AIBU to think supermarket food choices have got weirdly exhausting?

[ProbablyNeedsTea]

I’m trying to eat reasonably well (not perfect, not Instagram), but every supermarket trip feels like a mental workout now.
Labels, additives, “healthy” claims that don’t seem that healthy, kids’ snacks that are basically sugar… I find myself standing in the aisle googling or just giving up and buying the usual.
AIBU, or does anyone else feel like food shopping takes way more energy than it used to?
If you have cracked it, what actually helps you decide quickly?

We also have a menu i know it can be time consuming to make up but we do ours for a month so we can prepare and maybe cook and freeze things to, and it stopped us buying crap, we started it when the kids were at home, it is just 2 of us now but we factor in a take away and meal out once a month, and we know what we are cooking and buying.

OP the Yuka app might help you. You just scan the barcode in the shop and it tells you what rating (out of 100) something has (higher score is better, i.e. not UPF). You decide what score you're comfortable with and just discount anything that is below that line.

Yes i agree!! I tend to research a different product every week before I go shopping. This week I’m focusing on finding bread that has less rubbish in but my husband and son will still eat. Then I’m moving onto kids snacks and then chocolate bars/biscuits like Kit Kats etc. Once I’ve found it, I will tend to just buy the same type every time until someone gets bored.

Unless you shop at Waitrose - and then there are a couple of other options - the only non UPF sliced bread readily available is Jason's.

This!

I just buy whole foods and ingredients. Being an 'ingredients' household is wearing at times when I want some easy shite but better in the long run.

We mostly buy ingredients. Don't really have much choice about it, as poisoning myself isn't a fun way to spend an evening (or the next week and a half before I start feeling anything approaching normal again), but it definitely makes shopping quicker when you can bypass the majority of aisles and displays in the certainty that at least 99% of what's there either contains the particular things that make me so ill or has at the very least been contaminated by them.

This!
Less choice = easier and quicker shop.
With a list.

I prefer going to smaller shops and the market for fruit and veg. Butcher for meat.

I can’t be dealing with 2000 cereal choices. It’s rice crispies or special K copies. That’s it.

That’s why I shop at Aldi.

Buy very little that could possibly be tricky - diet of fruit and veg, pulses (dried ) , butcher meat, fresh/unprocessed fish
simple cheese ( not plastic cheese or flavoured)
no labels to read no choices to make

is there anything that you eat that you need to learn the healthy option for - fruit yogurt =frozen fruit , plain yogurts and a bit of sugar for example

Oh and kids treat snacks won’t ever be healthy or healthier so just get what they like

@ProbablyNeedsTea
You don't need to make your own yogurt but it's easy enough to buy a big pot of natural yogurt and stir add your own flavours.....honey, berries, peanut butter, banana etc
So much cheaper and no unnecessary additives.

Same! My diet has improved vastly since diagnosis, as it's easier and tastier to just cook proper food (and way cheaper) than track down processed stuff and takeaways I can actually eat!

I shop online usually from my favourites which I’ve checked the ingredients of so it’s not a weekly ballache. Generally if it’s more expensive it probably has less upf ingredients in it. I cook from scratch most of the time - it’s very frustrating that the shops are full of shiny stuff designed to lure you in that is terrible for you.

If it has a list of ingredients that are a mystery to you then don;t buy it.

M&S has a new range with really limited ingredients that are listed in big type on the front.

You don’t need to make your own yoghurt, just buy plain and add fruit/nut butter etc if you want to flavour it.
bread - I know this sounds like a bit of a cliche, but we have a bread maker - it’s honestly so so easy, it takes less than 5 minutes to put a loaf on (which costs far less than bought, even factoring in the electricity) and the vast majority of supermarket-bought bread is full of rubbish, and too much salt and sugar.

Just don't buy a lot of products, instead get single ingredients foods. If you buy products it's inevitable that they are UPF, so, just minimise the amount of products bought. Most things that come already processed, even chopped/bagged salads will have some additives. I only buy 1 sharer bag of crisps o multipack (6)for lunches for 2 kids , lots of fruit and veg. No chocolate or sweets- that's is a rare treat for bdays, Christmas, Easter, Halloween etc. they get a lot so it lasts a few weeks, but not something we buy on our weekly shop.

this is why i use a list and stick to it,
i cant believe the ready meals, packet foods, available to people
i am sure people will one day turn their back on these things.

I relate - I was so overwhelmed in Waitrose at Christmas when trying to buy cheese and chutney. Then I had dd shoving weird things like kimchi in my face saying “can I have this?”

Then the trauma of deciding which frigging turkey this year - what size? Organic which can be stingy or not which can be tasteless? Supermarket or butcher? Stuffed? With or without giblets?

I longed for my single days when I just went to the local Co-op and bought a fray bentos pie.