Reducing UPFs in 2026 🥘

[Bookaholic73]

I’m planning on reducing my intake of Ultra Processed Foods (UPFs) in 2026 and would love to share the process with others who are doing the same.

I’ve been doing lots of reading and research around this for the last few months and feel ready to start in January.

My focus while doing this will be on trying to
-Keep to a reasonable budget for food
-Reduce instead of eliminate
-Keep meals simple but delicious

Is anyone else doing this?

Ive not read the thread so im sorry if im repeating what you already know.

I have said this on mn before and some may feel its a cop out, but I ask Ai to meal plan on my phone and im specific what I ask for.
So in your case I would ask for a 5 day meal plan with no upf, quick and easy to make for however many people.
If you dont like the original suggestion, you can ask to adapt it.

Honestly the easiest things to replace and make yourself are jar sauces. So easy. Another easy one is wraps. Just need full fat Greek yogurt and flour, mix and fry. Done.
This will help get you started.

Quick 5-Day Non-UPF Meal Plan
Day Brunch (Meal 1)Dinner (Meal 2)
1
Spinach & Mushroom Omelette: 3 eggs each with fresh spinach, mushrooms, and cheddar on sourdough.
Chicken & Veg Traybake: Roasted chicken thighs with peppers, onions, and broccoli in olive oil and herbs.
2
Greek Yogurt Power Bowl: Full-fat Greek yogurt, fresh berries, walnuts, and honey.
Beef Mince Fried Rice: Lean beef mince stir-fried with ginger, garlic, and fresh vegetables over brown rice.
3
Smashed Avocado & Eggs: Poached eggs on wholemeal sourdough with chili flakes and lime.
Veggie Pasta Bake: Wholewheat pasta with homemade tomato-basil sauce (no jars), pine nuts, and extra cheese.
4
Warm Lentil & Feta Salad: Canned lentils (drained), beetroot, feta, and walnuts with a simple olive oil dressing.
Salmon & Broccoli Stir-Fry: Fresh salmon fillets with broccoli and ginger; serve with quinoa or rice noodles.
5
Superfood Grain Bowls: Quinoa base with kale, edamame, hummus, and hard-boiled eggs.
Turkey Mince Bolognese: Homemade sauce with onions, carrots, and celery over wholewheat spaghetti.
Preparation & Satiety Tips for Teenagers

• Bulk with Whole Grains: Teenagers often require more calories. Use brown rice, quinoa, or pearl barley to add bulk and fiber to dinners.
• UPF-Free Snack Options: If teenagers need a bridge between meals, offer whole foods like:
• Nuts and Seeds: Unsalted walnuts, pistachios, or almonds.
• Fruit & Veg: Apple slices with nut butter, celery sticks with homemade hummus, or fresh berries.
• Check Bread Labels: Most supermarket breads are ultra-processed. Look for fromthemotherside.co.uk/2024/06/02/non-upf-packed-lunch-ideas/&ved=2ahUKEwjvjpfKxtiRAxXOZ0EAHR6WCGYQy_kOegYIAQgHEAU&opi=89978449&cd&psig=AOvVaw2QE6QesqSCK2EVx8k3kx9x&ust=1766745654064000" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">authentic sourdough or loaves with only flour, water, salt, and yeast.
• Avoid Jarred Sauces: Many contain emulsifiers and preservatives. Make quick sauces using tomato passata, olive oil, and fresh herbs.

@notacooldad using chat GPT is actually a great idea, thanks for that meal plan.
I wonder if it could also advise me what brands to look out for, especially for items like pasta sauces etc. I’m going to check later.

I wonder if it could also advise me what brands to look out for, especially for items like pasta sauces etc. I’m going to check later.
It would but ,it is extremely easy to make your own i know you are time short but it is basically chopping ingredients up and leaving them to simmer and blending.
Avoiding upf is, in many ways back to basics.
We make our own bread using a bread maker. It takes minutes to prepare and then the machine dies the work. I got my latest bread maker from face book market place forr £15. Dh usually puts a loaf on a night when we are running low and then one on next morning so we can either jeep it out or put it in the freezer for days when life gets busy.

