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)

There's no agreed definition of what UPF is.

The research studies we have so far don't have a strong evidentiary base. They don't control for other factors influencing health. They don't control for salt / sugar / saturated fats.

Bringing every food that isn't fresh under the UPF umbrella is likely to alarm or harm people who rely on some foods containing preservatives - bread and cereal being major examples - for easily accessible nutrients. Jam is another example. People benefit from the antioxidants whether it contains preservatives and additives or not.

We don't have work on the difference between a food that is mostly the same as its fresh alternative (yoghurt with a bit of jam) and a food that is barely known outside a lab.

I don't think UPF is a useful category. It feels like the all-fats-are-bad / all-fats-are-bad moments we've had in the past.

Actually another post has just reminded me that the one thing I am hard core about is that I will not consume artificial sweetners.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/02/truth-about-ultra-processed-foods-upfs

I thought this was a reasonably balanced article on the subject

No change here. I have a knackered digestive system so I eat what doesn't upset my stomach. I also hate cooking but thankfully DH does that as we'd have more UPF food if it was left to me!

I'm not particularly reducing UPFs.

I cook from scratch most of the time, but I do use things like stock cubes, jars of pesto, dried pasta etc. Keep a jar of pasta sauce in the cupboard for emergencies, sometimes have a Friday night pizza. We eat porridge for breakfast, not sweetened cereals. Yoghurt is natural greek not flavoured. Bread is sourdough from a local bakery. Occasional takeaway is from a local restaurant rather than McDonald's.

We probably don't eat that many UPF products, but I'm not making a conscious decision to reduce them either.

At the moment no, for convenience reasons.

No, because according to this study it’s ultra processed meat and sugar drinks that are particularly harmful, I don’t eat meat and only very occasionally (once a month or so) have a glass of coke or similar:

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/13/some-ultra-processed-foods-are-good-for-your-health-who-backed-study-finds

Some UPFs like bread and cereal have health benefits.

Same here. Over the years, I've seen various fads / diets come and go

I rely on common sense, food being as natural as possible and plenty fruit and veg

Same, not IBF but gut issues mean that somtimes, the healthier foods like fruit and veg are a no no.

Don’t have a clue what UPF is and nor do I give a shit. Sick to death of being told everything from fruit to chocolate is unhealthy, I don’t give a crap anymore. I’ll eat what I want, when I want, how I want and be happy for it.

I'm not convinced by the science yet. It's a bit faddy, along the lines of Michael Mosely. UPF doesn't make up a significant percentage of my diet anyway, so it's a moot point.

Dh and I don't eat any UPFs, except for the odd bit of chocolate ( me). DC eat a bit more in the shape of bread and crisps, but still not much. So don't feel the need to reduce. Everything is cooked from scratch. We ate this way before the Tulleken brothers and have been Zoe from childhood! ( Most non-Western cultures are).

Never ate it much anyway, but anything that helps increase the health ofthe nation is a good thing, be it smoking, sugar, upfs

We’re the same as you, always “cooked from scratch” from when it was just called “cooking”, and bake my own cakes and biscuits, only eat crisps and similar when on holiday.

I know bread is called an UPF, but given how my family’s diet is anyway, I’m not going there!

Tbqh I haven't read the latest news on UPFs... I've always known they're not good... I'm assuming the latest research says they're worse than we previously knew...?

But anyway... I used to hardly eat any UPFs when I was young, free and single.

Now I've got two children under 4, and trying to squeeze work in around childcare, and the kids change what they'll eat on a daily basis, and I haven't had time to have a social outing or engage in a hobby for almost six months now (as we moved away from our social network due to house prices), so I find myself resorting to UPFs much more than I used to because:

1. Convenience - both in terms of not always having time to cook meals from scratch every day, and needing something that the kids (especially the baby) can eat when we're out and about that won't require a full outfit change for her AND me)
2. Sometimes I just want to be sure the children will eat something that day. Sometimes they'll scoff down half a pan of steamed broccoli or green beans in one sitting, and other times they'll refuse anything that's not a ham sandwich made with cheapo supermarket ham and industrial bread.
3. Given that I don't have much time for myself at the moment, industrial cakes and chocolate are some of the only small pleasures I have some weeks.

I can't bring myself to worry that much about UPFs, given that I was raised eating them and I feel pretty healthy... I feel like making sure not to eat too much of them is enough (although, as I say, that's without having read the latest news, so please do tell me if you think that's wrong).

Nope, not bothering. I think it is another fad to make money out of people.

This absolutely.

We don’t really eat many UPFs anyway, it’s much cheaper to buy fresh ingredients and batch cook. And it’s hardly rocket science if you look at an ingredients list.

But it’s cheaper to eat fresh, whole foods?

For us, it is.

I dont think it is a fad/ money making scheme because non-UPF is how most of the world eats, and very poor people, at that. However, I can see that many people are sick of being lectured, so don't want to change anything. That's fine. But it's not a new fad.

We're not reducing them because it's not practical to give up the convenience, and I like to spend my leisure time doing fun things and going out, not cooking every single thing from scratch. I'm in my 40s and have eaten upfs all my life, and I'm a healthy weight and no health issues. Same with older members of my family.

No it isn’t cheaper. But I meant more in terms of there will be recipe books, UPF diet books, clicks, likes, that sort of thing.

As someone said above, we’ve constantly been told what we should and shouldn’t eat for decades..it’s just a different bandwagon to jump on.

Everything in moderation is a good concept, and eating a wide variety of foods, where possible. Not everybody has the privilege of this though, whether that be in terms of money, time, home circumstances etc etc.

My DS2 is vegetarian, and I was buying a lot of quorn and fake meat products for his lunch because it was easier. I have cut down on that, but is hard. He can't have cheese sandwiches every day, so I keep leftovers aside ( we mainly eat homecooked veggie dinners) and he had a pasta salad yesterday. Luckily he eats a lot of fruit and has a healthy breakfast.

We have tried to cut down. To be honest a lot of the stuff that contains artificial ingredients tastes poor anyway. Particularly pre packaged cakes. They are ridiculously sweet and artificial tasting.

our preferred pasta sauces (lloyd grossman or Heinz) only contain natural ingredients anyway.

there are some frozen pizzas that are much better than others. I’d really rather have actual cheese on my pizza so it’s an easy change for us.

crisps still feature but we tend now to choose those with fewer upf ingredients - likewise biscuits.

we still buy sliced bread but typically from the bakery and that tends to be a bit better.

but in general we never bought ready meals anyway and so that hasn’t been something we needed to change