This UPF thing is irritating me

[SnowMoss]

I've never eaten much UPF, but it is getting harder and harder to avoid it. I don't go the whole 9 yards or anything, but try to keep myself informed and do my best to eat a healthy balanced diet.

Made a good effort to keep an eye on upf's, so for the past year have been sourcing good poultry, fish, and eating it with vegetables, etc. But I am bored out of my mind at this point! Just so fucking bored.

Then I hear about seed oils, so now even the small things that I added, such as mayo, gnocchi, the occasional flatbread (contains only sunflower oil, salt, wheat) are seen as a UPF too, due to the inclusion of sunflower or rapeseed oil. I am happy with and have the time to cook from scratch, but avoiding oils has basically taken a good whack at my time.
It's one thing trying to get people to eat a good diet, with veg and fruit and less processed meats, which will benefit their health, weight and wellbeing, but I am honest to god fed up of eating meat and a pile of veg, even if my own sauces and seasonings suffice.
And no, nothing substitutes for mayo! And no, I really don't want to make my own! I will make my own pesto, coleslaw, stuff like that, but I am bone bloody weary of avoidance.

Surely just being mindful is enough? I get that the food industry is an unregulated cesspit right now, but I am beginning to wonder just how awful it is, in moderation, to eat a some.
Sadly if I google any kind of additive or seed oil, I get lists of 'side effects' such as bloating, calcium loss and so on, it is so depressing.

If you are mindful of UPF's have you found a good balance?

"UPFs are a huge problem.
not because of salt sugar fat , but because of the impact on the gut microbiome of emulsifiers, thickeners, preservatives and probably refined seed oils. Put simply, these ingredients kill ‘good’ bacteria in the gut.
we know very very little about the microbiome but we know that there is a strong link between it and the amount of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is always negative and is connected to many forms of physical disease. There is also increasing evidence of a connection between gut health and mental illness.
Disappointingly, many health ‘experts’ including perhaps - gasp - Oxford nutritionists are not up to date with this emerging research and are still working with a ‘nutrient’ based approach to health which ignores the way that the microbiome mediates what goes into the body."

I'd be interested in knowing the source of that as it's a lot of statement with nothing factual, no data, no evidence to back it up.

I'm not saying I disagree with the premise that less processed food is better for people, which is basic common sense, and that ongoing research into gut microbiomes is potentially an exciting new direction. I also agree that nutritionists often espouse a somewhat old-fashioned perspective. But equally, nothing above amounts to evidence.

Oh whatever.

In very broad terms, the more you mess about with stuff, the more likely you are to alter their chemical structure in a way that isn’t good for the body.

Eg, unsaturated fats, when heated to high temps and/or for long times will (partially) change into trans fats - some of the double carbon bonds between the molecules will twist around from their normal configuration. These trans fats are similar enough to the original form that the body will use them, but different enough that they won’t work in quite the same way.

it could be that they store the trans fatty acids in the wrong place, or they clump too much etc.

Omega 6 is a fatty acid found in lots of animal fats, omega 3 is very similar but ever so slightly different in structure. Your body can pretty much use it interchangeably, but its omega 3 it really needs, so if your diet is too high in 6 and not high enough in 6, your body will use 6, but it won’t be quite right. Think of it like a Lego brick that does the job but doesn’t quite sit flush with the others, or maybe leaves a little gap. Most western diets are way too high in O6 v O3.

Obviously this is a super basic explanation, but hopefully it makes sense.

I also think there's 'too much information'. Everyone has some sort of internet special doctor who cured their thing.
I have seen interesting articles celebrating health management via various means which then go on to reveal a financial or personal bias (vegan, carnivore and so on).
Thre's too much bias, and there's too much noise!

A lot of this seems like the latest version of orthorexia for many people. How do I know if my body has this 'chronic inflammation' due to my diet?

Not all UPFs are damaging.

Babies aren’t being fed trans fats and thickening agents and fuck knows what colourings and stabilisers.

meal replacements for the elderly or even weird tech bros aren’t necessarily dangerous.

But to keep the public messaging simple, the overall idea is that the closer the ingredient is to its raw / original form, the better.

No need to worry mums about formula.

Well there we go then - which part of your body do you want to obsess about and which experts do you want to favour? If you focus too much on what a dermatologist tells you, you might end up with vitamin D deficiency. If you pay too much attention to the British Heart Foundation, you might get cancer or a defective gut microbiome. If you listen to climate scientists, you might decide to eat, drink and be merry, because with Trump and Musk on the earth, humanity won’t last long enough to fuss about UPFs, etc, anyway. Even your fruit and vegetables might be killing you if you’re worried about pesticide residues, forever chemicals, microplastics, whether cooking destroys nutrients or raw food gives you food poisoning etc. You have clearly taken one type of advice and run with it to the point that you are getting a bit pissed off with the effort, now.

Not all UPFs are damaging.
Babies aren’t being fed trans fats and thickening agents and fuck knows what colourings and stabilisers.

Not all UPFs are damaging is my point. Why do you think it's thickening agents and stabilisers that are the particular problem and are you sure they aren't in baby formula?

If your diet is high in meat, I would suggest looking at your omega 6 v omega 3 ratio more than anything else. It should be about 2:1 max - most western diets are up to 20:1.

Swapping some meats for O3 rich veg and/or oily fish could be of significant benefit.

Much more than forgoing your mayo or bread, I’d suspect.

