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?

Don't make insulting assumptions.

I think you’re being more than a little over sensitive. Many people raise the price of UP foods.

Ok but you addressed it to me personally telling me what to buy and not buy and using "crap" twice within the same sentence. I've said before my point wasn't about my own personal choices, which I'm completely comfortable with, but the messaging itself and the way it's likely to be received.

You’re very chippy, I was trying to give a helpful answer.

You missed off onions, carrots, peas, stock cubes, herbs, tomatoes puree, flour for thickening.

You can buy a Cottage Pie ready meal for one for 99p in Iceland. That is much cheaper than making from scratch (albeit crap). As much as I am fortunate that I can afford to make healthy meals from scratch (plus I enjoy cooking), I really don’t subscribe to lecturing that cooking from scratch is cheaper. If it involves meat, it generally isn’t.

You started a thread on the subject and posted several posts about bread and flatbreads. We can make suggestions.

Article in the Telegraph yesterday - "don't get tinned meat for your preppers cupboard - it's a UPF and bad for you........ummm, maybe, but I'm fairly sure starvation is worse. 🙄

It really depends what you are trying to achieve.

If you want to avoid or limit UPF then foods should be categorised accurately.

If you want to eat a healthier diet, that doesn't mean you have to eliminate all UPF. Most rational people and reliable resources would categorise wholemeal bread, in fact any bread, as healthier than a packet of Haribo as it does contain healthy nutrients and it's filling without being high in fat or excessively high in sugar.

But I think common sense would tell the vast majority of people that, anyway.

You can by 500g of mince from Sainsbury for £3.25. There are cheaper supermarkets. You can buy savers flour for pence ditto an onion, couple of carrots and potatoes. Not far off £4 for 4 frozen cotrage pies from the cheapest supermarket. Most people can afford that - if they’re not filling their basket with other processed crap items they don’t need. Have you seen the prices of UP foods they’re extortionate!

I can’t get past whoever felt the need to single out crunchy nut cornflakes. You take that back!!!!!

You have to admit, though, that while Crunchy Nut Cornflakes are the best-tasting cereal in the entire universe, in terms of healthy eating, you might as well eat a Mars Bar and three doughnuts for breakfast! 😂

Most people are realistic and sensible.

What you read on here is not representitive of real life, the pearl clutching around a bloody stock cube and slice of bread or squirt of tomato sauce, honestly people dont live like this. They dont speak of 'freezer food'. Its just food or dinner.

I never ever ever ever hear people refer to 'sourdough'. People just say 'bread' of whatever type it is.

On menus and on this site, people seem to think the word sourdough has to be mentioned. For some reason.

https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/iceland-cottage-pie-400g/83843.html?gclsrc=aw.ds&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Iceland+%7C+Performance+Max+%7C+Frozen+TEST&utm_term=&utm_content=&source=ppc&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20179769492&gbraid=0AAAAADpNH_3C3yN8IW181s5cayGi_mJj5&gclid=CjwKCAjw88HWBhA3EiwAo2Zd6Py3T8T3eYp5xTAsIu2_ANqDpnZ9CJqiLghW_7pUhxx-tRL5cejdoxoCeqQQAvD_BwE

The only ingredient that is in here that I wouldnt put in the cottage pie is the caramelised sugar syrup, but I do put sugar in some savoury dishes so I would have a pinch of sugar in any cottage pie ingredients. Theres nothing in this that wouldnt go in mine. Its a quid. You chuck it in the oven, You can buy 4 of them for the same price of all the ingredients you quote and you dont have to do anything. Why wouldnt you?

It wouldnt taste as good as one I would make, but then I would add much more fat, sugar, salt and other ingredients, I would also serve bigger portions which somewhat undermines the price comparison.

500g of mince would be enough for more than 10 Iceland pies. But frankly lots of people don't have the time or inclination.

Glance at the back of the packet. If the list is too long - either avoid or just use occasionally. The ingredients on the average wrap packet is interesting long, so lots of the time we have cheap home-brand pittas. But on Mexican night we suck it up and have wraps. Talking Mexican night, where have the savers tortilla chips gone?

80% is realistic 100% is a bit bonkers for most.

Funnily enough before UPFs were a big thing, back in 2021 or 2022 I posted about emulsifiers, and how I thought emulsifiers (except natural ones such as egg or mustard) should be banned, or limited, or at least labelled in bold, as they are implicated in the explosion of inflammatory bowel disease in children in countries with Western diets. Quite a few people disagreed at the time.

