How do you cut out ultra processed food from your diet?

[Mariayves]

Ultra processed people was a brilliant, yet very infuriating read. I'm determined to make a change for my family and to cut out UPFs from our diet. I'm working full time and I can't cook from scratch every single day, so at the moment I'm focusing on shopping UPF-free as much as I can. Found this brilliant list of products that helped me a lot https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551827109379

Would love to hear what others are doing.

Do you think that the timing of the pressure to eat non ultra processed food coming at the same time as a cost of living crisis is adding to personal pressure that might drive you to take more anxiety pills?

I am not a working parent but I do grow a load of my own food which gets processed [frozen, pickled or dried] for later use and this makes up the bulk of our food. And I've done so for years.

But I cannot help but notice the increase in so many people's anxiety and stress as the two pressures ramp up at the very same time.

I'd perhaps not get quite so hung up on it all. Buy the best you can with what you have.

I ain't cutting any out. Diet is staying the same and will be with my kids

Don't you care about your children's health, @Cowlover89 ?

Given our food environment it is almost impossible to never eat UPF, unless you never ever leave the house and cook every single meal from scratch.

I have been 'very low UPF' for about 8 years now, and yes it is worth it for the health benefits (and the energy!) but I know it is impossible to keep up 24/7 365.

I am out for dinner tonight, and it will be impossible there. You just have to do what you can and make the best choice that is available.

My main thing is to try and avoid UPF oils, and ensure good protein in the choice that you are able to make. So tonight, I will probably have a steak, but I know it will be cooked in shitting oil and the sides will be drenched in shit. Anytime you ask for a steak in a restaurant without sides, they are literally unable to do it - it just doesn't present right - and there is Trip Advisor to think of! My point is to just do your best!

In what oil? 🤣 Edit, sorry, I thought this was a typo but that's actually what you meant!

My favourite "stock" is a teaspoonful of Marmite. Which is a by product of the brewing industry and chockful of vitamins, as well as being vegetarian and carrying mighty kicks of salt and umami. DH says it comes from the "industrial effluent" section of the supermarket.

I don't know if Marmite counts as UP or just P which is one of many reasons why UPF is no help to consumers. And "not being UPF" is going to become another bit of useless marketing hype because plain tinned tomatoes aren't UPF no matter what brand they are, fancy organic or Tesco value.

Buy as much real food as possible. For anything with a label, the Open Food Facts app is useful. You scan the label and it gives you Nutri-Score, Eco-Score and Ultra-Processing information.

Making good use of your freezer can really help - make double quantities of pretty much everything that can freeze and save the extra ready for future meals. I use extra large ice cube trays to make 5cm cubes which stack well and are easy to portion out. A big batch of tomato sauce will do pasta sauces, pizza and you can add extra veg or lentils to make other dishes too. Chilli and bolognese are great freezer standbys too. I keep jars of minced garlic and ginger in the fridge and chopped onions and stir fry veg in the freezer, which all speed up meal prep. Frozen soft fruit is cheap, low waste and great for desserts or stirring into yoghurts or cereal.

A well stocked spice and condiment cupboard helps too - really makes the difference to being able to create tasty food. It may not have the addictive hit of UPF but it can still taste great.

A bread machine will really help, not just for bread (which can be a substantial source of UPF in the diet and tastes so much better home made), but also for doughs for pizza bases, naan and so on.

If you use a lot of UPF sauces etc, cood cook books are worth investing in to help you work out quick ways to make UPF-free alternatives - I love Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food and Rukmini Iyer's Roasting Tin series.

And at the end of the day, we're generally talking about reducing UPF not eliminating entirely - if there's something that really works for your family (quorn is my weakness as it's so convenient!) then keep it as a small part of your diet and don't worry, particularly about items added in really small quantities.

Yuka app - scan barcodes, it will suggest alternatives. But ideally, you need to cook from scratch.

All food is processed to some degree, it's more about making sure you use proper ingredients. Would your granny recognise it? If yes, it's probably OK. (Except for Bisto and the like).

I cook everything from scratch, I'm coeliac/vegetarian and can't seem to digest processed foods even if they are gluten free. They just make me ill.
I just keep it all very simple and don't use more than 5 ingredients.
I work full time 5-6 days a week so really don't have a lot of time but it can be done without too much work. My blood work ups have improved 100% since I started eating this way.

I only really worry about DD, she's gluten free and GF foods are so processed. But she wants to have foods like bread, cake and crumpets. It's difficult to home bake decent GF and I've never had good results without adding Xanthan gum.

I'm not going to worry about tins of tomatoes and even our shop bought pizzas are full of normal ingredients. A friend has being going batshit over this - nothing can have more than 5 ingredients 🤦‍♀️

According to Open Food Facts / NOVA, or at least reading in my slightly flaky French and an online translator, oils aren't UPF. NOVA lists four classes:

1. unprocessed / minimally processed - which includes food prepared from fresh ingredients in a restaurant
2. processed ingredients (includes oil, butter, sugar salt, dried fruit)
3. processed foods (includes bottled veg, tinned fish, cheeses, freash bread) and may contain additives like preservatives and stabilisers
4. UPF (includes fizzy drinks, packaged snacks, reconstituted meat products, fresh or frozen ready meals) They tend to be high in fat and sugar and also nutrients you wouldn't use at home, that have been extracted from other foods, like added whey or casein.

I can see how this classification could be useful for research but I couldn't figure out how it would make it any easier to decide what to buy. 1 is mostly super-good and 4 is mostly super-crap but 2 and 3 are anybody's guess.

