AIBU to be confused about ultra processed foods?

[Mostlycarbon]

I'd never heard of UPFs until I joined Mumsnet. To be honest I assumed it was an affectation of the wealthy who have more money to spend on groceries than we do, and possibly in some cases symptomatic of orthorexia.

However, it all seems to have gone mainstream now and be a genuine nutrition concern in the UK: Why we might never know the truth about ultra-processed foods - BBC News

So I figured I should have a think about our diet as a family and specifically what we are feeding our two year old. We mostly cook from scratch (I work part-time, husband loves cooking which makes it doable for us), meat eater who eat fish a couple of times per week and veggie at least once per week.

So his diet is something like:

Breakfast: porridge, banana or eggy bread or sometimes cereal, yoghurt etc.

Lunch: eggs on toast/ beans on toast (low salt, low sugar)/ pasta with pepper, tomato and grated cheese/ cheese on toast (wholegrain sliced supermarket bread)/ peanut butter sandwich and yoghurt/ jacket potato with tuna/cheese/beans plus apple or cucumber on the side.

Dinner: Spagbol, fajitas, fish pie, chilli, roast chicken, chicken casserole, fish with rice and veggies etc. Occasionally fish fingers or homemade pizza.

Snacks: Organix brand snacks, cheese cubes, fruit, raisins, yoghurt, little pot of cheerios, apple and peanut butter. The occasional ice cream as a summer treat.

I thought we were doing pretty well, but actually are we? I probably need to reduce the organix snacks which presumably are UPF. But what else is UPF? Peanut butter? Cheese cubes? Yoghurts? Supermarket bread? Presumably the tortillas we have with fajitas?!! Tinned tuna? Beef mince? The baked beans I guess!

And presumably some UPFs are worse than others?!!! We're both teachers with a hefty mortgage so we don't have infinite time or money to worry about this.

YABU: It's actually very straightforward to not feed your kids junk.
YANBU: It's confusing.

Personally I think yeah sure if you can afford it you're probably better off with the lower processed stuff
But for me the crosta and mollica wraps are twice the price. Add that on to most of my shop and it's unaffordable for me
I have swapped to Aldi sourdough from normal bread as I prefer it. Value tortilla chips are really low ingredients wise

I cook from scratch and sometimes eat hash browns, chicken dippers, wraps or a supermarket pizza. In RL I see my colleagues eating UPF daily as well as ready meals

My only advice is read Ultra Processed People. It's not a fad. We have been manipulated for years by the billion pound food industry, it's all about money, ultra processed food has better profit margins, it's as simple as that. It's pretty common sense but that doesn't make it easy, UPFs have completely infiltrated our lives. It would be hugely difficult to irradiate them, but I think everybody should be considering reducing them, especially for children.

And honestly if my life is shorter it's fine by me. My family doesn't die young or have heart issues or lung issues, there's no history of cancer. They just get dementia and linger for a decade so I would rather just cut that bit out

I’m going to guess someone somewhere is making a ton of money from this.

Unless you’re living like Tom and Barbara Good it’s nigh on impossible to be 100% free of UPFs. No one would ever eat out or at a friend or relatives house if they stuck to it religiously.

The best thing anyone can do is make sure most of their food is made from scratch but no one with children and busy lives and a social circle can do it completely.

Reynalda Cordova works at the University of Vienna, @combinationpadlock .
I mean it may or may not be true but at least it was in the Independent not the Mail.
I have to say I also don'y pay a lot of attention, again, dementia in old age is not something I want to get!

but UPF have only exploded onto the scene in the last 2 decades, how do you know what effect that would have had on your ancestors? And why would you be prepared to make that choice for your children?

I’m going to guess someone somewhere is making a ton of money from this.

Not anywhere near as much as the food and drink industry are making from peddling UPF to people I can assure you.

And honestly if my life is shorter it's fine by me. My family doesn't die young or have heart issues or lung issues, there's no history of cancer.

And how much UPF was in your grandparents diet compared to yours? We don't know the long term impacts yet really. I would say it's children from the 90s onwards who have really been fed monstrous amounts of UPF.

I eat mostly healthy foods, but I've no problem using a jar of sauce, having handy frozen stuff, have treats and alcohol every weekend and I don't obsessively read labels.

None of us are going to get out alive and I'm not spending all my free time making everything from scratch. They can prise the supermarket bread from my cold, dead hands.

I'd imagine a lot of people are having health-related anxiety with all the UPF, carbs are the devil and "look how little I eat!" stuff that's posted about here.

@Sparrowball No carbs are not the devil, quite the opposite actually. Lots of freezer food is absolutely fine. Most people aware of UPFs have a common sense approach and are trying to reduce, not eliminate.

Why is it people's automatic response to inconvenient truths to defend and deny? It's like climate change, you might not like it, but it doesn't change the science. If you want to express a valuable opinion on it, read about it, don't make ignorant assumptions.

