

Also what if you have something like quiche? Would you make it yourself or is shop bought ok?

@Duchess89 that is a very valid point- and I totally agree. When I was eating a lot of UPF (in snacks, mostly) because I was trying to be in a calorie deficit and lose weight, I’d often forgo, for example, pasta with my dinner and just have the (homemade) bolognese sauce so that I could have, for example, a small bar of dairy milk after. Except it rarely worked, I’d be hungry because Bolognese by itself isn’t very filling, wished I’d just had the pasta, and then eat 5 (for example) chocolate bars and end up bingeing, and so the cycle would start again. Obviously I had disordered eating and for me, being able to bake a cake, eat a small piece of it, and freeze the rest or have it around for the kids but not binge on it has literally changed my life.

The other thing I’ve really noticed is the abundance of UPF. I was in Sainsbury’s the other day and there were just aisles and aisles of it. Like no joke, around 50 different flavoured chilled yogurts and desserts. Easily 30 cereals. I think in a way, having so much choice doesn’t help.

Also, I think it was Tim Spector (although he’s gone a bit far and the M&S gut shots crap put me right off) said he’d almost rather people ate a snickers bar than a ‘health’ bar because most people know snickers bars aren’t great for you. Whereas marketing and hype will tell you that a cereal bar is, for example.

No. I’ve never heard the letters UPF uttered in real life and never read about it outside of Mumsnet, so I’m putting it down to a Mumsnet obsession. No medical professional has ever mentioned it. No concerns over my diet which is a variety of unprocessed foods and UPFs.

I don't even know what it is

So do you blend your own tomatoes into passata? All year round?

This is interesting and very similar to me. Do you also eat fruit, vegetables etc when not eating UPF? Sugar I still have but only in homemade bakes etc. I was having coconut sugar in my coffee whilst I withdrew from artificial sweeteners, but was able to stop quite quickly and now have none.

@Yogatoga1 so the UPF part is a good example - pringles

yes so ready salted crisps are potatoes oil and salt, they are processed foods but not ultra processed food. You can make crisps at home in your kitchen (they don’t taste as good but the principal is the same)

the ultra part comes from when they take the potatoes and other things like flour and they mill them until they turn into fine powders, they then add liquid in to make a huge slurry. The slurry is then flavoured and shaped into the foods that are an unnatural shape (cant be made by hand or nature, like a Pringle) and sold as food.

you can’t make a Pringle because the powdered molecule slurry they use can’t be recreated in a kitchen. This is ultra processed example. Another would be ham slices (a meaty slurry paste) and ice cream (powdered milky slurry)

a lot foods are processed, that isn’t the issue. The ultra is the chemically modified slurry pastes

its actually disgusting if you see them being made it puts me off!

But I think the point is that passata and tinned tomatoes are processed, not ultra processed? Especially if you can get the ones that are just tomatoes and maybe some salt.

This, 100%.

Yes absolutely. I'm just interested in what people term 'cooking from scratch' as I wonder if it means different things to different people.

I'll often think I've cooked something from scratch but if I break it down to the ingredients I've used they are processed or maybe even ultra processed on occasion.

None of it bothers me - I'm neither here nor there with UPF. Just wondering about how people go about replacing processed foods with unprocessed.

Don’t get confused between processed foods and UPF’s. Processed foods are not unhealthy by default at all

The reason you don’t hear about UPF’s as much is that they are pretty revolting to actually see made IRL so it’s not a widely advertised process manufacturers want you to see, hence a lot of effort goes into making the UPF’s look as natural as possible

I heard about them via the internet and not Mumsnet and a well known doctor has made a whole research study on it. Its not hidden from mainstream

I’ve cut back hugely on UPF, but one person in my family won’t because they're a ‘head in the sand’ kind of person. I have a cancer gene & have been advised that diet is really important in reducing risk, so I’ve gone all out in eating a clean diet.

No. I don't eat baked beans and no one in my family does. I find them vile. DC eat ketchup but not often. I make all my own sauces.

I pointed out earlier it’s not the non UPF food itself that is making money for people, it’s the books, podcasts, clicks, likes, etc etc. They’re all money spinners in some way for the people who tout them. Same as things like the Atkins or Paleo or Keto diets and things like intermittent fasting..they mostly use unprocessed, whole foods but have still made the people who made them up a whole load of money. And then people jump on the bandwagon with the above.

It’s not only about money either. It’s a privilege to be able to afford the whole foods, have time to to prep and cook them, have the equipment to prep and cook them, have the power to cook, have the ability to prep and cook them and so on.

As someone said above, it’s just making money out of the worried well. It’s scaremongering. Of course we should be eating, where possible, a varied diet with lots of nutrients, I don’t think anyone could argue that, but for those who it’s not possible for, it’s just another way for them to feel like they’re failing somehow.

It’s not possible or realistic for humans to eat no processed foods that would be some kind of restrictive raw diet. Processing foods is ok, safe, not unhealthy

You can tell what is an UPF because it’s not found in nature and you couldn’t make it yourself to taste even vaguely the same

What is needed is education on what is a processed food from what is an ultra processed food.

Yes, I don;t bother with the books, podcasts, etc because I have been eating this way from childhood, as I am not British by birth. Michael Pollan earned millions by saying what my granny has been doing all her life.

I agree it is time consuming and not for people with disabilities, but there are shortcuts. I don't agree it is only for the rich because the poorest people in the world eat this way.

To me it’s things like making curry and other dishes using herbs, spices and fresh veg rather than reaching for a jar of ready made sauce, so it’s “real food” as ingredients rather than emulsifiers and the volume of sugar, salt and man made chemicals and bulking agents in the pre prepared stuff.

I do use stock cubes etc and don’t give myself a hard time about it because I live in the 21st century and know that it’s all about balance and that I do the best I can

@Sususudio

so if you were having fish for example you would make your own tartare sauce??

where do you find the time?!!