What it's really like trying to minimise UPFs - expectation v reality

[StiffyByngsDogBartholomew]

I've been trying to minimise UPFs for 6 months or maybe a bit more. We always had a very homemade diet anyway and weren't exactly starting from eating ready meals or jarred sauces.

i used to be a pastry chef, i trained in all areas of the kitchen. Im a really good cook, can make pretty much anything from breads and croissants to jams and fancy sauces. We have a decent food budget of £450 a month for 3 and while I work full time I have a shift which gives me plenty of time at home. I love cooking.

But even given all the above I'm bloody sick to death of it and I've started buying premade food like coleslaw again. I've just got totally exhausted constantly having to think of everything in advance and make everything. Eg if I want to make chicken and mushroom pie I need to make the flaky pastry and to make a gravy or white sauce. Packed lunches and breakfasts are much more difficult or expensive. I've either got to make the bread for the toast myself or pay a small fortune for bakery bread.

Constant arguments over not buying pappy sliced bread and household revolts over not buying flavoured crisps, Pringles, gravy powder, bars of chocolate, cheap ice cream, or cheap squash.

ive tried so hard to make sure everything we were eating was wholesome but its so bloody hard. Even starting from a very low threshold of UPFs and still including some I just can't be bothered.

some examples...
you want avocado on toast for breakfast - got to make the bread or buy it

want a hash brown on your full English - got to have sautés instead or make hash browns that do not taste anything like the same, however good a cook you are

burger and chips for a Saturday night now means you've got to make your own burger buns and chipped potatoes or wedges. Want onion rings with it ? Yeah they won't be a patch on the ones you buy in the freezer section.

no quick dinner options like a pizza from the reduced counter in the supermarket

want a curry ? Make it all from scratch including the naan bread, mango chutney etc

want a bit of something sweet to have after the packed lunch non upf pasta salad that you made homemade honey and mustard mayonnaise dressing for ? Gotta make it yourself.

the only yoghurts you can eat are plain with some fruit added. That's nice to start with but after a while the thought of a black cherry yoghurt was too much to resist

spend hours at the beginning of the month prepping pastries, curry sauce bases, wontons for wonton soup

want a quick pudding ? What are you going to have ? Oh yeah, nothing. you've had to make it beforehand or wait for it to cook. A quick bowl of ice cream or a lolly is out unless you've had to take out a second mortgage to buy it. Or made it yourself.

nothing is quick. It requires either vast amounts of time to make foods to replace takeaways, cake, bread, ice creams etc even if you decide that you can't actually cut the UPFs entirely. And unless your family is 100% on board you will be fighting a losing battle. You seem to spend your entire life thinking about, buying, making and clearing up food.

the takeaway from it is that I will still avoid emulsifiers wherever possible and do my best but I just can't keep fighting this battle to the level I've tried, it's just unsustainable.

Completely get you OP,same here. Especially the family revolts.
The sweet part doesn't bother me as much as I am happy with some dark chocolate or frozen fruit.
But breakfasts,snacks and packed lunches are a struggle,especially if you want a last minute day out.
But still,better than nothing.

Thanks @TheHazelCritic i guess I just wanted to share my experience as finding it really tough even as an avid cook

Maybe something lo Ike a chest freezer so you can build a good supply of pastry bread and the like? Unfortunately no space for it in my house.

I hear you. I think trying to be 100% UPF free is too much, I am happy if I can keep it at 90% ish and I would never sweat over something like magno chutney.

We're trying to cut down too. I'm basing it off if most of our core meals can be pretty much UPF free E.g. meat/fish with salad and jacket potato then the 'trimmings' can involve UPF. I think you're right, the expectation vs the reality is that the stress of worrying about the UPFs you are still using is probably as harmful as just going for it 😂.

Just so I know-

Obv burgers and sausages are massively UPF, what other meats please?

Any other foods that aren't glaringly obvious?

I think it's just another way of making women feel guilty.

Anyway I buy nice bread. Fried onions rather than onion rings. Buy a good burger bun. I might make my own chutney if I fancied doing that but id have jars in. It's all just about trying to do a bit.

yoghurts are easy - just buy a big tub of plain / greek or similar, and add a spoon of jam to your bowlful (obviously good non UPF jam) or you can make your own fruit syrup or something

but you're right OP it is hard. especially when you have kids (even worse fussy kids)

I think you need to focus on the main things you can cut out. not try to go the full hog if it's too hard.

Oh I do, I've got freezers full of chicken stock, pastries of different types, homemade soup, curry bases etc. it's just the hours that go into putting it all there.