Things like stir fry, slow cooker casserole, stews, chilies are simple. I use a timer on the slow cooker so it is ready fir when I want.
Honestly its just getting into habits and routines and life doesn't have to be a massive chore around cooking.

For me, I commited to avoiding palm oil wherever possible many, many years ago when I learnt of the destruction it was causing (I'm sure someone will be along to deny that, especially if they are in the industry). Having been reading labels for many years, I am stunned by how it is in more and more products every year - really brings it home to you how useless most of our campaigning is when up against power and money. Even the Iceland chain tried to remove it and could not. Have a Google for the banned Iceland 2018 Rang-tan ad if you aren't aware of it.

Sorry to go on a bit of a rant.

Loads of great suggestions on here and please don't worry about poisoining your family with frozen rice. Like someone else said, cool it fast and get it frozen and it will be fine. I also find it good to do that with brown rice as that takes longer and is more expensive to cook so doing a big portion of brown rice and getting it frozen in small portions makes me much more likely to eat it.

I know this isn’t going to go down well, but honestly I am not going to avoid absolutely everything.
My one and only goal is to reduce UPF, not to reduce plastic, palm oil, seed oils, make all of my own bread,stock etc.

I feel that starting to reduce UPFs is enough of a job by itself.

Besides, if I can buy sauces and bread that are non-UPF, I will. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be using up the UPF chopped tinned tomatoes that I already have by making my own sauces until they run out, but I very much doubt I’ll be making my own bread.

I know this isn’t going to go down well, but honestly I am not going to avoid absolutely everything.
You don't have to!
Do what works for you.
Some go all out and try to be 100%
Others try 80/20
Others do little and often.
Its not a competition!
Take baby steps. You may find you are happy with any small changes you make and stick at that or you may start habit stacking ( thats what I did)

Absolutely fine. It’s completely up to you & much better to be realistic.

It's totally fine to work out what makes most sense for you based on the reasons you have for avoiding UPF, and what works for your family's lifestyle and diet.

We have a lot of Quorn as it's one of the few veggie proteins that my animal-loving son will eat. And I don't worry about tinned tomatoes, it's only a tiny amount of vitamin c for an incredibly convenient product.

Unfortunately palm oil is often considered a UPF on its own because of the way they refine it, so I do think it's worth trying to avoid. But pretty much everything that has palm oil in will be UPF because of its other ingredients, so
if you cut out other UPF you'll significantly reduce your palm oil too.

By all means go for UPF-free bought bread - the problem I have with it is that it's expensive and doesn't last very well because it doesn't have preservatives. So spending 3 minutes a night setting up the bread machine is actually a lot less hassle than getting to the shops often enough up have fresh UPF-free bread. Plus it's delicious and in the long run a lot cheaper than fancy bread!

You may have heard it isn't UPF but it is.

So I’m all set to start tomorrow.
Because I’m in a budget, I won’t be throwing out anything that is an UPF, I’ll be working my way through what I already have.

The only exception to this is going to be condiments, all all the ones I own are UPFs.
Frenchs mustard, Light Mayo, Siracha etc.

However, tomorrow I’m starting with only eating non-UPF snacks and drinks. So essentially that means not eating any of the usual snacks I have (chocolate, sweets etc) and replacing them with fruit.
In regards to crisps, I have seen that sea salt kettle chips are non-UPF, but I want to steer clear of any snack foods for the first few months until my palate adapts.

I am doing this primarily for the health benefits, so the more I can stick to it, the better.

When you’ve finished your sauces and looking to replace them there are lots of non UPF versions, I like The Sauce Shop.

I meant that the sauces are the only things I’ll be throwing out (giving to my friend) as every single one are UPF.
Thanks for the suggestion of The Sauce Shop. Are they available at Tesco?

