To think processed and pre cooked food is way too common in this country?

[HotPotLove]

Before you all start yelling at me, I know that there are of course millions of households that eat a healthy diet, cook from scratch all the time, carefully choose ingredients etc etc. But my feeling as a foreigner (have been living in the UK for almost a decade though) is that ultra processed food, pre cooked and ready meals etc are very much normalised here and part of most people every day life. It’s pretty obvious just by looking at the supermaket aisles really.
Curious to know if people are generally trying to stay away from these and make healthier choices or whether it is generally so embedded into our lives that we are not even noticing?
Second disclaimer is that I am not pointing any fingers, infact I often buy these myself but what makes me think about this is that I would have never bought these types of meals when living back in my own country (also less available than here overall)

Yeah how is pasta 'balanced' by a slab of garlic bread?

It's not Brit bashing to say that many Brit's diets are atrocious, it's a fact. The majority of food in our supermarkets are UPF and we need to wake up to the fact that it's not normal and is literally killing us.

Sure, at a farmer’s market or Whole Foods. I live in London. My point is, if fabulous produce is something you have to seek out, of course most people won’t. Not to mention the cost.

Yes, I personally worry about this and I’m trying to in particular make more from scratch. Thing is when I make food from scratch I put butter salt and sugar in 😂

I think you missed the changes, which came in c. 1989/90. Thereafter food tech seemed to be about products - my DD did GCSE in what would have been needlework but amounted to little more than learning about design - she did not learn the things I learned at school, to set a sleeve and collar, french seams, cutting a pattern etc. Afaics she learned nothing that would be useful to her later if she wanted to make her own clothes, it was more geared to getting a job in the garment industry (reasonable aim but not applicable to all). If I remember correctly the course was called fabric technology.
I do remember cookery teachers complaining that they were no longer teaching students to cook either a variety of dishes or a variety of methods (presume you did flaky pastry along with shortcrust, rough puff pastry and choux pastry? which are all useful, of course, if not necessarily healthy in themselves, since they allow the preparation of pies, puddings and pastries).

I'd say our supermarkets contain everything you need for a UPF free existence. Thinking of our local, which is Tesco, there's 2 large aisles of fruit and veg, another aisle of raw meat and fish, flour (of many types), rice, pasta, oats, frozen fruit and veg, oil of every type. Milk, butter and lots of cheese and pulses (dried and canned). Dried and fresh herbs. Tea, coffee and chocolate. The in store bakery bread isn't too bad (unless you have an issue with ascorbic acid).
Not sure what else is needed.

I don't think you can really blame the supermarkets, you pay your money and make your choices.

I agree. Britain has a poor food culture. Not sure where it emanates from but it crosses social boundaries, not confined to the poor.

I’ve given up UPF’s for about a month now. I hope I never slip back into bad ways (I’ve allowed myself a tiny bit of UPF as I have a weakness for gyozas and Branston pickle).

I have found it very easy to change my eating habits but I’m sure a lot of that is down to becoming an empty nester.

I don’t keep convenience foods in the house. I do try and cook from scratch as much as possible. I do the odd time pick a ready meal up on the way home. Not very often more often than not for a quick tea I stick a couple of jacket potatoes in and have with either veg or salad.

That’s why I have a slow cooker. Shove everything in (you don’t even need to brown it first if you’re time poor). Make sure it’s seasoned and a few hours later you have a stew or bolognese sauce etc.

Tinned tomatoes (often Italian) are perfectly fine and much used by Italian cooks.
Because even in Italy decent fresh tomatoes will be hard to come by in the winter or early spring.

I think this is because in the uk most families with children are both working full time so not the time to get in from work having collected the children from school and nursery to then cook from scratch.

In the Italian equivalent of Lidl they have ready meals like salad with walnuts, olives and a small sachet of dressing. It’s difficult and expensive to find ready-made salads like that in UK stores.

Why would we yell? You’re completely correct. However this is the case for most high income nations now. Even in Japan, lauded for its low obesity rates, where I used to live the shops were stuffed full of ultra processed food.

