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)

This is exactly my problem, having been raised in a country where readymeals don't exist. I have a readymeal in my frig right now, because neither of us cooked yesterday, which no one in the house wants to eat.

I still like Doritos, though! But not proper meals.

I'm not reducing my intake of UPFs, mainly because I don't have much UPF in my diet anyway - dh and I cook from scratch most of the time, and I'm not going to lose sleep over a bit of UPF in an otherwise OK diet.

Balance and moderation are key, imo.

Am not dropping Doritos or crisps - I like them! I rarely cook from scratch - not interested and we eat out a lot (live in a country with good restaurant food). I’m continuing to buy ready make sauces because I like them in the same way as I like croissants and butter. Everything in moderation - no restrictions.

Yes because it had to be enriched to replace all the vitamins that white flour doesn't have!

I assume they’re talking about all the other crap emulsifiers, stabiliser and gums etc.

The Victorians ate horribly adulterated bread with all kinds of shit in it to make it as white as possible.

The idea that crap food is a new concept in this country is so wrong. We’ve be eating badly for hundreds of years. Previously it led to poisoning and malnutrition. Now it causes obesity.

Very true. My hepatologist told me to go on the Mediterranean Diet as I had developed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease - and I am by no means obese but my diet was not as clean as it could be. She said that previously, they would see alcohol damage frequently but now it was obesity, mostly caused by huge portions of unsuitable food (mostly fast and/or UPF) and a sedentary lifestyle.

Hundreds of years ago and including the Victorians, there was no internet, and poor/limited scientific knowledge that we have the ability to benefit from today around nutrition, health impacts of a poor diet, nor the relatively plentiful supply of diverse foodstuffs we enjoy today.

in other words, nowadays we do not have the same excuse as they had in those days that we don't know - because we do. There will always be barriers to good eating habits, so I recognise for example that poverty nowadays can play into this equation, but then there was even worse poverty historically (workhouses, homelessness, children on the streets not being educated after the age of 10/11 yo).

All this said, it shouldn't be a race to the bottom.

I heard this discussed on a podcast recently https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29626

Its about the impact of eating softer foods and mouth breathing on the jaw.