No processed food for the whole family - possible?

[breadhead]

What do you think? We all (me, dh, dss 12 and 15, baby) want to eat more healthily and feel more energised after a gluttonous summer.

We generally do pretty well, but we love our treats so much and love home baking too. I’m thinking the only way is to just not buy any processed food and make everything from scratch using honey or fruit for sweetening. I would buy some processed food but only nutritious ones e.g cream cheese.

I could do it alone, but is it possible to get the whole family doing it? Has anyone had enough time to prep wholesome, real foods for the whole family each day without relying on biscuits, cakes, cereals etc for treats?

[Prusik]

We do it. Although I eat bread and we all eat ham. It's perfectly manageable

[INeedNewShoes]

Cakes and biscuits are nice to eat. Isn't life for enjoying?

There shouldn't be any need to 'cut' any one food from our diets.

[Sarahandduck18]

Cakes and biscuits are still unhealthy even if homemade!

Cutting sugar makes more sense than saying cutting processed food.

[breadhead]

Wow, thanks for all the ideas. I was thinking processed as in pre-prepared packet stuff mainly but now I realise there’s a whole other world of processed out there which I hadn’t considered processed before e.g. tinned tomatoes. I am not giving those up!! However, I did make oatcakes this evening so that avoids extra salt and oils.

[notacooldad]

As others have said,still defining what you mean by processed foods.
Bread?, jar of pesto?, cordial?

We make and buy bread and cheese.
We make our own tomato and other sauces, never from a jar.
We buy cordial but make our own lemonade.
Occasionly I will buy pre packed butternut squash
We have a lot of frozen veg and herbs in the freezer so we can, when needed make a decent meal very quickly ( frozen sliced mushrooms,and red onions are a blessing.
We never buy cereal or juices such as apple, or pineapple but will have a jif lemonin or an emergency.
Your plancan be done with a little thought, knowing what your 'rules' are going to be and planning your meals in advance.

[Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow]

Like your suggestions - especially the timer switch for the slow cooker! Do you mean the timer is at the wall?

Don’t know who Anna jones is but will check her out

[howtomoveforwardnow]

It is definitely possible to have very little or no processed food and to not feel hard done by . We buy a few things like oat crackers, pasta, pita bread, ketchup, oh and hummus (since I have yet to make any that the kids will touch!) , but apart from that we pretty much cook everything from scratch. We use the Anna Jones books a lot, and we are gluten free, so don't buy shop bought bread or cereals etc.

Breakfast - Porridge (cooked in the slow cooker with a timer switch so it cooks from 4am...game changer!) with fruit. Or overnight oats (with seeds, nuts, fruit etc).

Lunch - eggs, salad, sauerkraut, carrots, hummus, oat crackers, fish, fruit etc (we tend to do a platter of whatever we have got in the house, so it is slightly different each day and doesn't require any brain space!)

Dinner - we use lots of lentils, chickpeas etc. Tomato based sauces are quick and easy. I LOVE the recipes from the Anna Jones books and we do a lot of bulk cooking to save time. This week we've had lentil ragu, vegetarian curry, falafel, roast chicken, then the next evening a Thai chicken curry (I make stock from the chicken and use as a base in dished during the week). Regular meals are risotto, paella, vegetarian chilli, jacket potatoes with an assortment of side dishes, fish pie, courguette fritters, homemade pizza etc.

Snacks would be hard boiled eggs, oat crackers with almond butter and banana.

I make things like sauerkraut (very simple), yoghurt and kefir as these are great for gut health and very cheap and easy.

Baking - I don't bake very often as it's not my forte, but I make a few things like chocolate cookies (made with black beans, maple syrup, dark chocolate, dates, coconut oil and hazelnuts - again, an Anna Jones one), or banana muffins made with almond flour. We also make waffles using coconut and almond flour, bananas, chia seeds and milk.

We have found that since eating this way we genuinely enjoy our food and fancy processed food less. But we are not militant about it and all love a bag of crisps as much as the next person . I would say, just introduce a few different meals into your repetoire first, and gradually build up.

[Isentthesignal]

I prefer as little processed for as possible simply because it tastes better and if I haven’t got time or energy to cook I now make the dcs (teens) do it - and when they cook it they are more likely to eat it. I keep a folder of tried and tested family meals, so meal planning is easier. They bake their own treats too as I no longer buy any.

[breadhead]

That granola recipe looks fab. ThNks, I will try that. I find if I make things in bulk and dedicate one free afternoon to making several meals or baking, it doesn’t seem quite so impossible.

[AlmaGeddon]

Original recipes. There was another with raisins.

[AlmaGeddon]

Probably any syrup would work . It needs to mix in a bit which sugar won't.

[BeardedMum]

Yum that sounds lovely Alma. Do you only use honey? No maple syrup?

[AlmaGeddon]

I used to make Home made crunchy breakfast with porage oats, chopped nuts, honey and oil , usually rapeseed oil, baked in the oven , stirred firmly to spread the oil and honey. Turning it in the oven in it's roasting tin to even out the cooking.That way you can control the sugar. Only prob is that it's better than bought and everyone eats it up v quickly.

[Starlight345]

I have reduced processed food in our house , I never used jars for spaghetti 🍝, I make more cake or flapjacks but I still canned be bothered to make lasagne from scratch.