The problem isn’t too much info - it’s a scientifically illiterate population who cannot identify a suitable source.

Any old grifter can put up a TikTok video espousing the wonders of Sunny D as a contraceptive, and people lap it up.

If people read scientific papers or stick to legacy media with proper science editors, there would be a lot less confusion.

It is true and ,unfortunately, the "guy microbiome" crowd is not immune from this. That's why we have nutritionist popping up everywhere offering to test microbiome and diagnosing everyone with "dysbiosis" before prescribing copious amounts of expensive supplements which have questionable ingredients, safety or efficacy data. In reality, we all have a unique combination of microbiota and there is no way to say what is the right type and quantity of a specific microbiota for me.

Philadelphia cream cheese has UPFs while Tesco’s own brand doesn’t!

Don't know about stabilizing agents (I'll be very surprised if there aren't any) but it most certainly contains dreaded seed oils and emulsifiers. And I am pretty certain that they contain thickening agents as well - corn starch, for example.

I am not a fan of meat so eat it much less than is typical - I do like oily fish though! I love roasted baby potatoes with broccoli, peas and mackerel, or salmon with rice. I was trying to up my protein with organic chicken since I don't spend much on meat at all.

Cheese is my downfall

Also, love the idea of a tech-bro diet!

Lol’ing at the expectation that people on MN should provide full references 😂

I was using them as examples of additives that are often UPFs.

For example, hydrogenated oils are processed to make them solid at room temperature. Generally they are fucking horrific for the body. Even the US bans them in places, and they think cheese comes out of a tube.

https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1318/rr

No scientists are saying ALL UPFs are damaging - but when you are conveying public health messages to a largely scientifically illiterate audience, you need to be simple and use broad brushstrokes.

So it’s much better to say ‘cut down your UPF intake to 20% or less’ than to produce enormous lists of every UPF alongside a rating system for their potential harm.

There is the raw information available if you want to compare different UPFs, but as most people don’t / can’t evaluate it, we rely on broad brushstrokes.

To be perfectly honest, this post 100% requires it. I am not even sure who is Oxford nutritionist. Nutritionist is not a protected title (unlike dietician) so an "Oxford nutritionist" could be Sally from nr20 Abingdon road who completed her 3-week-long online certification.

I eat low carb because I feel better, look better and sleep better on it.

I stopped eating shop bought bread in my 20s (I'm 50 now) because I felt awful all the time and spent most afternoons napping and convined that if i got enough sleep today, I'd feel better tomorrow. But I never did. Someone suggested it might be something in the bread so I stopped eating shop bought and started making my own but only baked it once a week and felt so much better. I cut out bread completely about 5 years ago.

I stopped eating seed oils around the same time after I'd looked into it a bit. I use butter, lard and EV olive oil mostly.

We eat meat, fish, veg, low carb veg, dairy, and some berries. I use passata, tinned tuna/mackerel and tinned coconut milk and eat bacon but that's all. I make curries, mayo and everything else.

So an evening meal might be steak with mushrooms, a homemade peppercorn sauce and salad with raspberries and double cream afterwards.

I don't like the taste of ready meals or a lot of pre-made or jarred sauces.

It's not boring at all.

Or a huge follower count.

I'm not interested in reducing or omitting food groups, so low carb doesn't work for me. I once tried it for IBS reasons and saw no changes after 2 years. I ate quite healthily and still gained weight, too. We are all different, so I am happy it works for you.

But I do find endless plates of hot veg with meat boring.
I am an oily fat lover and could live in a sea of olives and melted mozzarella, especially if it sat on a nice, stonebaked pizza base - but I try to moderate that.

I don’t have the time or inclination to go through the lists of ingredients in baby formula, but I believe you.

The point remains valid - not all UPFs are bad, and beating mums for formula feeding because of UPFs is a shitty thing to do, so let’s not.

Even if they are packed full of hydrogenated cancer oils, it’s better that than babies starving.

The first point of diets is to not die of starvation.

Then we add in balanced nutrition to ensure we grow properly, with nice straight limbs.

Then we look at macronutrients to ensure longevity and improved health. The importance of UPFs sit around here on the hierarchy of things to give a shit about.

And that’s also why we shouldn’t be making this a class issue.

It is well documented that the poorer members of our society cook less from scratch for myriad reasons - time, ability, cost of gas/electricity, access to kitchens, ability to store fresh ingredients etc etc.

I can make fresh bread and yoghurt because none of these things is an issue for me and I have a job that allows me to be flexible. This is a privilege and I don’t think anyone should be berating anyone else for their diet.

Do you know if all seed oils are hydrogenated? Say, those in a hummus or samosa for instance?

I had not heard of a cancer link to seed oils. No wonder people are in a pickle.

One thing I do disagree with - I don't believe poverty to be a catch all excuse for eating nutrition-less foods. Where I am hardly anyone is struggling financially (regardless their background) and a good amount of them just love eating junk.
We also see a lot of spendy tourists who would agree!

I agree with you on many points but, in fairness, the poster you first responded to was not shaming mothers for using baby formula. They specifically said that there is no difference in health outcomes between formula-fed and breast-fed children.

No. Hydrogenated oils (trans fats) are ones that should be liquid at room temp but have been fucked about with until they are solid. Usually used as an ingredient but uk is pretty useless at insisting on labelling. But look for ‘hydrogenated’ on the list.

They are virtually banned now, although in the uk it’s been ‘voluntary’. Higher in fast food.