Anyone else cutting down on UPFs?

[AtomicBlondeRose]

I recently listened to the podcasts by the van Tulleken brothers and it really convinced me to try cutting down on UPFs. I never ate much of them when it came to meals but do have a weakness for biscuits/snacks. As my DC are away with their dad for a couple of weeks and I’m not at work it seemed like the perfect time to try.

So, I’ve been baking my own bread - this suits me as I don’t eat much bread and enjoy the homemade whole meal style. I make a small loaf and it lasts DP and me most of the week. I’m not so sure how the kids will react to this.

I made some biscuits but we weren’t bothered about them tbh. I have been baking fruit loaves such as a courgette tea bread (we have a glut of courgettes!) as we both like them a lot and they’re hard to binge on. DP is a gardener so gets really hungry and needs some filling stuff but doesn’t like junk so the tea loaves suit us well. I’ve also made granola/granola bars which are easy and which we like a lot. Cereal bars were one of the main UPF foods I ate.

Meals aren’t really an issue as I’ve always preferred to cook from scratch although I worry a bit about how it’s going to go when I’m at work and don’t have all afternoon to potter about! I made chicken kebabs with homemade flatbreads that were very easy and tasty. A good air fryer really helps too.

Yesterday we had sausage rolls from the freezer and baked beans for lunch - I really didn’t see any problem with the beans as I’ve always thought they weren’t so bad and the sausage rolls were decent M&S ones - but I had a terrible stomach all afternoon and evening, really gassy and uncomfortable and I really think it was the baked beans. So I might even have to cut those out. I never intended to go 100% hardcore (I would really like some crisps!) but it’s crazy how my body is getting used to the more nutritious food. I find myself snacking a lot less as there just isn’t anything to snack on and I’m not really hungry anyway. I’ve had one slice of whole meal toast and a poached egg for breakfast and it’s filled me more that two slices of white toast and two eggs did previously.

Interesting! I haven’t listened to the podcast, I may have to track it down

Yeah, my homemade bread is nice and filling but definitely not “moreish”. One slice is plenty, even toasted with loads of butter! It just utterly fails to trigger whatever the nice soft white bread triggers. You can see how people historically basically lived on bread. It feels complete in a way that packaged bread doesn’t.

There is a massive FB ip group but I had to leave as they were obsessed with cheesecake.

You can take the ip valve out, it floats, so it's probably stuck.

Vegetable oil is a upf.

Olive oil and butter are not.

@Aria999
You're so right.

I've started using light olive oil for bread and frying veg for pasta sauces/stews, butter for baking/making pancakes, lard for frying bacon and eggs/roast potatoes and treated myself to a pot of ghee for making curries.

It's really not as hard I thought to avoid the ultra processed oils

except for crisps that is 😢

But I reckon a couple of packets of crisps a week is ok 😊

@ticktickticktickBOOM hope the image is clear enough. I tend to leave out the sugar as sweet enough with just the sugar but you may want to start with the sugar and see

I’ve significantly reduced my UPF intake but it’s not easy! listening to the twins podcast was helpful but I’ve also been doing further research regarding the importance of whole foods in the body. How simple carbs (often found in UPFs, pasta, white flour products eg. Cakes, biscuits etc) spike insulin, prolonged intake leads to insulin resistance and inflammation and type 2 diabetes. There is an increasing link between UPFs and the growth in Alzheimer’s diagnosis, women are far more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s than men. My worst nightmare is rotting away in a care home with Alzheimer’s and that has provided far more motivation to me to cut out UPFs than what was in the twins podcast.

Some of the key changes I have made are cutting out seed oils they are highly highly processed often using solvents to extract the oil. I’ve switched to cold pressed olive oil and avocado oil. (Hunter and gather foods are a great brand they also do ketchup and mayo with real ingredients)

Going low carb and switching to whole grain everything. If I’m consuming carbs I want the full benefit of the complex carbohydrates, fibre and nutrients. We also now make all our bread in the bread machine.

