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.

I just look at the ingredients and if it's all stuff I could buy myself and make it myself then in my view it isn't UPF. In any case, if the weird UPF ingredients are in really small quantities, how much harm is that really doing if part of a generally balanced diet.

This.

Too much phosphoric acid can deplete the calcium levels in your body and lead to fractures and osteoporosis.

Apparently, research has shown that drinking it daily doubles your risk of bone fractures.

In the olden days, women who worked in match factories used to suffer from 'fossy jaw' due to the high levels of phosphorus in matches.

We need some phosphorus in our bodies but we can get that from a balanced and healthy diet.

To be clear pasta is not ultra processed nor is home made or artisan bread ...buying ready meals or massive produced bread is UP.
Moderately processed foods include pata, milk, cheese (not the plastic wrapped kids stuff) some cereals (without sugar or flavourings)
Coke is UP because it's all chemical.

My fridge is like that mostly. I even get annoyed that it’s all ingredients. 😁

Me too, sometimes, if truth be told... 😅

I’ve currently given up bread (low carb diet) but when I bring it back in I’m going to dust off my bread maker.

@willWillSmithsmith is your bread maker worth it? I make my own and it's very simple but just takes quite a few hours (so I have to be very organised). I've looked at bread machines but there's so much choice and then I get lost down the rabbit hole of Amazon reviews and then give up. If you have a recommendation I'd appreciate it!

I think it gets over complicated about what is UPF and what is processed but also still ok to eat.
I just try and stick with mainly whole foods and home cooked/baked meals for at least 80% of my diet. Then if the other 20% contains the odd packet of crisps or chocolate bar I can live with it!

Yes it is, I just put it on and leave it. My only gripe is the bread can sometimes be a bit heavier than I’d like, and it doesn’t really give a nice brown crusty top but it’s still nice. Maybe because I bought a relatively cheap one (around £60). Next time I’d research more expensive ones.

Maybe someone on here has an expensive one and can say if they’re worth it?

My Panasonic has been completely worth it because it has been going nearly 20 years, used several times a week. It has had a new drive band (cost 70p) and we replaced the tin and paddle once, but never gone wrong.
That’s not very helpful in a way though because there’s no guarantee they’re still making them to the same quality!

That’s true, there’s no guarantee. Does it brown the top crust? (I don’t want to derail the thread though).

So long as on the whole your eating a fairly balanced fresh food diet a bit of UPF isn't going to hurt because we want to eat what we want to eat

You can make really quick and easy fresh food

Fry a chicken breast / pork chop / steak with seasoning with some veg and rice or potatoes

Eggs

So many quick and easy dishes that the DC can easily make themselves too

I do make my own bread and recently bought a very cheap second hand bread maker from a local charity shop which is a godsend. It had never been used or if it had only a couple of times before because it was spotless.

So much more convenient

When that dies I'll go for a new Panasonic

I love a basic white loaf and have also used premixed sourdough flour which is very tasty

I can't find proper dark rye flour to make more german types of bread which I'd like to do. The ones I've bought just aren't quite right

That's a decent diet op. Whilst it's advisable to limit upf's occasionally having them is ok. I would consider making bread though

Lidl bake a fresh loaf in their bakery that I absolutely love toasted but not sure what it's called. It might be a sourdough one

But yes OP your diet is absolutely normal, fine and healthy

Nothing wrong with baked beans or peanut butter imho

We now have pumpkin seeds and Brazil nuts because my DC love it on their Greek yogurt which I now buy lactose free as DS is lactose intolerant we've finally figured out

It's delicious btw and Tesco own brand so normal price

It’s not going to have fibre in if it’s not whole wheat though.

Most peanut butter is really healthy but it’s worth reading the label. I buy peanut butter with no sugar as I prefer the taste of pure peanuts. But most uk brands are ok. But Skippy, for example, a US brand, has some pretty unhealthy additives.

Hmm, sometimes, it depends on whether we have used a recipe that rises enough to make the top crust near the hot space at the top. We’re very slapdash so we probably don’t get the ‘perfect’ loaf all the time, but the thing with bread is that if it’s fresh it’s nice so we don’t necessarily care how much it has risen every time.
I often just use it to make the dough and then make rolls or interestingly shaped loaves, and then we use the overnight timer with the full process when there’s no bread in the house and we just want a loaf for the next day.

That sounds more interesting than my basic.

At least with home made people know what’s in it.

@Mostlycarbon download the YUKA app. You can scan things in free version and it gives a brief explanation of the category eg emulsifier and the risk, so can can decide what you’re happy with.

bread is full of UPF in a lot of supermarkets. I was shocked by coconut milk! And when using tins of things eg kidney beans some brands have additives but I thought I was using a pure ingredient. Few tweaks and you’ll be ok. You learn safe brands. But I found it made my cost go up!

"Weight gain is the first and most obvious effect of eating ultra-processed food," says Dr Chris van Tulleken, an immunologist from University College

I eat lots of UPF, I'm sure. At least I eat supermarket WM bread (UPF because 2% of its calories come from monodiglycerides & whatever rising process) and supermarket biscuits & nutella & Mars bars & doritos & mini cheddars & lots of supermarket canned beans and ready made mini-samosas last night.

And yet I'm not fat! So very curious that I'm such a freak I guess.

van Tulleken recommends dried fruit (eg raisins) as a nonUPF snack, btw.

But why we should avoid UPF and how much to avoid UPF and what is or isn't UPF is not confusing, the boundaries between PF & UPF are totally clear, yeah sure they are. #Sarcasm

I honestly don’t see what’s confusing about it.

Just reading the labels on any packaged food you buy should tell you. Unless of course it’s just fresh meat, fish, eggs, rice or pulses, veg or fruit.

But why we should avoid UPF and how much to avoid UPF and what is or isn't UPF is not confusing, the boundaries between PF & UPF are totally clear, yeah sure they are. #Sarcasm

The reasons to avoid UPF are explained at length in the book. Eating lots of it is linked to weight gain yes, but also diabetes, heart disease, gut and digestive problems, cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s, and ultimately premature death.

The reasons for this are not yet fully clear, but that doesn’t mean the effects are not measurable and scientifically proven.

What is or isn’t UPF is very easy - you can check the NOVA index, or just look at the packaging and see if it contains ingredients that you couldn’t buy yourself.

In terms of how much to avoid, it’s the more you can avoid better. It’s not realistic to avoid it completely, but it’s better to reduce a little than not at all.

Essentially eating non-UPF requires eating fresh, real food. It should be completely obvious and uncontroversial that that is better for you than eating packaged ready made stuff packed full of chemical additives.