Cutting back on UPF

[Twinsmum1234]

Hello lovely people, Just wondering if anyone has any hot tips for easy UPF free snacks/packed lunches for kids. I am very time poor as my husband and I both work full time. We are desperately trying to change our diet as a family and easy less ultra processed food. I've been using the Nomi UPF Scanning app - nomiapp.io which I love but would really appreciate any suggestions that other people have. Thanks so much.

Butties with

Decent bread, real butter and cheese or slices from a roast chicken with salad

or peanut butter ( and home made or quality jam )

and some fruit

I’ve got into a habit of making wholemeal rolls every Saturday. Mix dough first thing takes about 10 mins whilst kids eating, off to activities whilst it rises. Shape then leave again - anything from 30 mins to an hour it’s quite forgiving. Cook 20 mins. Then freeze and defrost each day for lunch.

Sourdough is often UPF free.
crosta mollica wraps (Sainsbury’s, Ocado)
cubes of cheese with olives
breadsticks
houmous
sliced roast beef/chicken
buy a food flask and send chilli/soup left over from dinner
Bear splits/ bear yoyos
Simple home made cakes eg banana bread, flapjack
yoghurts

However, my son insists on a ham salad sandwich made on white bread with a bag of crisps!!
I pick my battles and make sure his meals at home are as unprocessed as possible.

Cakes like Mary Berry’s Banana Bread or Nigella’s Madeira cake are both super quick to prepare and you should get a good few slices out of them.

Is this just an ad for the app you mentioned? Ditching UPF does not need an app, you just need to stop buying the stuff.

I like to make Healthy Flapjacks - soak
200g dates in 200ml boiling water. Add in a spoonful of butter then blitz it all up with a stick blender (water as well). Then stir in 240g oats.

I then add in some raisins, dark chocolate chunks, nuts, seeds - whatever you fancy

Then bake for 30 mins.

I'm all quite new to this so thanks so much to everyone for your replies. I'm definitely going to give some of these a go!x

Actually thinking about it muffins might be more portable

Sandwich with bread made in the bread machine.

Homemade wrap - this sounds like a lot of effort but I have a batch of dough in the fridge and then just pull a handful off in the morning, roll it out and then pop it in a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes on each side. It really doesn’t take long and is 100x more delicious than a shop bought wrap. My DD likes it with just avocado and lime juice.

Babybels are just cheese. As are cheese strings.

Ready salted crisps (not walkers) are usually non UPF.

Plain salted tortilla chips (not Doritos) are often not UPF either.

Cream cheese (not Philadelphia) is not UPF.

Obviously check the packet, but shortbread biscuits are often not UPF.

Our school is no nuts but sometimes I pack her a couple of dates as a sweet treat.

Obviously fruit and veg make great non UPF snacks. We particularly like carrot/pepper/celery/radish/cucumber dipped in cream cheese. Apple dipped in peanut butter also good.

I must admit i do have a bit of a crisp problem and I’ve swapped to mainly havibg ready salted proper crisps.

Following as i am trying to cut back on upf as well which is hard because dp and dss are autistic and the only food we ever buy in is all upf as they refuse everything else.