Just looking at every list of ingredients. I’ve stopped buying hams and cured meats. I only buy nitrate free bacon. No to sausages.

One thing to note is products differ between shops, One of the better shops for better ingredients is m&s for instance their hummus has olive oil in, Aldi has rapeseed oil.

I’m also focusing on lowering my sugar intake (to avoid those insulin spikes) going for fruit, nuts or carrot sticks over a biscuit. If I want biscuits or cakes I need to make them myself which only happens once a week and once they are gone that’s it.

Saying no to most drinks that aren’t tea or water (or the odd glass of wine) most are just a cocktail of chemicals, sugary and not good for us.

I find quitting UPFs a hard habit to break but the more I look at ingredients on UPFs the less appealing they are. Virtually the whole supermarket is UPFs, all you really need to buy is fruit, veg, seeds, nuts, meat, fish, milk, yogurt, cheese, whole grains and herbs, but not being drawn in to attractive packaging, convenience and the emotional ties to certain foods is bloody

Ta @Fluffruff !

You make it sound so bloody sinister.of course they want to make food taste delicious.of course they want to make them morish. That's the point in any food.that's the way all restaurants work for the best menu,recipes rtf.its how your carrots are bagged.how your natural products are labelled.to sell.to entice consumers.and simply to make foods enjoyable.
we put things together to make them utterly tempting and moreish.they aren't these evil beings sat in a lab trying to make us consume an evil product.
It's food.it shouldn't be demonized in this way.
Names we don't recognise on labels also aren't necessarily bad.we aren't all scientists.preservatives has saved lives by keeping our food safe.
we wouldnt recognise half the names in medications,plants,proteins.and all sorts of things we see today.even breaking down a broccoli you might not recognise every part if it was written in its broken down form.
It may have helped health for some.but not for others.abd there is a huge thing called confirmation bias with these things.
Ultimately They want to sell products that taste nice.good on them.we should thank them for making delicious foods for us.
It's a privilege of the highest order to be able to make from scratch and make it minimum add ins.esoecially at the moment.
Those other foods are savioursfor many a family.
And taste great and it's ok to have a balance of the two.its possible to have that balance.

Erm, think you might want to revisit the idea that the "food" industry at the ultra-processed end is a benign force for good.

Try some time off them, see how you feel.

It's a fascinating podcast in many ways. The programme one of them did about children's diets is also a good watch.

That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. Not sure why you’d want to come on a thread where people are trying to cut down on something and expound about how great that thing is - would you do that on the sober threads? Nobody’s stopping you eating all the UPFs you want.

You say it’s not evil scientists being evil in a lab. I don’t think anyone thinks it is, but I’ve heard interviews with people who did that sort of food science work and have since decided for themselves to no longer work for industrial food companies because they see it as the equivalent of working for a tobacco company. Everyone thinks they’re doing this for good reasons! Mass producing food, helping feed the world - except what they produced isn’t actually food. You’re bringing in carrots being washed etc, and that’s not a UPF and anyone on this thread would eat them, so it’s really not a case of being paranoid and eschewing all processing. Yesterday I bought flour, butter, nuts…all processed.

And of course it’s recognised that being able to cook from scratch is a privilege- that’s loudly acknowledged in all the podcasts and things I’ve listened to. It’s not sneering or looking down on stupid people who eat UPFs, it’s realising that there are many reasons why we all eat them, but we do have control over some of those factors.

I listened to this and it was so good. Our main processed foods are crisps, a few packets a week. Oven chips and those big fish filets. And those pasta tortellini things.

funny thing is, now I’ve heard that podcast, I sort of know what he means about how you can taste UPF. So now I’m not so keen on those foods. But I’m also realistic and think I probably won’t give up fish and chips because it’s just so easy to do once a month. And I reckon it’s about reducing foods like that.

@kateandme have you listened to the podcast? We’re not talking about carrots and broken down broccoli. Your talking about processed food which is something different.