Also do you have a breadmaker? it makes it much easier. you can slice and freeze them in advance

Do you think it's partly because we're used to much more variety these days, because of UPF?

In previous generations, when more women were full time at home, they would likely be cooking food only from their "own" culture. My mother wouldn't have cooked us curry in the 70s/80s. To my grandmother, pasta was exotic.

A British family might do a roast on a Sunday and then used the leftovers for a casserole or pie. Puddings would be steam puddings and crumbles etc All delicious but would be quite samey & restricted, very seasonal and based on your local shops.

So we have much higher expectations of variety nowadays?

I do a lot of marinaded chicken dishes - I buy a big of chicken breasts at the beginning of the month and package them up into freezer bags. Eg we have coriander and lime marinaded chicken with guacamole and red rice.
Chicken kebabs with
we have a lot of simple meat meals, meat and two veg with potatoes. Eg pork chops, gammon steak. Lots of burgers are fine if you get decent ones. roast meats too. I make my own curries and usually use chicken or lamb I've precooked and frozen

My rule of thumb is 80% upf free. Also don’t forget there’s a difference between processed and ultra processed. Just because it comes in a packet doesn’t automatically mean upf. Ready salted crisps are often ok as they literally just contain potatoes oil and salt, all the others have flavour which does include ingredients made in a lab. Check the labels and if you recognise all of the ingredients as stuff you could grow yourself it’s ok. As with anything in life it’s about finding the balance so you can still enjoy things.

I tied myself in knots trying to make everything UPF free and unless you eat the same things over and over you end up with alot of waste. I have given up with bread, we eat maybe half a loaf a week and homemade was going stale before it was being eaten. I use stock cubes again. I don’t believe that a stock cube or worchester sauce makes all the nutrients in an otherwise whole food meal (like chilli or bolognese) totally null and void.

Well I don't have much trouble with it. Sometimes it is mildly annoying. I think we approach it in different ways though. You seem to want to replicate your exact diet. I just accept that some things are too much effort. If I was making a pie I'd just use shortcrust - much quicker. Yes puff is nicer, but I just choose UPF free but not quite as tasty.
Baked in store bread from the Coop is UPF free, don't know about other supermarkets. Slightly more expensive than sliced bread but we just eat less.

You can't have UPF free AND cheap AND easy AND eat all the same foods you did before. You have to choose what you are going to compromise on.

Yes I've been thinking about this for Christmas, I've used them before but got rid of if but i think that might curb dhs desire to eat 6 slices of shitty hovis slices "bread" as a snack.

I couldn't careless. Going to carry on eating what's I've always been eating.

I didn't really write this post for you then. I wrote it for people that might be trying to cut down UPFs but are finding it hard work.

A few things that have helped me:
Aim for 80% upf rather than 100%
Meal plan and reduce the number of meals in rotation
Bread maker and get into a routine of putting it on every couple of nights.
You can still buy supermarket bread products for lunches just be selective - pitta bread is usually minimally processed and cheap for example. Part baked baguettes and crumpets too.
Always make double and freeze. Even cakes.

To be honest we've just dropped things like squash and cheap ice cream.
And some things - pesto, hummus - is always going to be shop bought.

reading with interest as really want to refuge/eliminate UPFs as much as possible. Some things are easy, but a few are tricky.

Also read the packets, follow "easy swap" accounts - for example I only realised recently that standard Jus Rol pastry is vegan and upf, but they also do an "all butter" version that has much better ingredients.

@AllYearsAround your post about cutting things out really relates to my point t about your family being on board. I tried cutting out squash and cheap ice cream and just not having it but it led to so many arguments.

I think you are perhaps too good a cook and this is why you are finding going UPF free so hard . Your standards are higher because of that . If we want pizza I get the Crosta Mollica bases and just add toppings , if we want curry I make lentil Dahl which is easy and rice and sometimes Naan not always - but there is no way at all I’m also making mango chutney . I always have Jason’s or Bertinet bread in the freezer but if the kids want horrid bread then I get the 75p M and S one out the freezer . I make lots of things from scratch but not all . I think simplifying what you eat would really help - a couple of days a week my husband and I just have salad with beans and cheese or omelette . I also make big soups to last 2 days which helps .

Your husband has to be on board definitely. Kids don't get a choice 🤣

Buy your bread maker second hand/charity shops/marketplace, there are loads out there, people's great intentions! If it's working for you then you can shell out for a fancy new Panasonic but I wouldn't start with that in case you don't get the use out of it.

Though my husband does have a hidden stash of cheap biscuits and sugary cereal!