We probably eat different meals. I make more meals like cottage pie, or meat and 2 veg although I still use gravy granules

I still buy yoghurts too . I depends how you eat now how easy it is too improve

[BeardedMum]

I try to avoid processed food but only on best best effort basis. Never buy ready meals and we make our own pizza and bake our own cakes. I would not go as far as making my own ketchup as that would just take over my life. What I really struggle with is making our own bread. Whenever I try to bake buns they become so hard and don’t really last a day. I have spent so much time trying to get it right

My children sadly also eat a lot of breakfast cereal. I find breakfast quite difficult to eat healthily as none of us are hungry early morning and its a lot easier to swallow some coco pops than heavy porride or my brick- buns......

[Almondio]

We generally tend to bake our own cakes and biscuits, pies and quiches etc. DCs eat low sugar cereal (shredded wheat or weetabix), we all have porridge or yoghurt and fruit, or eggs for breakfast.

We always make our own pasta sauces and stuff like spag bol, chilli, turkey meatballs, roast dinners, fish with pesto and breadcrumbs, lentil salads, veggie stirfries etc. We don't drink fizzy drinks tho the DCs (teens) have cordial.

I think if you stick to an 70/30 (or 80/20 if you can) fresh to processed guideline and do plenty of active stuff, drink water, keep snacks healthy and not too many sweets/alcohol then that's a pretty good balance.

[grasspigeons]

I think its a good idea to make your own biscuits, cakes and other treats as I think you can reduce the sugar in quite a lot of recipes and also, as you say, there aren't lots of extras which are about either maximising profits, using up gluts, or making food travel and last longer. (thinking corn syrup and palm oil)

Also the same with sauces, soups and things like that.


I find home made pizza more filling and when I had gestational diabetes I could eat homemade pizza but a bought one made my blood sugar go mad. I think it was I used a wholegrain flour and didn't put sugar in my tomato sauce.

[mrsnec]

Well I knew someone was going to pick me up on something.

I get given olives by my neighbours who process them themselves from their own trees in exchange for fruit from mine. I'd rather eat those than reach for the Pringles.

As others have said though it's about balance and where you draw the line.

[cdtaylornats]

Olives are processed of course, after harvest they sit in lye for 24 hours or brine for 6 weeks, otherwise they are too bitter to eat.

[mrsnec]

I must admit it doesn't extend to drinks much in this house.

The rest of it happened by accident. You can't buy ready meals here and cooking sauce in jars are really expensive. I was essentially paying 4e a jar for water and modified startch so I stopped using it. I've never liked tinned veg or soup anyway.

We make our own bread and pizza too. I stopped buying cakes,biscuits and crisps for health reasons so as well as home baking we snack on nuts, olives and popcorn.

I think all that isn't too bad.

[breadhead]

Thanks for the replies. Kateandme you are right, it would be miserable to make us all stick to it all the time, which is why I know we couldn't do it 100% as we love our food and cooking, just have too many treats. I think what we need to aim for is minimising the junk with any ingredients that aren't actually recognizable food (which I think are the most damaging things to consume) and have no nutritional value. So I would be more than happy to eat a homemade flapjack with butter and honey, but wouldn't buy cheap biscuits with invert sugar or high crucified corn syrup, if you see what I mean. I do think a minimally-processed diet is the healthiest one, but I guess it would drive me nuts to be too strict.

[kateandme]

what a miserable life.
id much rather teach my kids balance.you can have chicken drumsticks but have chicken thighs the next.
you can have choc cake but fruit too
noo food is off limits all food is on balance
food shouldn't be demonised or banned or junked or treated with labels.
food is about balanceis about learning you can have it all
make better choices having fruit over chocolate if needs be.upping your veggies.using a little less oil or butter having salad with ur sandwhihch or choosing light versions of mayo or sauces.
lean meat.
less sugar on cereal.healthy choices.
balanced choices.
give and take.
cooking together.
teaching and learning and being healthy together.way better than cutting out whole food groups.and telling kids some foods aren't good when all are in balance

[Grasslands]

My dh makes bread (every 2-3 day) pizza dough, and baked beans (a large batch freezes well). I make all my own salad dressings, soups, coffee cakes and preserves. Dh keeps bees so raw honey always available, I’ll be harvesting grapes next month for grape jelly and in January I’ll order my Valencia oranges. But all this means hours in the kitchen, and it’s not always cost effective. I’ve made pickles, and relish sadly some years 5x the cost of store bought.

[cdtaylornats]

Processed foods I would miss are Tea, coffee, beer, wine, cheese, bacon, bread, pies, haggis, honey.

[mrsnec]

Just make small changes and don't be too restrictive.

I have tried this and I have a few exceptions as well as the cream cheese! So we eat as little processed food as possible but still eat white flour, sugar, breakfast cereals (only the dc and it's shreddies and wheetabix) and baked beans as we all love them. They're our only fast food!

I bake but everything I bake has fresh or dried fruit, nuts or wholegrain of some sort. I use sugar im baking because I don't believe it's much different from using syrup or honey and it's cheaper. I hate sweeteners. Most only have about 100g of sugar in about 12 portions.

Most of my recipes are things you just bung in the food processor then chuck in the oven when I'm doing a roast. Banana bread for example.