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.

I wouldn’t necessarily sweat stock cubes as it’s such a small proportion of the overall meal, however as your tastes change you might find them overly salty/processed tasting. I’ve used bouillon powder before which is pretty good, or if it’s not convenient to make your own you could just try to boost the flavour with tomato purée/wine/miso/any natural umami thing.

I was just thinking about the way overeating has become normalised and that this is basically always linked to UPFs. I don’t mean on an individual level, I mean things like “once you pop, you can’t stop!”, the image of women eating a whole carton of ice cream, the complete acceptance on here that eating a whole packet of biscuits or family sized bag of sweets is totally normal and understandable. Which to an extent it is because these foods have been specifically made to trigger the desire to eat more of them! So it’s not really someone’s lack of will power or greed which leads them to finish the share bag of crisps (my weakness!), it’s the the crisps or whatever are doing exactly what they’ve been intended to do. It’s really hard to binge on homemade cake or ice cream because you’re just full after eating your portion.

I cut out all UPF about a month ago. Not only do I feel much better and have a lot more energy, but my taste buds are so much more sensitive. Broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, apples, melons, eggs, fish....... everything tastes so much more intense. And cutting out processed carbs has stopped the food cravings.

I'm pee'd off about the family sized bags of sweets for a £1 that all kids seem to buy on their way back from secondary school. They are absolutely full of crap. I try really hard to get my boy to buy chocolate and crisps as they're slightly better but rainbow chewy sour pop sweets are always such a pull. These sweet companies know EXACTLY what they're doing.
They are b@stards. Sorry to swear y'all.

@ticktickticktickBOOM I work in a sixth form college. It’s not subject to the same rules on healthy food as schools are so all this stuff is freely available on site. I’ll se students go off to “get lunch” and come back with a plate of chicken dipper things, a muffin, a cookie, some sweets, a 500 ml bottle of fizzy drink and often a milkshake or something too. I always say “that’s NOT FOOD!” but they just laugh and take pride in how much shit they eat. I’ll see them with this stuff at 9 in the morning as well, and they also order delivery pizza/KFC/McD’s to college at lunch. I’m sure their parents pull their hair out about it - but where do they get all the money from? I can’t afford to buy my lunch at work every day! They do have salads, wraps, fruit, lentil chips and fruit drinks as well but I think only staff eat those.

Look at this list from a famous rainbow sours sweet maker:
Ingredients

Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Palm Fat, Acid Citric Acid, Dextrin, Maltodextrin, Modified Starch, Flavourings, Colours E163, E162, E170, E100, E132, E160a, E133, Acidity Regulator Trisodium Citrate, Glazing Agent Carnauba Wax, Concentrates (Sweet Potato, Radish)

At least it has some veg in it, eh? 😂

Truly though, that is horrifying. Yet it’s the type of thing I picked up as a teen without a second thought. Hoping that I’m making my own teen more aware of ingredients and how to make better nutritional choices.

@ticktickticktickBOOM I hope the PP from a while ago comes back and tells us those ingredients are actually totally fine and a sign of progress 🙊

Loads of recipes on 100 days of real foods blog including one for slow cooker baked beans.

It’s horrific when you think not all that long ago, certainly when my parents were young, sweets would have been toffee, boiled sweets, chocolate - most of it made from recognisable (albeit not very healthy!) ingredients with recipes you could replicate at home if you really wanted to. Again, they’re self-limiting - how many real toffees can you eat in a row before your jaw hurts and you feel sick? How much high-quality chocolate can you have at one sitting? How many boiled sweets? You couldn’t really eat a family sized bag of any of those to yourself in one go but I’m sure once I got stuck into those gross sour things I’d eat the lot.

I put money on my sons parentpay to get school dinner and it's all pre-made processed crap. I'm gonna have to go back to packed lunches which is more time for me, cheaper though.

Some parents give their kids £2/3 a day for after school and these kids buy sweets for their mates - it's nice of them but I rather they didn't!!! I then feel like I need to give my boy a few quid once a week to return the gesture. I cant afford it and I don't want him eating it every day so it makes me annoyed and I feel I cant do anything about it.

Any suggestions welcome!

If you’re cutting down/ out UFP’s, what sort of snacks are going going for? I’m breastfeeding so often need something to grab one handed (that’s where I’m piling on the weight!)

I hard boiled some eggs yesterday and they’re good in the fridge for a week to grab and peel.

I’ve also cut up cubes of cheese.

Plenty of fruit.