Oh sorry! I should think so, they’re available in Sainsbury’s and they can be found online too, I bought a big hamper of them, I love their sweet chilli sauces.

And I like Stokes for mayo.

I've managed to massively cut down our UPF consumption this year. It has made our shopping more expensive but that's because I'm still buying some convenience type foods but very expensive upf versions!
For sauces etc I recommend an occado delivery every now and again to stock up. They have some great options.

Thank you @nancpmf i’ll pick some up when I do my next food shop.

@bk1981 unfortunately Ocado don’t deliver here, so I think I might do a monthly trip to Waitrose to pick up items I can’t get at Tesco/Aldi.

I am increasing our food budget by £100 a month, as I suspect that we will definitely find our food bills increasing. However, maybe I won’t. We are guilty of picking up snacks during the week a few times, all of which are UPFs (think M&Ms etc) so maybe by cutting those out I’ll actually end up no worse off. It’ll be interesting to see.

Our food bill dropped by loads.

I buy fresh or frozen veg so it would do multiple meals. By putting 20 mins a side to meal plan saves time and a shed load of money.

It is so quick and cheap to make my own tortilla, nan breads, pizza base, tomato sauce and took very little time.
Im often time poor but these things are made in no time. A bag of flour and 1kg of Greek yogurt goes a long way!

Things like chick peas, black beans etc are cheap to pick up and are used in desserts and main courses.
I have cut out all snacks and breakfast cereals and shop bought cakes as well as things like shop bought quiche. I never buy the processed meats so that has helped cut the upfs and save money.

I think its striking a balance, getting confident with what you want to do and do what is best for you and your family.

I think its striking a balance, getting confident with what you want to do and do what is best for you and your family.

Exactly @notacooldad you’ve hit the nail on the head. There are certain things I don’t mind eating right now (wraps and cordial being the main ones) and things that I am going to prioritise (snacks) that I think will make the biggest difference to my health and energy levels.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised re the food bill.

There is a good podcast I follow which is really good for getting lots of info to help you with avoiding UPFs in your diet.
The Unprocessed Truth - Podcast - Apple Podcasts

I really hope so!

Thank you, I’m going to have a listen when I’m out on my walks.

His latest podcast called, 'The foods I ate in 2025 that changed everything' has some tips about what foods to look out for in the supermarket. Really helpful and accessible. Makes changing foods less daunting.

Enjoy your walk and hopefully the podcast! 🙂

We make naan flatbreads & freeze them in batches as an alternative to wraps. Likewise our sourdough starter is used for loaves & pizza bases. But i use Mutti Pizza sauce out of a can as it tastes good as the tomato sauce & also we still use Bisto Best gravy granules in cottage pie or on roasts. I have largely stopped buying bacon & processed meats due to nitrates but made an exception over Xmas when the hungry hoardes were home. My homemade sage & onion stuffing was made with cheap white bread ) as it goes super crispy)& not artisan sourdough.
Each family will make their own compromises depending on how old the individual members are.
It will be much harder with young children.
And for individuals who don't enjoy cooking.

I lost 10kgs since June after reducing UPF, my adult acne cleared up and my hair started growing fast again!

It’s not just about looking at ingredients and choosing products with the least UPF, for me it’s about cooking from scratch 90% of the time.

Hard if you are time poor, but my go-to is batch cooking. Invest if you can in meals that you can portion out and freeze, then on a weeknight you can just bung in the oven to heat up. Either as a complete meal (stews or pasta bakes) or a main component (curry, bbq chicken).

I have a microwave rice cooker which is quick for sides, and I use frozen veg again cooked in a microwave steamer.

The main difference though is baking my own bread/treats. My bread maker is on every day for various breads and dough to make bread rolls. Mastering bread has made such a big difference as we eat so much of it. Cakes and biscuits home made for treats is a good idea as there is so much crap in supermarket treats.

I didn’t do everything at once though, I chose one thing to focus on at a time as it does get overwhelming.

Good luck!