The cost of reducing UPF

[jimjamjoo]

For the last 6 months or so, we have been trying to reduce our UPF intake and buy more healthy food and cook from scratch.

I am really struggling with the cost of it. We are a family of 5 with 3 children under 6- one still in nappies. Our monthly food bill is about £600 which just seems crazy.

When I decided to reduce our UPF intake, I shopped around and found that Ocado did the best range/tasting food. So we get a weekly shop from there and I do a monthly bulk shop from Sainsbury's to get the few no UPF bits they sell. We also do a bulk shop from Aldi once a month to buy nappies and kids' snacks.

We have a bread maker so use that every other day and we have maybe one takeaway a month.

Has anyone found a way to reduce the food shop when focusing on reducing UPF? I don't find the quality of fruit/veg and meat at Lidl/aldi to be very good so I'm not planning on changing my weekly food shop to go there.

If you use a bread maker one thing you could do is order your flour in bulk. Buy a 16kg sack from Wessex mill in Hungerford. That halves the cost. Better quality too.

I cook from scratch and feed two adults for £250 a month. I buy British seasonal veg, fruit, frozen hake, mussels etc & organic dairy from Tesco . Meat comes from the local butcher. No alcohol.

Obviously I don't have to buy nappies, wipes etc.

Fresh uncut bread for toast
Organic porridge oats with berries, honey nuts
Meat from butchers
Sauces from scratch (blend veg in if necessary)
Cheap or easy meals-
Jacket potatoes
Home made tomato soup
Chicken breast , potatoes and veg
Spaghetti Bol (butchers mince )
Omelette
Home made fish cakes

Dh and I have lentil stew, veggie curry , veggie bulgar or Pearl barley risotto but I can't get kids to eat them

It's hard to eradicate upf totally but possible to reduce it.

Apparently there an app that tells you how bad stuff is so you can reduce by swapping your ketchup , butter etc

If you eat more vegan and veggie meals it may reduce the cost a bit more. We only have meat a couple of times a week now.

If you have the space, bulk buy and then batch cook your food.

Something I always suggest on these threads is making a simple base for sauce & soup. That's in equal parts minced carrots, celery and onions. (Basically what's part of your stock cube) Just fry it off and add a can of tomatoes & water for tomato sauce & season with herbs and spices. The possibilities are endless!
It's great, it helps bulking out the meal and keeps the expensive meat consumption low.
You can also freeze it either raw or after frying...

I used cheeky wipes (second hand). And got some custom made reusable ones that I still use now over 4yrs later. With poppers just pop them in the washing machine. That saves money and dries quickly.

Also reusable nappies think they were on their 4 round. And disposables at night. Saved me a bomb

Thanks everyone for the input. Lots of think about.

We don't buy organic really and I think it's a fair point about in season fruit and veg- need to work on that.

We didn't seem to spend that much on food before we cut out the UPF but it wasn't like we were eating ready meals or convenience food. I think what has increased the price is things like not buying Greek style yogurt but proper Greek yogurt, ' cleaner' stock cubes, cans of chopped toms/pulses which don't have horrible things added to them. All these little things that I used to buy cheaply now seem to cost way more which increase the weekly shop by quite a lot even though they don't seem like much.

I will look at a Costco card but how do you get one? I don't own a business and don't know anyone who does.

Also, know your prices - especially where you use / buy a lot of something. The difference between 89p and 99p (obv in many cases waaaay more than this) adds up - and buy in bulk.

Nescafe Azera coffee - currently 1.99 for 75g in Home Bargains (I bought 10 at a time, several times). Pearl Barley 89p. Mixed Herbs Jar 59p. I get Baking Paper / Foil etc from there. But they're not the cheapest for everything. Farmfoods is my secret love - at times I have had Napolina Wholemeal Pasta for 49p, Red Lentils 49p, Boxes of UPF-free Museli 49p. Stock up then use up!

I get a lot of my cupboard food from the Asian supermarkets. If you have any near you they’re worth a look.

Theres nothing wrong with greek style yoghurt as long as its not got unrecognisable ingredients in it. Also chopped toms, which chopped toms are you referring to that have additives in them?
What cans of pulses are you referring to?

Like pps I find eating non-UPF inexpensive, but I've always cooked from scratch and been good at budgeting, so cutting out the few UPF things we did eat was easy.

I suspect what a lot of people do when they cut them out is try to directly replace the types of UPF food they were eating with non-UPF substitutes, which would end up expensive.

That said, @jimjamjoo things like Greek-style yoghurt aren't necessarily UPF. The Lidl one, for example, is only made with milk. It's just not made in Greece. Tins of ordinary chopped tomatoes aren't usually UPF either.