I agree that you can taste them once you notice it and it’s really off-putting tbh! I think we’ll still have oven chips on (you can get some that are just potato and oil so I’d go towards them) but I made a failed loaf the other day and have whizzed it up for breadcrumbs to do my own breaded stuff instead of using the ready made ones. We’ll see how it goes once we’re back in the whole work/school rush though.

Yeah, it’s very off putting. Also, I saw on here ages ago, a recipe for Dutch oven bread. It’s got yeast in so no need for kneading. You just add the ingredients, leave it overnight and then bake the next day. It was very easy and didn’t take very long.

also, I find loads of UPFs are really sweet. I sadly can’t eat high sugar foods like chocolate and ice cream too much coz it gives me ulcers. But now I’m not used to that level of sugar anymore, then so many sauces are just soooo sweet. I’ll always put a dash of sugar in sauces I make but not that much.

so much veg is actually quite sweet already if you buy it in season. Carrots, broccoli, green beans etc. all have sweetness in them but I never noticed it so much before coz I was used to super sweet foods. And UPF cakes are effing rank. Just taste like eating pure sugar.

I don’t talk to loads of people about it coz then everyone thinks I’m judging their food or one of those earnest ‘clean eating’ insta people, or someone who has orthorexia.

I can’t find the post now, but the single mum who works full time and has finds it ok to cook from scratch - what are your tips?!

I don’t talk to loads of people about it coz then everyone thinks I’m judging their food or one of those earnest ‘clean eating’ insta people, or someone who has orthorexia.

I agree - you can see it on this thread even. To me it just feels like eating/cooking in a “natural” way, although that’s not the right word really. It’s just proper food, that tastes good and is mostly good for your body. Avoiding UPFs means it’s actually quite hard to overeat because the food is filling and satisfying. I’ve got a homemade granola bar for breakfast - it’s got sugar and honey and fried fruit in it so not really “healthy” but I won’t want another one when I’ve eaten it, unlike the usual cereal bars I used to get which often left me feeling more hungry! I don’t feel deprived or like I’ve given up anything. I don’t want a Mini Roll or Jaffa cakes or haribo. I’d honestly rather have an apple. (I might make an exception for a chocolate digestive though!)

what I liked about the podcast is that it was super unjudgy. Because one of the brothers ate loads of it. It actually got quite emotional sometimes as they talked about their relationship and the worry about being overweight and eating crap food. I also thought it was interesting how UPF makes people consume more calories, around 500. You can see why there’s such an obesity issue in the country. The food changes your hunger hormones and stuff. It’s all fascinating. The food companies are so manipulative too.

You might like the book: "This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More" By Dr. Uma Naidoo, a Harvard psychiatrist. She writes about the impact of food on brain health and the book has a very interesting chapter on using food to prevent/decrease your chances of dementia.

That book sounds interesting

A while ago I started making my own granola for breakfast as bought stuff was my main UPF intake and also very expensive.

I use mainly oats (cheap), nuts, honey and a bit of melted chocolate ( I want to enjoy it) and dried banana chips. One bowl fills me up for the whole morning, whereas the bought stuff leaves me needing something around 11am.

I agree with this completely. It does feel more natural and once you stop using UPFs you really notice a difference in how you feel when you eat the odd ultra processed item. We don't eat any seed oils at home but I can taste them very clearly when we eat out and it makes me less likely to want to eat at a restaurant or get a takeaway.

I also think the use of UPFs have tricked us into thinking that cooking from scratch is both time consuming and expensive. Having a toddler has changed this mindset for me because I was determined they would never eat UPFs at home. We have made the majority of their meals from scratch but I have learned that simple and easy to make meals are key. For instance, lunch is often a scrambled egg, raw vegetables and fruit or beans/lentils cooked in stock with fresh herbs and vegetables. I think it's easy to over complicate cooking from scratch.

@Aria999 from the research I have done vegetable oil is a processed food not ultra processed. As I've said I know not healthy but it doesn't seem to be in the same category as a skip or monster munch

@Aria999 but am happy to be corrected if I've completely misunderstood!!