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?

That said I do think the government should be pushing, educating and regulating more as regards this. If you saw the lunch boxes I see. The majority are full of UP, expensive, plastic packaged crap. I honestly don’t know how parents can send a kid out with lunch boxes like that. Education and more regulation are hugely needed both for the NHS, the environment and the future of our children.

Just aim for a balanced diet. DT’s had formula and were weaned on pouches - they are perfectly healthy

I think most UPFs are unhealthy but you’d recognise that without knowing (or labelling them) UPFs 🤷‍♀️

OP you've hit the nail on the head. Any guidance should be achievable otherwise it's just another thing for people to feel they've failed at.
But (to cover a separate comment from earlier) I do also think it's possible to eat well on a low income. You need to plan ahead though and need a bit of time to prep. Pulses and some in-season vegetables are cheap and great for your health, for example. Admittedly you probably wouldn't want to eat then every meal though...

Exactly. You can slice it however you like but adding in the UPF label doesn’t change what a balanced diet is.

I think most people can approach the topic with a little common sense and know that not all UPFs are equal. Just as they surely know not all non processed food are equal. Other people just don't care.

But surely most people were aware they shouldn't eat too much sugar, salt, or saturated fat long before the concept of UPF came along. I think "it needs to be the main one" is a very blanket statement that might be helpful to some but not all. Non UPF foods can also contain a lot of salt, sugar and saturated fat. Honey, red meat, butter whole milk...no additives or "crap" as another poster said, but variously high in sugar and saturated fat.

Historically, diets tended to focus on avoiding 'starchy' food - cutting out bread, cakes and so on. Low fat diets were a later concept, as was saturated fat being bad for you - in the 70s & 80s there was a wave of new margarines being marketed as low in saturated fat.

There are things wrong with preserved food. Food processing makes it harmful to eat. As just one example, there is a large body of evidence that nitrates and nitrites in ham, bacon, sausages, pastrami etc are contributing to rising levels of bowel cancer in relatively young people. These additives are put in to keep the meat's colour, to prolong shelf life, and to ensure bacteria isn't in it. The latter reason is now redundant due to modern practices, so manufacturers are choosing to add them for commercial reasons despite knowing they are causing people to die. The fact that some brands eg M&S, Naked etc are now producing nitrates and nitrite free pork products which are flying off the shelves (for those who can afford them) demonstrates it's possible to do it without affecting safety.

I'm finding this whole thread frustrating. The UPF issue isn't about whether to choose sugar or fibre or UPF. It's about what food is and how manufacturers can produce and sell products for human consumption that actually are so processed they are no longer identifiable as food. It's about manufacturers deliberately designing food products for addiction and overconsumption, and about including harmful additives for profitability reasons even when it is known that they are killing people.

I'm sorry. Yesterday I didn't check your user name and thought you were the same person who had made the previous comment about it. Clearly my reoly to you was OTT and didn't make much sense!

Huh? So what do you think food is? Is UPF not just food that is often quite unhealthy?

No worries! 🙂
I am finding it an interesting discussion and I’m not firmly on one side or another.
I think it’s a useful concept for understanding the problems with our diet at a population level but some people are making a bit of a religion of it.

They can but when being UPF weans out a lot of products with sugar, fat etc too. Obviously not all but a lot- biscuits, cakes, chocolate, processed drinks, snacks, processed foods etc . Red meat, butter etc can be expensive as single ingredients . Obviously needs to be some awareness but you’d have to be on mars not to know that too much saturated fat and sugar is really bad for you.

No. UPF is not just unhealthy food. In some cases it isn't even food.

Foods like biscuits, or chips, or bread, or mayonnaise, or bacon, can either be UPF or not. They can be made in a way that doesn't include harmful additives and processes. You would still not live on biscuits and mayonnaise, because you need a balanced diet, but the foods themselves wouldn't cause you harm.

Lots of foods are perceived /marketed as 'healthy' when they are in fact UPF and contain emulsifiers, preservatives, fillers etc that are harmful to health.

Products like Pringles, Fridge Raiders, Coke, are not convenience versions of foods we've eaten for a long time, they're entirely new products. I would argue they're not even food.