Except they sell those in most supermarkets…

That's because it's an M&S ready meal. Go and look at Tesco's, Aldi's or Asda's cheapest lasagne ready meal and I'm sure you'll find it's full of added junk and salt. The premium versions of everything are generally UPF free or have minimal UPF, while the cheapest versions are loaded with them. This is true across the board - jar sauces, cakes, biscuits, pizzas etc. As usual it's the poor who suffer the most.

I found when travelling through France and Italy that there were far fewer ready meals available in supermarkets. We seem to have aisles full of them here.

Also you can check the actual diet of British people using the 2019-2023 diet and nutrition survey if you’re interested - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-2019-to-2023/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-2019-to-2023-report

It's not coming across as rude to me!

I'm British but I lived in Italy for years, and I would say that there are many things that are better in Britain (standard of driving 😱!) but there really is no argument that people eat better in Italy. There seems to be more understanding and knowledge about food and nutrition, and much less reliance on ready meals.

Instead of being automatically offended, why don't we stop and think about why we have got to this point here and what we can do about it?

It's a big thing in Italy to eat together as an extended family, and so eating good food and knowing how to cook it is passed down through the generations. Unfortunately this happens less in the UK (in my experience) and it's a vicious circle; how can people pass on food knowledge to their children if they've never been taught it themselves?

Everyone saying all countries like this (or that Italy etc are just "behind" us) makes me wonder if any of these people have ever spent any time in other countries.

If Italian kids are obese I suspect that's more to do with increasing sedentary lifestyles, computer games etc and eating big portions of pasta and good cheese than eating TV dinners and pot noodles 7 nights a week.

I am from Yorkshire and my child's dad is Italian and our food cultures couldn't be more different. I wonder if it is in part down to how we've developed through the ages. I have evolved from a scarcity background, limited food types in a harsh terrain and harsh climate with long dark winters... so when I see something high fat and high sugar I have the overwhelming primal urge to scoff it like I won't eat for a week (when in fact I'll probably eat in a couple of hours). So I think me and my people are perfect targets for the marketing of this high sugar high fat processed crap! Mediterranean people have such a strong culinary culture and possibly less of this scarcity mindset so they just don't fall prey to this kind of food marketing to the same extent..

I'm not well off, I eat pretty well and the most expensive stuff I buy from supermarkets is the processed stuff. Eating semi healthily and well is neither cheap nor massively time consuming, lot of people kidding themselves when they say that it is. I respect that loads of factors eg ASN kids, disability, mental health issues etc can make home cooking less accessible and I don't think people with these barriers should be made to feel guilty for grabbing convenience food but most people could eat well they just can't be arsed.

This is true but it also makes the moniker of “all upf bad” nonsense.

I read the OP differently. Not so much as caused by people but by the industrialisation of the UK's food production. This is happening in other parts of the world - it was Brazilian scientists that devised the NOVA classification of foods.

However in the UK it is quite stark at the prevalence and rise of industrially manufactured foods. I live in an area that has 3 Tesco that I go into - it is noticeable that the one located in the least well off area has much more shelf space given over to ready meals and a smaller vege section. Even if you want to buy fresh food from that store it is more difficult than the ones in the better off areas. This was not the case when I was growing up.

I am enraged by the way the food industry is manipulating our buying and cooking habits. Fun fact - the food industry uses the same tactics as the tobacco industry to push unhealthy foods.

I used to agree with views like the OP’s, back when I had my health, decent income, some support, and a tidy home.

Now that I’ve developed a lifelong debilitating mental illness, cognitive impairment from the meds, struggle to even have enough cups clean to drink out of and get exhausted just from making my kids packed lunches I think statements like the OP’s is bullshit preserve of the privileged, healthy and lucky. DFOD.

I’ve spent time in plenty of other countries thanks.

what difference does it make if Italian kids are obese because they spend too much time gaming and eating pasta? They’re still obese.

Is there a European equivalent of beans on toast for dinner?