Little Greek yoghurt pots. Nice with some fruit, honey or nuts.

cucumber or carrot sticks with hummus (though I’m still looking on the best type of hummus at an affordable price).

Nuts that haven’t been messed around with.

Upthread people have also mentioned making their own granola bars and flapjacks etc.

Whatever you would normally eat as a snack, see if you can homemake it.

Im going to give the dehydrator on my Ninja a go later to see what I can Make as we normally like root veg crisps from the shop but they still have flavourings and salt etc added to them.

A little bowl of homemade trail mix - nuts, dried fruit, chunks dark chocolate - would be good.

Chopped up apple with peanut butter.

If you have time to make it, any fruit loaf is great and keeps well. This week I’ve made courgette loaf and a date and walnut loaf. Takes about 5-10 minutes to prepare but doesn’t need much attention after that.

Some crackers are just wheat/olive oil/salt so good with cheese or butter.

Nuts that haven’t been messed around with.

😆

a banana

from what I can figure out, UPF is not = one bad ingredient and whole thing is to be described as UPF.

This is why Dolmio pasta sauce or Sainsbury's wholemeal packaged bread are processed foods and not UPF. This is why some vegetable oil in your diet is fine, but not as majority source of calories.

Yay, I’m so so glad ive found this thread! Like minded people without feeling like it’s preachy. If ever I speak about my thoughts around UPF’s to anyone irl, they look at me like I’ve come off Mars!!

I stopped buying sugar about 6 years ago when I watched my son pour it into his cup of tea that he was making!! I hadn’t realised how much we were consuming weekly. Ds was adding it to his bowls of cereal too. I now have a small bag of caster sugar for baking but that’s it.

I was naive and didn’t realise what was happening to my health. It was declining. My blood pressure going higher and general well being rubbish!! I read that a plant based, no UPF diet was the way to go. I gave myself a month to try with no ongoing pressure to continue!!

Wow, just wow!! My IBs completely disapppeared. My blood pressure came down into normal perimeters, I have more energy, and I lost weight visibly, and looked leaner.

I’ll never go back!!

As other pp’s have said..my taste buds are more sensitive now and I taste the flavours in food. I’m fuller for longer and have no sugar cravings or spikes.

Hummus is really easy to make. Whizz a can of chickpeas with tahini, garlic, chilli powder. and lemon juice. Salt and pepper. Occasionally olive oil. I don't actually follow a recipe, just whack stuff in the nutribullet with varying results.

Bananas are better with a nut butter if you have a sugar sensitivity.

I was really happy with my Tesco nice sauages. Then noticed they weren't cooking the same, checked the ingredients, the meat content had dropped and been replaced by bamboo fibre!

I've gone pretty veggie now, I cannot be bothered with meat.

Pork (90%), Water, Rice Flour, Potato Starch, Salt, Acidity Regulator (Calcium Lactate), White Pepper, Sage, Stabilisers (Tetrasodium Diphosphate, Disodium Diphosphate), Coriander, Preservative (Sodium Metabisulphite), Nutmeg, Dextrose, Bamboo Fibre, Caramelised Sugar Syrup, Colour (Paprika Extract).
Filled into alginate casings.

There's sugar in them too, well, an approximation of sugar. They used to be 97% pork.

Sorry but I disagree. Wholemeal bread from my local bakery contains flour, water, yeast, sugar and salt.

I’ve just looked up Sainsburys wholemeal bread and the first one to come up was a thick sliced wholemeal taste the difference bread. As well as the ingredients you’d expect it also contains added Wheat Gluten, Rapeseed Oil, Fermented Wheat Flour, Spirit Vinegar, Palm Oil, and Flour Treatment Agent.

If I was making bread at home, I wouldn’t be adding these extra ingredients so the Sainsburys bread is UPF.

I’ve been reading more today and have found this BBC article a really simple way of understanding the difference between UPF and processed. Lots of the things I’ve been fretting about such as herbs and spices are actually in group one: unprocessed and mildly processed.

Id encourage everyone still unsure to read this for a quick overview (as well as the podcasts and other materials mentioned upthread).
www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_food

The main takeaway point for me was : does this food contain an ingredient you wouldn’t normally add at home? If so, that can be a key sign it’s an UPF.

Feel sorry for vegans and other dairy avoiders trying to avoid UPF though as lots of milk alternatives are UBF and same with meat alternatives. I’m veggie but will be cutting out the Quorn etc and looking at increasing my protein elsewhere in my diet.

Mangos or bananas! Or even a boiled egg!!