It can do, hugely so.

I agree that some upfs are worse than others. So you do the best you can. But I still agree with the concept.

Personally I cut out most upfs and feel much better for it. I haven't found I'm spending more and have lots of cheap, quick dinners.

I do buy upf stuff, but where I can I buy the best quality version. Eg 90% pork sausages rather than rubbish ones.

Cheap dinners in this house are -

Pasta with tuna, cheese, pepper

Pasta with arrabiata sauce (tin of tomatoes, chilli flakes, onion). Sometimes I add meatballs by just balling up mince.

Jacket potato with cheese and baked beans (Tesco organic beans - I don't think are upf. Better than average anyway)

Veg chilli (uses up any cheap veg in the supermarket / left over veg) with rice

Chickpea curry and rice

Haggis, peas, mash

Our supermarket often have very cheap veg depending on what's in season. Some things, like much supermarket own brand cream cheese, is not upf and cheaper than upf-big-brands.

I make bread in the breadmaker which was £30 secondhand on Facebook marketplace but if I didn't then bread would be in my 20% upf.

I definitely think it IS achievable by most people with a bit of thought and who want to do it. I agree it can seem overwhelming at first but you can just make one substitution at a time.

Avoiding upf isn't about avoiding sugar, fat etc. There's something about the processing that impacts how your body reacts. Experiments show that eating X amount of fat and sugar in upf foods doesn't impact the body in the same way as it does to eat the same amount of sugar and fat in whole foods.

One thing that's mot bring talked about is the absorption of chemicals. If a an item of food had say 100g of potassium in its wholefood form only 40-60g will be absorbed by the body but if it has 100g added potassium your body will absorb all of it. That may not sound much of a difference but if you're in the 10% of people with kidney disease that's enough to kill you by stopping your heart, obviously not in a single meal but it builds up. To make matters worse around 30% of people with kidney disease are undiagnosed. As a result of ESRD (end stage renal disease) aka kidney failure i have to have an ultraprocessed food free diet. Im now the lightest I've been in 40 years nearly a "healthy " weight . I don't get any cravings for unhealthy foof, in fact when I had some chocolate at my dad's funeral it tasted disgusting like overly sweet fat.

I'll be forever a no UPF person even if I get a transplant. Give it a ho you might be pleasantly surprised at the outcome.

A homemade cake with loads of butter and sugar is still better for you than a shop cake with a bunch of weird ingredients. It’s not just the sugar and butter it’s the other junk that factory made food requires.(ETA I am agreeing with you for the avoidance of doubt…)

Is that true? Could you link the study? The only ones I’m aware of end up with the UPF group eating more sugar, fat etc because the food is less satiating (or tastier?) so they’re not really doing a fair comparison.

Outside of some specific examples like nitrites im
not convinced emulsifiers and preservatives are bad per se 🤷‍♀️. Open to being convinced otherwise.

Im not pro UPF, I think we should focus on healthy varied diets, mostly plants, but I have read the ultra processed people book and I thought the claims were overblown in light of the actual evidence that was set out.

Emulsifiers are not harmless.

New research presented at ECCO Congress on low emulsifier diet and Crohn's disease | King's College London share.google/xrCIC7v9UO9X2kiDB

Thank you, interesting.

As someone who doesn’t have Crohns though, it doesn’t indicate to me I should avoid emulsifiers.

Ultra-Processed Food Alters Metabolism & Brain Activity https://share.google/aLLjeo4nbTL2GYIVx

Dietitians don’t usually use it. They use the NOVA classification system which makes more sense but isn’t perfect.

The point is that those who are genetically susceptible to IBD are getting IBD triggered much earlier. So the rate of IBD in children in Scotland in 1968 was 0.66 per 100,000, for example. Now it is 58.5 cases per 100,000. Genetic susceptibility hasn't changed in such a short time period; it has to be environmental.

Since you don't necessarily know if you have genetic susceptibility, you don't know to avoid emulsifiers or have your children avoid them until it's too late and they have an incurable lifelong condition. Like mine did, at age 9. Neither me nor her father not her siblings had Crohn's. How were we to know?

How is that acceptable in our food safety laws?