(I was trying to say that you don't need to worry about tinned tomatoes! )

I'm still confused by fruit and fibre flakes for example. High fibre, added vitamins and minerals, the brand I buy is low salt and sugar. Basically wheat bran with dried fruit and nuts and a multivit! Why is it classed alongside coco pops, it makes zero sense.

I have a list of very quick meals that I can turn to when I'm busy. For us, that's fried egg and air fryer chips, pasta with a can of tomatoes + can of tuna, baked potato and cheese, etc. Veg will often be fresh broccoli, carrots or beans steamed in the microwave (takes 2 mins). No UPFs.

I also have a cheap yoghurt maker so make my own at home. DS and DH will add some maple syrup to the yoghurt, or I cook frozen fruit to make a sugar-free jam.

We don't really buy biscuits as they're often full of junk, so if I want biscuits or cake, I will make them myself. Quite often I'm too lazy to bake, so we just eat fruit if we want something sweet.

Soup is easy to make and freeze. You can freeze soup flat in plastic or silicon bags, so you don't even need a large freezer.

Does the veg not go all soggy from being in the slow cooker all day @ElleDeeCB

Nope not things like carrots, onion, leek, peppers @Ceci03 but things like frozen peas, spinach, frozen okra I’d just put in right at end as they just need to heat up rather than cook. Frozen cauliflower keeps its texture well which surprised me. Not sure about broccoli, I’d probably just steam that in the microwave as a side dish instead.

Red lentil pasta is pure red lentil flour! 👍

I've never looked before!

I feel loads better after reducing (not eliminating) UPFs. I've lost weight and no longer have those awful post food (post sugar) energy slumps.

I've always cooked a lot from scratch but these are the changes I made:

Stop eating:
Special K
Shop bought bread
Shop bought biscuits and cakes
Squash
Jar pasta sauces
Chips
Flavoured yogurts
Crisps

Do eat:
Homemade bread (bread machine)
Homemade biscuits and cake (daily - and yet I've still lost weight)
Plain yogurts
Homemade pasta sauces
Homemade chips (or mash)
Lots of fruit and veg

Watch Eddie Abbew on insta, and you'll just be thinking "sh!t" when you see all the stuff in packets when you go shopping. 😂

its a wellness toxic culture.
its another thing the government can hold onto without actual fixing any rpoblems. like weight,like sugar blah blah.
its marketing
its the internet and absolute asswhipes making tiktok in supermarkets to scare the shit out of you.
many foods they demonise are fine
they never caused a problem before
its making famlies feel worse. and only perpetuating food myths guuilt.shame and infact bad choices through the never end culture cirlce.
carrots are processed.
so is your banana
that ingredeitn you cant pronounce on your tinned good. that to preserve it.to protect YOU. to make it last. its not the devil.
that ingredient you cant pronounce on your water bottle. that one of the two properties of water!
banana my god try getting a breakdown of that bad boy and tell me you could pronounce it.or put that label on a sugar packet and it would drive you wild with fear. when no,no, its just the ingredietn makeup of a banana. but they dont put that ingredietns list down do they.noooooo.

its always good to have balanced cooked from scratch as nutriotnal as you can meals and foods. but its not possible or heaven forbid sometimes wanted or needed for a good loved life.
wanting a fab ice lolly isnt going to harm you at all.
wanting a pizza neither.
have coco pops.nope still wont hurt you children.
nor hhhhh... white sugar.
try and have the other things. try and have your fruit and veg. sit down as a family for meals. help eachother out. clean cook,take care of eachother. have time out. rest. sleep well. do movement when you can,for fun too.
laugh with them.
watch tv with them
play with them
eat popcorn and jelly beans
eat fruit and yoghurt.
processed foods are not going to make your life better or worse. your head will do much worse from thr guilt or fear of them.
balance is always better and key. access to this is fucking downright impossible for many right now.
especially in the cost of living crisis.
does this mean they wont or cant be healthy. no.
does that mean we should provide acces to nicer,better nutrition choices for all. yes it does. but should it be shove down thier throats as a must or your a shit person and " dont care about your children!/" no that rhetoric is bullshit.

Stop eating:
Special K
Shop bought bread
Shop bought biscuits and cakes
Squash
Jar pasta sauces
Chips
Flavoured yogurts
Crisps

Really, these are most of main offenders, along with chicken nuggets etc.

Bread is the trickiest for us but switching out as much as possible of the other stuff for the kids is how we are approaching it.

It's been slow though, changing a couple of things here and there over several months

carrots are processed.
so is your banana

Umm, no.

processed foods are not going to make your life better or worse

Look at the condition of the obese people who can hardly walk down the street, it is clear processed food which is a main driver of obesity does make lives significantly worse.

What exactly is the problem with bread? And is this all shop breads, or just the standard "brown/white sliced"? Is it guilt by association because many people who rely on the cheapest packet bread have poor diets in other ways?

I do remember visiting one of the big bakeries back on the 1970s where they were mixing giant vats of dough for mass produced packaged sliced bread. The brown bread dough was the creamy colour of home-made white dough, while the white dough was so bright white it was almost blue. And I have questions about how very long mass produced bread lasts.

But if there is a real problem with bread (rather than researchers putting it in group 4 for consistency or convenience) then that's a job for the government to tackle. Bread is a recognised staple foodstuff and most people don't have the time or money to do their own. And as a result bread is quite tightly regulated.

The government couldn't care less about obesity, they have completely failed to tackle it in any meaningful way over the past twelve years. Henry Dimbleby resigned in protest over this.

The idea is that your body doesn't respond the same way to, for example, vitamins naturally occuring in a food and added vitamins. Ditto for fibre, etc. even if they are molecularly similar or the same, which is why "healthier" upf are still "bad."

It's an interesting theory but who knows if it's true!