Who can afford to eat additive-free?

[nathaliekonegal]

I just finished reading "Ultra processed people" by Dr Chris Van Tulleken and was absolutely shocked to find out how some of the foods I considered healthy are actually full of stabilisers, emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners and other chemically produced substances. I am determined to change my family's diet for the better and joined a couple of Facebook groups to get advice from others. A lot of people in these groups seem to swear by this non UPF shopping list https://www.instagram.com/go.upf.free/ The list looks great - but honestly, who can afford to eat like this? My husband is on an average salary and I work part time.. but childcare and other bills are expensive. I would love to be able to feed my family with all these additive free products but there is no way we can afford it. It really brings me down and I feel like I'm the only one who can't feed her children a healthy, UPF-free diet.

Try having anaphylactic reactions to artificial additives, preservatives, flavourings to name just a few and actually not having a choice. Theres loads of foods I don't eat as I can't afford them so just make do with what I can.
It's so incredibly time consuming and frustrating but I have no other choice, it does get easier the more you do it though

It is pricey! We are also UPF free after reading the same book and we're lucky to have a decent income but, my goodness! Our supermarket bills are much higher. Yes to what everyone has said about prepping from scratch but things like nuts are stupidly expensive and since going UPF free, we eat a lot of those. We feel so much better, we've both lost tons of weight, we won't go back, but it is a costly way to live!! We make our own bread, but lots of yeast comes with emulsifiers in so now we maintain a sourdough culture (it literally feels like another house pet!) and we make a lot of stock from scratch after completely failing to find a ready-made UPF free stock. So, big joints, cooked up to make slicing meat for sandwiches , then stock made from the cooking liquor. We do organic too and every week have a "HOW MUCH?!" chat about our food bill!! Good luck xx

Go to Home Bargains for nuts. Anything from £1 - £3 for a big bag of Brazils, Cashews, Walnuts depending on which you buy.

Jasons sourdough is pretty clean as is one of the sourdough's in Aldi (seed oil free) for a cheaper alternative as Jason's isn't cheap. Jasons doesn't have seed oils.

Everytime I try to go healthy and cook from scratch I save a fortune!

Tonight I had brown rice and bean chilli.

I made a huge batch of it a few weeks ago and it's done at least 6 meals. I've just roughly costed it out and it was around £1.25/ portion.

Workings (I mostly shop in Ocado)
red kidney beans, cannelini beans, black beans - around £1 a tin
2 tins of tomatoes about 80p a tin
onion, garlic, oil - around 60p
1 packet of 3 peppers - £1.60

I buy the massive bags of rice around £15 for 10kg I think.

I admit to buying some more expensive items; Heinz organic baked beans, wills tomato ketchup, decent olive oil & kallo stock cubes but, because the rest of the shop is cheaper, my overall trolley still costs less.

I do make my own sourdough bread a few times a week and have learned to make mayonnaise from scratch.

I'm also not a purist - I eat chocolate and buy bread from the bakers if I haven't got time to make it. But genuinely 90% + of our food is now UPF free.

My work week is split between long commute days and working from home days and I admit this helps. It means I can cook extra when I'm not travelling, to make life easier when I'm not home till late.

@nathaliekonegal look at the Rukmini Iyer roasting tin books. I really struggle to cook regularly and healthily and these have been life changing for me.

I eat so much more veg, and now take a pulse or grain type salad most days to work too thereby reducing my bread consumption.

We cook mostly from scratch as pre made food isn’t easily available either where we live. But it’s often quick, like omlette and salad for dinner. Homemade coleslaw but plenty to then have tomorrow with baked potatoes, and sausage

There are non UPF foods hiding in every supermarket.

You want biscuits, eat all butter shortbread
https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-belmont-all-butter-scottish-shortbread-fingers-210g/4088600107998

What sort of items in particular are you looking for?

Just cook from scratch, non upf prepared goods are mostly a marketing ploy anyway.

Eating the occasional chocolate bar is not going to harm you, habitually eating up ready meals etc will potentially.

The other thing is to just use the processed only where it makes sense. I made chicken, potatoes, veg and bread sauce (milk, stale crust, seasonings) but used gravy granules. Tomorrow we'll have bubble and squeak plus homemade chutney. Spag Bol (canned tomatoes, cheese was processed but they are considered ok) on Tuesday, stir fry wed, all homemade .... it's not difficult. I made rolls earlier and they are mostly frozen (apart from the ones for tomorrow...

I'm in the middle of listening to that book on audible. It's been an eye opener but in the way our bodies process the foods and types of foods too. I try and cook from scratch most times but it's the little things now I'm looking out for. Some ingredients I didn't realise before weren't that good for us. I eat mainly sourdough bread but even that has additives in so dusting off my bread maker to make my own. Other members of my family don't really care though but i they can have at least one non upf meal a day that's good. Also don't forget he did say that all food is processed once we start cooking it and adding things to it. It's the ultra processed we need to be careful with. Quite a good book so far.

Much of my childhood was in the 50s and apart from ham or bacon now and then, about the only processed food we ate was (pre freezer) the odd tin of peas or baked beans. And maybe margarine.
Just about everything was cooked from scratch, because there was very little in the way of affordable alternatives.