Anyway I think there is a need for more teaching around UPFs. For example, unlike OP I would buy a white loaf without emulsifiers and preservatives over a brown loaf that has them in. Because to me, the villains are emulsifiers, carrageenan and maltodextrins. These are the ingredients which are suspected to be implicated in Crohn's. And I try to avoid palm and seed oils but less zealously.

We do the 80/20 I suppose. I still buy jars or pasta sauce and ready made pizza, but they are the brands without those preservatives in. I buy ice cream, but the ones made with cream and sugar. We use real butter. We home bake a lot of cakes and biscuits (and have a bread maker) and I make drop scones and flatbread. Unlike some on this thread, I do bother with ketchup and stock cubes. Original bisto has no UPFs, and it's easy enough to find ketchup (tiptree or stokes) and mayo (fox or hunter gatherer) that are upf free.

By being more careful at home, I don't monitor what my daughter eats away from home, at school dinners for example.

I accept that to people without IBD, something like baked beans are a reasonably "healthy" upf - but why do they have to put glucose-fructose syrup and maltodextrins in some? (See images for ingredients in 3 different varieties of baked beans). There are baked beans and baked beans. Knowing which brands are less likely to add cheap fillers is useful, in my opinion.

The only thing I am completely zealous and zero tolerance about is artificial sweetners, I refuse to consume them.

What would you call an artificial sweetener? Would that include stevia, for example? Obviously saccharin and aspartame?

I avoid stevia because of the flavour

I avoid the rest because of their effect on our biology AND the flavour

I dont take anything with any artificial sweetners

No, it's either healthy or it isn't. We already have plenty of labels in the UK to help us see 'how' healthy something is. I feel strongly that the only way to shift society away from artificial food, is to shine a light on exactly how far the food company owners took it - how much garbage they've been shoveling down our throats for decades because some chemists figured out ways to create "safe" food-flavoured gunk to sell us. Turns out, over time, it's been increasing rates of bowel cancer and all sorts more health issues.

Everyone needs to snap out of it. You can change your diet if you want to and frankly: it's cheaper to eat properly. To batch cook and eat rice, veg, meat etc. Alternate a few meals - cut out snacks. I saved hundreds a month on food costs when I dropped UPFs.

I think you'll find there is the NOVA classification: https://www.winssolutions.org/nova-food-classification-guide/
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/processed-foods-and-health-sacns-rapid-evidence-update/processed-foods-and-health-sacns-rapid-evidence-update-summary

The items you have mentioned in your OP... They are roughly comparable.
A UPF can contain protein or certain vitamins (hello, breakfast cereal), however it doesn't make up for some of the other stuff it contains.

If money is the main issue, making your own bread is cheaper and healthier than buying.

I used to eat a low calorie, balanced diet (good balance of protein, fat, carbs) for years, containing things like breakfast cereal, processed meats, processed breads, sweetened yoghurt, sugary drinks etc.

My health was poor and I started to gain weight despite being active and not eating much.

I changed my diet to eating NOVA classification 1 foods most of the time, but still with some variation of other foods also, and my health, bloods etc are now excellent.

I can see it on my friends how they don't eat terribly or too much, just eat UPFs a lot, and now starting to struggle with various issues. Even on low calorie intakes they barely lose any weight.

The classification genuinely serves a purpose.

it's the upf bores that, erm, bore me. especially coupled with anti-carb.

there is nothing wrong with tins, bread, preserved food.
food processing makes it safe to store and eat. yes, vegetables are good for us but fgs needs must and people need to eat.

hard agree! I was born 1971, and yes we didn’t have ready meals and processed snacks as such. All meals were cooked from scratch with real ingredients. But we had crisps and biscuits, sweetened yogurt, a soda stream, bought sliced bread. This was just normal, a balance

I mean I’m not perfect, have as many issues as the next person, but I don’t put that down to an over consumption of mint clubs or rolla cola in a soda stream

UPF isn’t the only label to describe food though, it’s just one. If you want to avoid UPFs you’d go by that. If you wanted to eat low sugar you might still choose an UPF but pick muesli over Frosties or whatever sugary cereal there are now.

It’s not hard to uunderstand what is good for you and what is bad for you, assuming you are moderately literate.

We don’t need additional categories imho. Yes, supermarket wholemeal is probably better than supermarket white but it is still fairly processed.

This is about scientific fact, not stigmatising particular foods.