Low UPF diet - to think the experts weren’t lying?

[AusBoundDD]

Nearly 6 months ago I made it my New Year’s resolution to start eating a low UPF diet in hopes of losing some weight for a once in a lifetime trip, alongside just being healthier in general. Honestly it has been life changing! I’ve lost nearly 10kg without really having to think about it - no restricting or anything like that and in general I just feel so much better. UPFs like crisps, ready meals, even basic supermarket bread don’t feel like ‘real’ food anymore and no longer appeal. On the occasion that I do choose to eat something UPF (which for me is no big deal, im not strict!) it just isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be. I’d choose some sourdough over a loaf of Hovis any day when previously I used to hate it! I feel much fuller + satisfied for longer and rarely get the urge to snack.

Obviously it has its downsides - much less convenience food so cooking takes longer (PITA when doing lunch/dinner prep after a long day at work!), ingredients are more expensive so my shopping bill has gone up but all in all it’s a decision I don’t regret. Honestly I think that this way of eating should be the future.

Anyone else feel this way?

@SnakesAndArrows it seems like you're looking for evidence that 100 calories of UPF Hovis will make you fatter than 100 calories on non UPF sourdough. If that's the case, I don't think you will find it.... because that's not what the UPF research is saying.

What it is saying is that there's clear evidence that it is easier to overconsume calories on a diet high in UPFs because they are highly palatable and easier to chew and eat. They are designed by the manufacturers to be addictive. As someone upthread said "once you pop you can't stop."

But I don't think weight is the main issue with them, there's also emerging research that some of these additives are harmful to human health and higher UPF consumption may be linked to increase in cancer rates e.g the study below. I do appreciate in this one they're not saying there is a definite cause and effect but with the increase of bowel cancer rates etc in relatively young people something is going on. The more research that emerges about UPFs the more dodgy they are looking.

What really worries me is children's consumption of UPFs in this country. It is higher than adult consumption in many cases and I do think there are a lot of parallels with tobacco 50 years ago or so.....huge corporations lobbying to keep the evidence on how harmful their products are under wraps.

Argh sorry it wouldn't let me post the link! Look up the Lancet....UPF consumption linked to higher incidence of cancer.

I don’t disagree with what you have said at all - there’s good evidence of harm from certain additives and obviously junk food is nutritionally inferior.

Others appear to be claiming that the non-existence evidence exists. There are often posts on MN from people wondering why they still haven’t lost weight despite eating only home cooked UPF food.

I'm getting sick of this, but I will say what I have already said. Some of us have been around for quite a number of years, and while there certainly weren't the amount of obese people when I was young as there are now, there most definitely were people who were on the large size. I know people who got very large by eating food which was in no way UPF, they simply ate far too much. People are eating more than they used to because portion sizes are larger, why can't you get that? I know, I was there when people ate less - and I'm talking about things like cafes, where they bake their own food. People have got fatter, they don't want to take responsibility for it, so they look around for something to blame. Of course UPFs aren't good for us and we would all be better off eating proper food, but it's a cop out to blame them for everything.

I eat plenty of UPFs myself, but I don't eat any more of them than I do anything else - so these sophisticated techniques don't work on me, or on any of my friends.

Does anyone remember the original Findus crispy pancakes (minced beef) and also M&S steak bakes from 1989? The dog’s bollocks.

Other UPFs from around that time:

that weird fluffy white diet bread
the cuppa soups at the pool after a swim, which served as substantive dinner that night

Fray Bentos and Pukka Pies.
Kraft packets
uncle Bens curry sauce
drinks and sweets with tartrazine, blue and other food dyes
Meat products with no provenance information on them
eggs from battery chickens were the norm … I could go on and on.
this isn’t an argument for UPFs, but the idea it’s all new in last decade is a complete falsehood.

I'd like to drastically reduce my UPF intake, but I'm gluten and lactose intolerant, which makes it harder. Lots of the free-from alternatives are massively full of UPF ingredients. Obviously I can eat lots of good, natural stuff - meat, fish, eggs, fruit, veg, rice etc and some cheese. But things like bread, pasta and flour for home baking are non-UPF for normal versions and UPF for gluten-free ones. It sucks!

Having been around for a decade or two longer than me (if your name means you were born in 1959) doesn’t give you quite the special insight you seem to think it does. Of course there were fat people before there was UPF. (Henry VIII, anyone?) Nobody thinks there weren’t, and nobody thinks UPFs are the only factor in the rise in obesity, so you can put your straw man away. And of course portion sizes have got larger. Nobody is denying that has happened…. I was born in the 70s and I remember it too.
But there has been an enormous jump in obesity which coincides in countries all over the world with the introduction of UPFs.
If it isn’t affecting you (bully for you!) it’s probably because your eating habits were established before this happened. Much of the shocking rise in obesity is among young people and children. And portion size is only one factor. If the food that is put on their plates is calorie dense and low in fibre it’s going to be a heck of a lot harder for them to eat an appropriate portion than it was for those of us who grew up eating relatively small portions of meat and two veg with every meal.

It’s not an extraordinary claim to say that

• UPFs make us want to eat more compared to non-UPFs
• UPFs disrupt our gut microbiome and metabolic rate
• Because of this, globally, UPFs are partly responsible for making us fatter

That’s what I’m saying, and research to back those claims is widely available.

