The whole UPF concept is an artificial distinction and very unhelpful

[Interestingnamesuggestion]

I understand that it's healthier to eat foods that are more natural/made with natural ingredients. I have no issue with that.

My issue is that putting so much food that people eat regularly (especially people on lower incomes) into one category and labelling it all as if it were all equally bad just removes all nuance and can make healthy choices feel unachievable to people who have less money or less time to spend in the kitchen.

Literally, cheap sliced wholemeal bread is a UPF in the same category as cheap white sliced bread. Same category as a bag of Quavers or gummy bears.

Wouldn't it be better to have one or two more categories to reflect the benefits of eating food that is higher in fibre (e.g. wholegrains, not that weird stuff they add to "healthy" processed snacks) and lower in fat and sugar? Or food that has some additives but is made with a higher proportion of whole foods?

Hardly. Links to cancer and the worrying trend of cancer becoming a lot more prevalent in the under 50s is a world away from carbs consumption.

Nah, they said the same about fat and then carbs. They'll say it about the next thing too.

Of course you can. We’re near enough UP free and rarely go on holiday. It’s not hard or expensive. Packaged crap is expensive!

I feel like mumsnet is the wrong forum for this discussion. One of the very first threads I remember reading here probably over a decade ago now was some poor woman being torn to shreds for feeding her child peas, I think they were described as little balls of sugar 😭 If peas were too high in sugar I don't think many will agree with you about frosties vs wheatabix.

I think like you say a little bit of common sense wouldn't go astray. Nobody is getting fat or sending themselves off to an early grave because they had a couple of wheatabix for breakfast everyday.

Dumbed down nutrition advice is incorrect nutrition advice.

My concern with setting the standards lower is that schools will then latch onto this to feed children even worse food than they already do. Many parents here are doing our best to raise children on wholefoods only to have them be given daily desserts and sausages at school.

I am curious how much you spend on food per day?

Btw there is already a difference between processed food and ultra processed. so for example not all bread is ultra processed. you can easily make flatbread at home from wholewheat flour and water and a splash of oil, and a frying pan. i imagine that costs less than whatever you’re spending.

A diet high in white carbs and fat is still
known to shorten life. That hasn’t changed.

Processed crap is more expensive. Foods don’t need to be organic but just crap free.

Simple messaging is a double-edged sword - on one side it’s helpful, because it’s simple guidance that people can follow; on the other hand there is a world of complexity within a simple category.

I think it’s a mistake to say that we shouldn’t be given guidance because it’s not universally achievable. There will always be those who can’t afford, aren’t willing, or for whom it just doesn’t work, to follow any set of guidelines.

I would like to see legislation around the size and legibility of ingredients lists, for several reasons, and much more emphasis on seasonality of fruit and veg on labelling. nudges rather than sweeping pronouncements. But nobody’s going to make much money out of that!

There are 3 nights a week where I don't have time to cook from scratch. Other nights I don't have the energy to be doing it every time. I'm happy to use e.g. a jar of pasta sauce that has a list of ingredients I recognise plus a small amount of a preservative or some other additive, or a spoonful of curry paste. Sometimes we have sausages because they're about the cheapest meat you can get these days.
Bread, you can probably guess from my first post that we routinely buy the cheapest wholemeal sliced. I don't love the ingredients list but the cheapest non UPF alternative is about 4x the price. Making it myself wouldn't be cheaper than what I'm currently buying and I don't have the time or headspace at the moment (I did do this at time).
If you have enough time for food prep etc I imagine it would be possible to make a low cost UPF-free diet.

But this isn't about me, really. It's more about the impression it gives to the wider population and what advice can be given to help people in all sorts of situations make manageable changes to improve their diets.

There still isn’t even an agreed definition of UPF, some people go by the ingredients, others by the processes involved.

The concept makes people paranoid and scared of harmless ingredients and “chemicals” and companies are making big bucks off these fears.

Tortilla chips are a great example. Minimal ingredients but heavily processed.

TBH it’s just a new way to say junk food but avoid the class stigma so people can think they’re being healthy rather than snobbish.

I cook from scratch every night and quickly. We both work full time. Cheesy jackets with chard twice baked last. Supper easy.

You're right this is the wrong forum. I think I knew that before I started. I just wanted to see if anyone would see where I'm coming from. So far it's about 50/50.