There’s some info on the classifications here:

https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova

The diet you list looks ok, but, as others have said, I’d look at the bread. Ideally you’d be getting one with the minimum ingredients not all those add-ins in normal supermarket bread. Basically, try to eat natural foods with as little processing as possible. Some processing is ok, eg the pasteurisation of milk, so use your common sense.

The beef mince and the tinned tuna is not ultra processed.

You are quite free to do so, but I would not call trying to eat well, and consume less manufactured crap "bollocks".

@combinationpadlock I can't have DC so that doesn't matter to me
And it's early onset Alzheimers so I have no interested in extending my life unless it's quality
I eat a lot less UPF than I see the people around me eating daily and I cook every main meal (except my once a week pizza) from scratch with no jar sauces etc

But realistically I can't afford to swap the bit of UPF I eat. If you can afford crosta and mollica and more expensive jam and peanut butter etc etc then great

bollocks is that whole list UPF or even likely to be UPF

I just typed out a whole long post, but I've been in my cupboard and checked a few things.

Peanut butter - peanuts and salt
Cheese - is just cheese
Tinned tuna - is just tuna (and water)
Beef mince - is just mince!

Bread and tortillas as discussed above, some brands are better than others, do a bit of label reading. how often are you eating tortillas anyway?

Some yogurts great, others not so much, ditto.

Baked beans - beans, tomatoes, water, sugar, cornflour, modified cornflour, salt, vitamin C, spice and herb extracts. For me, personally, I'd rather DS was eating beans than worrying about the modified cornflour, which is the only ingredient I don't currently own.

I think we all have an awareness of eating well, the 'bollocks' is the way in which this old-hat 'science' is being used to simply make a lot of money. Grandma, eggs, suck, teach, that about sums it up.

@JudgeJ who is making the money?

My main concern is the impact upf has on the gut microbiome. The lack of fibre in much upf means that the microbes starved of fibre will instead eat the protective lining of your digestive system which means that harmful sustances infiltrate the blood stream. Preservatives designed to kill bacteria in food will kill the beneficial bacteria in your gut and emulsifiers also harm the good bacteria.

There is so much research now on the impact of the gut microbes on health. In one study transplanting the microbes of an obsese person into a lean one caused the lean person to gain weight.

The gut microbiome also plays a role in the production of neurotransmitters including serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and glutamate. When I cut out upf I was able to stop my ssri and have felt 100% better.

The microbiome also drives your cravings, if you cut upf out of your diet for a few weeks you will get a different balance of microbes and and you will find that your food preferences completely change. After a few months you will find that upf tastes really distasteful and you will get a weird hit of oil, salt and sugar that no longer is very palatable.

I lost 15kg purely by cutting out upf, my calorie intake has actually increased.

I think that you are too generous in your assumptions about a lot of people.

@HelloMyNameIsElderSmurf extract often isn't what it sounds like it is. I have some baked beans in my cupboard and they have starches and extracts which are additives (Yuka app helps). We still eat them though because they are good overall, but I like to eat with awareness.

By the way, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that our food system is absolutely fucked. Food manufacture is in the hands of the ultra wealthy, and our govts are content to let food policy be set by supermarkets who can only offer cheap food by raping the land, environment and people who produce food. In return, we make their profits AND top up their staff's wages... nice work if you can get it Mr Tesco.

But that still does not mean that words like 'monstrous' to describe another person's eating habits are helpful. We are all doing our best in an imperfect system and that has to be good enough.

Hold governments, manufacturers and supermarkets to account, and help people make the best of the choices available to them.

this.

It's just too complex for me with health issues and I don't have the time, money or brain power to worry about the condiments, baked beans or ready cooked chicken I might eat

I already inject a medication that increases my risk of cancer, immunocompromised and a family history of early onset dementia

I mostly eat well but with some UPF, take multivitamins and supplements and exercise. Rather die at 60 than live a decade with dementia so it is what it is

We have made a few changes to our already very low UPF diet, don't eat bread every day, stopped buying crisps, make our own cakes and muffins never buy shop made cakes and similar, having said that we never really did and now we often have in the house the lovely home made bakery stuff, so not sure that was a 'win'!

Anything with - Diglycerides of Fatty Acids - god sounds awful so won't have anything with that in it!

I read that BBC article this morning and felt it was a bit wishy washy but the message is strong, if you are able and want to of course, eat as little ULTRA processed food as you can.

Hold governments, manufacturers and supermarkets to account, and help people make the best of the choices available to them.

Completely agree, but putting our heads in the sand and calling any evidence on the matter "rubbish" isn't helping anyone either. It IS monstrous what these companies are doing to make a profit, because of the level of manipulation around it, just look at all the studies the likes of Coca Cola sponsors for their benefit. Now we can wait around for enough pressure to be put on these companies and government for things to change like it did with say tobacco, or we can start making changes to help ourselves today. After the reading I've done, I'm doing the latter. No one has to do the same as me, but it is "rubbish".