I loved those steak bakes.

Sorry I must be thick as shit then because if I eat 3000 calories of non-UPF then I'm going to gain weight. In fact, I'll gain weight if I eat 2000 because I have a slow metabolism. I'm probably eating between 1000 and 1500 a day at the moment, sometimes with carbs and sometimes low carbs and am consistently losing about a kilo a week.

I don't calorie "count" in all honesty but I've done enough of it in my life to know that one proportionate meal a day and a small snack for lunch is lower than my body needs to function without losing weight.

Angel delight
Instant whip
St Ivel gold spread
Stork
Chicken tonight
Special K
Muller light
Dairy Lea triangles

All featured in my childhood (80s/90s)
My mum mainly cooked from scratch But was always trying to lose weight and frequently on a diet.she basically moved from overweight to slightly less overweight and back again.

So obviously this type of food had started to infiltrate. But the volume and variety and availability, of UPFs has definitely increased. So many things designed to be eaten "on the go" (pots of instant oats for breakfast, belvita, weetabix smoothie type things - almost encouraging you that you could be doing something more interesting/useful than "wasting time" making breakfast)

In the mid- late 90s my sister turned veggie and of course you could get quorn, Linda McCartney burgers and sausages but the variety of vegan and plant based products now is massive.

I think upfs have become a lot more prolific and like pp said strategically marketed and aimed at making things convenient or quicker while also trying to persuade us they are healthy!

Yeah, we had a lot of that stuff in the 80s/90s too. I think it’s for to be at least partially responsible for the increase in cancer and IBS-like diseases in people in their 40s and 50s.

There’s one difference that strikes me though: back then there wasn’t the culture of constant snacking there is now.

We generally ate a meal and then waited until the next one to eat. Now it’s graze, graze, graze, all day long (especially for kids).

Agree there's nothing new about obesity or upf and that something has gone badly wrong in the past 30 years or so.

I would love to go back to my childhood in the 80s and 90s and read the labels on our upf foods (called "junk food" then), I suspect they were bad but not nearly as bad as what we have now. In my experience people ate them as snacks or special treats, meals were still whole foods from scratch. Takeaways besides pizza or even ready meals weren't really a thing where I grew up.

Hi all, haven’t rtft but this week I started reading a little more into it all and trying to switch out UPFs and make more bits from scratch. So far I’ve made some bread, pizza bases, granola, hummus and garlic mayo! Are there any other easy switches/recipes that people care to share? I could do with making rolls and bagels but I assume I’ll need a bread maker for those!

One thing I do need to start start substituting is my oat milk. We’re a house full of Oatly Barista lovers unfortunately but the ingredients list doesn’t look great. I don’t suppose anyone has made their own taste anywhere similar or found a decent substitute?

I made my own bread this week using this incredibly easy recipe!

(I have since read that instant yeast could potentially be a upf but honestly it’s such a small quantity and it’s obviously still much healthier than shop bought!) I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to make a loaf of bread!

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/homemade-artisan-bread/

We’re oat milk drinkers too, unfortunately I still haven’t been able to find a good alternative with no seed oils. M&S do a fresh oat milk that’s literally just oats, water and salt but in all honestly it’s really not great in coffee so the search continues. Might have to resort to making our own 🙈

I think there's an Aldi one which is just oats, salt, water and a dash of rapeseed oil. Sadly we're not near one, so have to get the Lidl own brand one which contains one or two weird ingredients. You can make it yourself, but it's a right old faff.

I’m intrigued by oat milk drinkers.

Why would anyone drink milk made from oats, salt and oil? Nutritionally what could it possibly add to your diet?

Enjoyment mainly. For me, usually in the form of a coffee based beverage. Can you really not comprehend that? 🤔

There can be a wide range of reasons. Dietary for a lot of people who can’t tolerate dairy obviously.

For me personally, even as a child I always hated the taste of cows milk, I find it really bitter.

The dairy industry itself is also cruel and environmentally bad (I’m not vegan but completely understand why people are and hope to go that way eventually).

I moved to almond which took a while to get used to but is pretty good and excellent in smootheie! (plenish has only almonds water and salt I think - some of them have all sorts of weird stuff in them).

There are other alternatives if you‘re lactose intolerant.

And I get the animal welfare side of things, (although it’s fairly easy to buy milk from high-welfare cows now). I also kind of get nut milk which at least has some kind of nutrition and doesn’t spike your blood sugar.

I just don’t get oat milk!

This study on the effects of plant-based milk drinks might be interesting to anyone who isn’t aware:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9914410/

More research clearly needed.

@Tinseltuttifruitti your post regarding junk food ingredients made me think of this image which I've shared before. It's from the US, not the UK but I find it pretty shocking.

Oat milk drinkers - Plenish do one that is just oats, water and salt.

Exactly.

Cows milk tastes rotten to me, whereas I love the taste of oat milk AND I think I’m slightly lactose intolerant so it makes me feel rubbish too.

Also agree with the vegan angle. Although I’m not a vegan currently, it’s something I would consider in the future for the reasons you outline.

There are other alternatives some of which I do consume, but I revert to oat milk most times as I find it’s delicious especially in my morning oats 😍

I buy store bought ones but there’s some easy recipes for making it on YouTube.