Love my little green balls of sugar on my plate at dinnertime 🍽

having some toast made with white bread isnt the same as smoking a fag

I agree.

I think the problem is the way the message seems to have been simplified to "avoid UPF", "UPF = bad". It's easier to spread a simple message, but when something gets oversimplified, it's no longer useful.

It's like saying "sugar = bad" and treating apples and chocolate as equally unhealthy.

Yes I've done that in the past (making flatbread), before I had a job. Haven't got the time now.

My concern is almost the same as yours I guess I'm just looking at it differently. I think the advice previously given regarding food groups, how much protein, portions of veg, prioritising wholegrain varieties etc was more helpful.

If we consider e.g. a school breakfast club, I think Kelloggs donates food to those. Do we really want to tell schools that it doesn't matter which box of cereal you give the kids because they're all UPFs anyway?

To the folks in this thread demanding that food companies make their products more nutritionally valuable, be careful what you wish for. Instead of stripping the food down to basic ingredients they will just chuck more stuff in to fit into better tax brackets.

For example, I'm starting to see inulin (chicory fibre) added to everything so they can label it high fibre. Except it causes severe gastric distress for most people if eaten in moderate amounts. When it's added to bread, pasta, ready meals, cereals, crackers cakes, biscuits and all the rest then it will be very very easy to overdose on a regular basis.

This is just one example. Another one that springs to mind is adding protein in the form of whey concentrate into all sorts of random foods. Good luck if you're lactose intolerant, suddenly foods that would never have milk in are full of milky protein powder.

It would ideal if we could go back to simple basic ingredients but the reality is that's not cost effective - stuff goes off too quickly and manufacturers want it to sit on a shelf for weeks. So instead of cakes going back to basics, they will be franken-cakes but with added "fibre" to technically fit into the cheaper tax bracket.

Twice baked jacket potatoes takes over an hour to bake though, doesn't it?

@Eyewhisker there is little difference between cheap white and cheap brown sliced bread
Do you have a source for this? I've always been taught (including at school and in NHS literature for new parents) that wholemeal is a healthier choice. Personal experience backs that up as well, because white bread "backs my children up" when they eat it!

Edit: maybe not " new parents" literature because I also remember reading that too much wholemeal might be bad for weaning babies. But other NHS literature promoting healthy eating for families.

I think “avoid UPF” is a useful message on nutrition. Probably pretty difficult to get to no UPF but reducing /minimising is beneficial.

I feed 4 adults for under 100 a week.

I mostly cook from scratch and try to avoid UPF as far as possible but I'm not a zealot.......I buy a high fibre seeded wholemeal bread that is UPF but I'm ok with that, I don't buy processed white bread.

We aim to eat 30g fiber per day and at least 30 different plants in a week.

I like to focus on overall diet rather than class foods as healthy and unhealthy, it's all about how much of each food we eat.

Sorry if I'm getting pedantic now, and I can't remember who to "@", but I've just looked up a couple of prices regarding the bread question.

At Tesco, Nevills wholemeal sliced bread is 55p for 800g. So 69p per kg.

The cheapest whole flour is Tesco Wholemeal Chapatti Flour, £7.50 for 10kg. So it's very slightly more expensive even before you've used gas/electricity to make flatbreads. And if you don't want to buy 10kg at once then you'll have to buy Allinson's wholemeal which is currently on offer at £1.50 per kg.
You could use white flour instead - Stockwells is 47p per kg. That might work out cheaper then the Nevills bread but I personally can't eat a lot of white flour.

You could always have fresh banana rather than a dried preserved one.

You can't compare the kg price of bread and flour. You haven't accounted for the water weight.

I'm broadly with OP.

My problems with the anti-UPF trend are :

1. no consistent definition
2. any consistent definition is ridiculous
3. anyone insisting that all UPF are bad based on their dodgy definitions
4. The many carve-outs... are high salt foods UPF or not merely for being high salt? Well, depends who you ask!

Someone I know personally worked with a Brazilian guy who especially spearheaded antiUPF argument internationally. His definition was apparently "UPF = sold in a plastic bag." Meanwhile, lots of plain fruit & veg in UK are sold in a plastic bag...

It's like kindness or porn. "I'll know it when I see it" definitions prevail. Then some people get militant about something that can't be defined.

🤣 that's fair. Not thinking straight.

I haven't accounted for the gas or electricity either though. But I accept that those figures aren't helpful.