To be dismayed at how processed my diet has become

[MyFitMission]

I’ve taken a long hard look at my diet this week and I can’t believe how processed it is. Protein “yoghurts” that are just chemicals, bread that’s just plastic, spreads that sell themselves as butter but they’re mainly just chemicals.

where did we go so wrong with food? It’s so easy to make a load of bread rolls or a loaf of bread, even butter is easy to make. It just makes me so sad

It depends what you buy surely? There's cheap and expensive fresh food and cheap and expensive processed food.

Those branded protein yogurts are far more expensive than plain Greek style yogurt or cottage cheese. Loads of unprocessed basic ingredients like eggs, pulses or most veg are very cheap and don't always take loads of time, skill or energy to cook.

I work in a supermarket and sometimes amuse myself by walking around reading the ingredients on packs. The one that got me most was the vegan stuff - the packs of those read like someone took a load of chemicals and then added more chemicals to make it taste like food.

Avoid anything that's being actively sold to you as a thing 'health food' or 'high protein' etc, and you will be part of the way there.

You sound so passive, OP. You’re in charge of what you buy and what you choose to put in your mouth. It’s easy to change. What’s stopping you?

So much of the food that's marketed to us as healthy is actually UPF shit - protein yoghurts, low fat spreads, meal replacement shakes, protein bars etc are all presented as health foods when they're actually shit.

My diet isn't beyond reproach in any sense - too much sugar and carbohydrate. But very near everything is home made and I really do think that makes a difference.

It really irks me when people post having realised something about themselves and their own choices and then ask where 'we' went wrong as though their situation applies to everyone.

I don't buy protein yoghurt (full of chemicals or otherwise); I don't eat crap bread and I only eat real butter from grass fed cows.

Along with everything else I eat, my diet is fine - lots of vegetables and salad; higher welfare meat and fish; natural Greek yoghurt etc. Even my mayonnaise is homemade. And I work full time. And it was no different when I worked full time and was a single parent.

I could afford to eat properly because I didn't buy crap gimmicky 'health' foods and all cakes and children's snacks were made from scratch.

And processed' food isn't the issue. All food has been through a process unless you grow, rear, harvest and slaughter it yourself, when it has still been through a process.

It's UPF that is the issue.

So there's no need to make your own butter you can buy it. It contains cream and salt.

Just like passata contains tomatoes and can be used instead of fresh tomatoes to make sauces and soup for convenience. But is a wolrd away from a jarred tomato based pasta sauce for example.

The western diet does typically consist of mostly processed and ultra-processed foods, though, whether you eat that way or not, it is the typical diet for most people. Which, imo, means "we" have gone wrong somewhere.

With regard to bread - the words I look for are ‘esterified esters of fatty acids’ or something like that - that’s an edible product , not bread. Ciabatta is often ok, and sourdough if you can tolerate it.
Likewise with cream cheeses and yoghourts - if they’re padded out with starches (maize, pea), emulsifiers, gum (guar and carrageenan), they’re no longer food, they’re ’edible products’ and back on the shelf they go. You soon get to know which ones to choose.

How are you buying protein yoghurt that is full of crap. I have just bought a large tub of 10% protein yoghurt from Sainsbury's- it has one ingredient - milk.

As for the other things you refer to -

We buy a large soughdough loaf from the local Bakery each week - ingredients - flour, water, salt, oil.

We use butter on bread - ingredients - milk and salt.

You mean the ultra processed vegan foods, not the beans, lentils, legumes, vegetable, fruit, tofu etc.

Well yes, because those things aren't 'vegan food', they are just 'food'.

I’d argue they’re not even food

I love sourdough. I’ve got two loaves in a cold proof right now to be baked tomorrow morning, my first ever loaves!

Yeah, I'm confused by that too. I buy loads of them, and most of them are just Skyr and fruit. Some of the fruit-flavoured ones have stevia in them.

And the mainstay of a vegan diet. Not the crap you are talking about. Much the same applies to omnivore ultra processed foods - full of rubbish.

Yes but this isn’t true for most people is it? Most people in Britain eat lots of UFP in the form of things like wholemeal, seeded supermarket bread (with a fuckton of emulsifiers in) and cereal bars while thinking that that is a perfectly healthy way to eat because it’s not McDonalds and crisps. Good on you for not doing that, but this is a societal problem and will likely affect all of us economically if not physically, so it’s worth spreading the message.

Are you making your own bread, churning your own butter? These products are out there but are at a premium price. The food industry is just that, an industry and it wants sell you something at the highest price/lowest cost. If it's cheaper to use garlic flavour rather than garlic and palm oil or fructose they will

I think when you look at society in general though we’ve gone wrong with how we view food

It’s pretty difficult to eat everything that has just been caught/killed and picked. There are many other benefits to the food we eat that fit in with other aspects of our lifestyles. As long as you are eating as healthily as possible it’s really fine.

Yes some people can be smug about their diets

but if we look across the country most people shouldn’t be smug at all

even less when we look at what children are fed

yes if you shop around and chose carefully you can get stuff that is good

but the other stuff should t be an option

But no-one really thinks they're healthy.

They might like them, or at least like the fact that they can be eaten straight from the packet but no-ones fooled into thinking they're healthy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. This is what I buy in a typical week:

chicken
salmon
eggs
Greek yoghurt
lots of vegetables, herbs, fruit, salad
Middle Eastern flatbreads
wild rice or quinoa or whole wheat pasta
a pint of milk for my tea
bottle of wine

That’s pretty much it. Simple meals that take 10-20 minutes to prepare. Double portions of meat/fish so there’s enough for 2 meals.

Occasionally a curry ready meal - I’m not a martyr after all…

A lot of people are fooled by it. Watch the "What I eat in a day on a weight loss diet" posts on TikTok, a lot of them are picking up the protein bars, low carb bread, extra light mayo, butter spreads, etc, because they think they are healthy.

I eat protein bars occasionally, but I am aware they are processed crap. A lot of the people buying them are buying them because they think they are healthier than regular chocolate, not because they've just finished a strength routine at the gym, and woke up too late to prepare a protein snack for after.

I think plenty of people do think these things are healthy, actually. My otherwise intelligent DP has all kinds of weird ideas about healthy eating.

Macdonalds fries in the UK still have two main ingredients. We shouldn't assume that the UK is the same as the US, that's what's fuelled the anti vax in the UK.
I used to buy Hovis when I was vegan, the ingredients were fine.
The issue is the food industry and supermarkets, they needed tighter controls back in the 90's. We shouldn't have allowed food manufacturers to sponsor research that shaped government policies.