From the above article:

Group three: Processed

Processed foods are products that are usually made using a mix of group one and two ingredients. They include smoked and cured meats, cheeses, fresh bread, bacon, salted or sugared nuts, tinned fruit in syrup, beer and wine. The main purpose of the processing is to prolong the food’s life or enhance its taste and almost 9 per cent of calories eaten in the UK are from this group.

Group four: Ultra-processed

Ultra-processed foods usually contain ingredients that you wouldn’t add when cooking homemade food. You may not recognise the names of these ingredients as many will be chemicals, colourings, sweeteners and preservatives. The most commonly eaten ultra-processed foods in the UK are:

Industrialised bread (11 per cent)
Pre-packaged meals (7.7 per cent)
Breakfast cereals (4.4 per cent)
Sausages and other reconstituted meat products (3.8 per cent)
These are closely followed by the expected confectionery (3.5 per cent), biscuits (3.5 per cent), pasties, buns and cakes (3.3 per cent) and industrial chips (2.8 per cent). Soft drinks, fruit drinks and fruit juices make up 2.5 per cent of the average calorie intake. Salty snacks, including Britain’s favourite crisps, make up 2 per cent of our calories, as do sauces, dressings and the Sunday favourite gravy (2.1 per cent).

More surprising to some will be what is included in the 3 per cent of calories that the average person eats from “other ultra-processed foods”. This includes baked beans, tinned soups, meat alternatives, soy and drinks used as dairy milk substitutes.

It can be tricky to identify food that has been ultra-processed because in some cases the same type of food could be minimally processed, processed or ultra-processed, depending on how it’s been made. For example:

Bread made from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast is processed, but add emulsifiers or colourings and it becomes ultra-processed.
Plain oats, corn flakes and shredded wheat are minimally processed, but when the manufacturer adds sugar, flavourings or colourings, they become ultra-processed breakfast cereals.
Plain yoghurt is minimally processed, but add sweeteners, preservatives, stabilisers or colourings and it becomes ultra-processed.
When food has been processed, studies show that the nutrient availability in the small intestine is affected. This is because the plant properties and animal cells have been altered. Issues arise when ultra-processed foods begin replacing unprocessed and minimally processed foods, which contain vital nutrients, in your diet. A whopping 56 per cent of the calories that the average person in the UK eats come from ultra-processed foods.

Yoghurts containing sweeteners, preservatives or stabilisers are classed as ultra-processed.
5 ways to recognise ultra-processed food

A long list of ingredients, especially if it includes things only used in factory-made food, may indicate that a food is ultra-processed. A product containing more than five ingredients is likely to be ultra-processed, according to Professor Maira Bes-Rastrollo.

Unrecognisable ingredients could be additives. Most of them are probably safe, but negative effects have been suggested for a few.

High fat, sugar and salt content is common in ultra-processed food – look out for the traffic light label on foods for levels of these.

‘Fresh food’ with a long shelf life may indicate the presence of preservatives. Some foods that contain preservatives, such as bacon (which contains salt and nitrates), are not ‘ultra-processed’. However, bacon is not a healthier alternative to salami, which is classed as ‘ultra-processed’ because it has more added ingredients and has undergone a further process in the factory. Bucking the trend is long-life milk, which has been pasteurised at an ultra-high temperature (UHT) and doesn’t contain preservatives and so isn’t classified as ultra-processed, rather minimally processed. Check the label for preservatives such as sodium benzoate, nitrate and sulphite, BHA and BHT.

Aggressive marketing and branding. Ever seen a high-profile marketing campaign for apples and pears? Thought not.

Thought I’d share my fave seed cracker recipe as 1) it’s super easy and 2) no flour/wheat but lovely with cheese and chutney etc. Flour doesn’t work for me.

1 cup sunflower seeds
¾ cup pumpkin seeds
½ cup chia seeds
½ cup sesame seeds
¼ cup flaxseed
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups water
1 tablespoon dried herbs of your choice (optional, I like just salt)
1 teaspoon chilli flakes (optional)

Add ingredients to bowl.

Let sit 10-15 mins until water has absorbed - will still be very wet but sort of tip the bowl to see that no
puddle forms

Spread thinly onto 2 lines baking trays - I find silicone spatula best for this!

Bake 170 c fan for a fair while - recipe says 15 mins but mine are always more like 30. If the middle is still bendy then keep in oven longer - if outer edges are looking too done then you can snap them off into cracker shards and put the rest back in the oven.

Cool and snap into shards.

Keep in airtight box for at least a week but I eat them all by then usually 😬

They're addictive mind!