Dried pulses are much cheaper than tinned. If it’s a bean that needs soaking/cooking etc. do loads at once (pressure cooker is your friend here) and freeze in portions that you need.

Dried goods are often cheaper from ethnic food shop or ethnic aisle of a big supermarket. Big sacks of rice. Large packs of spices, red lentils etc.

Buy the 16kg sacks of flour. Butter freezes well, so bulk buy if you see an offer. Ice cream is dead simple to make and much cheaper than buying fancy brands. Yogurt is simple to make and no hassle once you have a routine of it.

Don’t buy “snacks”. Fruit in season, boiled eggs, toast, home popped popcorn. Does your bread machine have a jam setting? Find a couple of biscuit/small cake recipes that are quick and easy and knock them out while cooking something else. My repertoire is small, but I can do them in my sleep. Flapjacks, lemon biscuits, fake hobnobs, queen cakes with various additions.

This yogurt is ‘Greek style’ but it is strained, so very thick, almost solid, bio lively, and has nothing in it but British free range milk . It is often in the Asian section in Sainsburys and Tesco, god knows why . And much cheaper than the Total Fage yogurt.
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/lancashire-farm-greek-yogurt-1kg?utm_medium=cpc&cmpid=cpc&catalogId=10241&utm_content=shopping&productId=1083442&utm_campaign=20333793068&utm_custom2=759-449-0952&storeId=10151&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItKTDz5aciwMVlKVQBh0LyRN6EAQYASABEgKo2_D_BwE&utm_custom1=&langId=44&utm_source=Google&krypto=Y9D1sKmiMubqNCwo2R4BcDxDDnrLoNpC1oZ9iYAdgpIx0SpdZKR883Cy7Oc6yvYfY5DuBnWeoZvwrStICvdEpR99biCqFQmu56EKjyZSgHpQt08m6B21tAjOUfuwgmwM0%2FAifaCofdALpMDudRZGsdsSSS82J3W8ap4AYCei%2FYEQnzPiQItKmWn0mkSFP%2FKtF%2BDsSiSMkc3d5KXDJeQ6JeU12VDm2w1Xonh50H3KoesLw1voShEXYnfC1evPboDEcsARcK%2FX7hzzZou%2FCWBKttL5RFWyIdr6F3d02JjB4gPHRLosp5xRumhepmYTW3rQa9zRI95SBuSsLj84ejV5kvXIQi%2B5YMrP3MzSgAKKm2vRhzpOYQTgo%2F9uQF92sLehKEKIvg7MfiOlHcadZdkkZiKqxd0B3Lrgb74hYA2VNwuu7SSaH7wmgiqhSIYJMjWBA4F7Mc9mAc9W0as113ZCO8Ml02kzJOG3iaKOz2Nbo2A%3D&ddkey=https%3Agb%2Fgroceries%2Flancashire-farm-greek-yogurt-1kg

@DeepFatFried that one is so nice, I must get some when I go to Morrisons! I shop at Aldi but do the odd trip for yoghurt and salt and pepper bread

Re the yoghurt, I bought an electric yoghurt maker, but you can also use a flask. I use an organic yogurt starter and mix with full fat long life milk, so it costs just over 75p a batch. I also buy a new starter yoghurt once a month.

I don’t think £600 is a lot… I did the same as you - changed shopping habits etc and cooking, in an effort to remove all UPF and eat a wider variety of foods; we are 3- DH, me and DS (plus one ddog and dcat) and our food bill is £600-700 so I think for 5 that is pretty good!!!

I've just looked at my tinned chopped tomatoes and bkack eyed beans from Lidl. The tomatoes contain citric acid which us a natural preservative derived from lemons etc. Like squirting lemon juice on apple to stop it going brown. The beans contain calcium carbonate which is chalk. I'm OK with those additives snd always rinse the beans anyway.

I agree with others £600 seems pretty good going, but completely agree cutting out UPF costs money. We've almost completely cut out, this means all packed lunch food is now UPF free (so Greek yoghurt and berries instead of ski, homemade flapjack over a penguin bar for example) I make cakes and biscuits instead of buying hobnobs, it's those kinds of replacements that really add up (time and money).

Plus upgrading things like mayo, ketchup, squash to the non UPF versions are much more expensive.

Also, don't obsess over removing upf. There's a Q&A on Mumsnet with CVT. He doesn't eat upf anymore but his DC still do and he also says that you really don't have to worry about stock cubes. So, maybe save money buying normal stock cubes and put that towards buying some organic baked beans for a quick, cheap, upf free, eggs, chips and beans one night

@jimjamjoo
Qualifying Costco membership list attached.