UPFs, prepared baby foods and the issues

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From The Guardian and a recommended read for all parentshttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/15/ultra-processed-babies-are-toddler-snacks-one-of-the-great-food-scandals-of-our-time#comments

Great article and so true, but many people will not want to hear the message.

If anyone is interested in this topic, follow Fran Bernhardt on LinkedIn. She campaigns in this area and posts regularly. Her posts are often an education in themselves.

Surely formula is the biggest UPF of all??!

That article does some finger wagging at the marketing of "growing up" or "toddler" formula past the point when kids technically need milk. However they really skirted around the fact that newborns and babies are ingesting UPFs every single day for the entire first few months of their life. If formula isn't necessary for toddlers, what is it doing to newborns?

Babies have been raised on formula for decades now. Most of Gen X were (if my anecdata is much to go by!) and they’re still healthier than Gen Z, who are more likely to be breastfed but eat rubbish later on. The beige kiddy food market is much bigger now than in the 1980s. So it doesn’t really appear baby formula is the issue.

Keeping them alive?

Sometimes when breast milk isn't an option.

Yes but what is the alternative? I mean breast milk, obviously, but there does need to be an alternative for those who can’t/don’t want to BF. Presumably research shows UPF formula is better than say, cow’s milk or oat milk, for newborns.

Toddler snacks and pouches are a different story as they are completely unnecessary, albeit convenient at times.

Thanks for sharing. It’s pretty devastating.

I know - such a big surprise how much sugar is included in some of the pouches! I have used them recently because I have been too tired to cook every night.

I must say - I have tasted some of the savoury pouches and thought they were awful. No taste at all.

Oh well, back to batch cooking.

But the fact still is that baby formula is an ultra processed food. Why would anyone start their precious baby off on an UPF? It astounds me that this is considered normal. Unless there is no alternative it is a seriously weird choice. Anyone who cares about UPFs can’t seriously think bringing their newborn up on nothing but UPFs is a good choice. There is no debate. It IS an UPF

‘Don’t want to’ is a lame excuse for choosing to feed a baby exclusively on manufactured ULTRA processed food.

there is no arguement that makes it reasonable. Need? Yes. Want? Nope.

UPF is a meaningless term unless you frame it in the context of health risks. What health risks are there for a baby from formula? Very few. A slightly higher chance of an ear infection, or a 2% greater chance of being overweight. Things so slight you can only see them on a population level. What are the health risks of not having formula if needed? Jaundice, weight loss, dehydration… it’s really not the issue here.

I know loads of kids who were breastfed for years on end who are obese as their mums, while very diligent about the breastfeeding, seem to be woefully undereducated about food. I was with one a few months ago who was telling me about how she breastfed her kids to 2, while handing them a slushie. The youngest is only 4.

Equally I know loads of formula fed kids whose mums are diligent about their diet and they’re fine.

@carrotsandtomatoes both my DC where formula fed and now follow a upf free diet. There is a big difference between 12 months of upf formula compared to potentially decades of a upf diet. I know which I would prefer my DC to be exposed to.

Yes plus the ingredients in formula are very very very strictly monitored. Not so much so for slushies, McDonalds, luminous coloured sweets, and Iceland sausages made of pigs’ buttholes.

It's a valid reason. Especially as breastfeeding involves a woman's body.

Her body, her choice absolutely applies here.

This is about snacks not formula.
OP you are not wrong. It's absolutely disgusting that kids are being fed this shite. How hard is it to offer fruit or veg sticks, or something healthier. Also kids don't need snacks all the time. This is a very modern phenomenon and is directly linked to the fat children who are all around us.

Personally I do think that if you have chosen to produce a child the child's health takes president over the mother's. If you aren't willing to try and make them healthy as through breastfeeding and diet thats ok..just don't have a baby. Fair enough if you've tried and it hasn't worked then definitely go for the best option but try first if you can.

A happy, mentally well mother is beneficial to a baby.

Forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do is never ok and isn't going to be good for a baby either.

Not to mention the fact that a baby is such a small part of having a child. Choosing to formula feed doesn't automatically make someone a bad parent.

Like most things, I'm sure toddler snacks are fine on occasion as part of a balanced diet. I don't think an occasional convenience pouch of pureed peas is the problem and surely, nobody thinks pizza flavoured multicoloured sticks are a health food. The problem I see is that they can be a gateway to 'normal' snacks. At some point most parents give up on the organic, reduced sugar/salt options because of the cost but by this time the toddler is used to having these type of snacks so parents opt to buy cheaper but high fat, high sugar/ salt options. Now you have a toddler with a taste for junk food and later a school age child who wants a packet of crisps instead of an apple.

Well, of course breast milk is best but not everyone can breast feed. In the old days, before formula, if another woman was not available to breast feed the baby, they would make up concoctions of watered-down cows milk and sugar etc but that really was not great for babies…

But it’s not mentally damaging for most women choosing formula is it. It’s just that they don’t want to.

And yes, parenting is way more than what they eat but what they eat is an enormous factor.

why even worry about UPFs at all for anyone if you are happy to feed a newborn on nothing but UPFs for the first 6 months of their life?

its lunacy to have a single negative opinion on UPFs if that’s what you choose to feed your newborn

and yes its regulated. But if you think UPFs are not great why do you think it’s ok to feed a newborn born nothing but UPFs for the first 6 months of their life?

The formula point seems like enormous whataboutery.

These pouches, snacks etc are marketed heavily to parents who are pretty vulnerable in the early weaning stage and may be anxious about how/what to feed their young children. They are marketed as healthy, wholesome, a good first step etc. In practice a lot of them are nutritionally vacant.

You’re really honing in on the word ‘UPF’ without actually indicating why this is an issue here. Of course breast milk is healthier, but only by a very small amount. You can’t tell which 1 year old was formula fed and which was breast fed, but you can tell which 10 year old has spent their life drinking Tango Ice Blasts, eating beige freezer food and playing Fortnite.

If posters have an anti formula agenda, perhaps they could fuck off and take it elsewhere? It’s a different argument from the kiddy UPF foods that are touted on here.

No wonder we have loads of children with “ARFID” if this is the kind of shit they eat. I do think this is an area that really needs legislation.

This thread is being derailed by rather silly people who can't seem to see beyond their own personal hobby horse.
Babies need milk to survive early on. Either breast or the next-best thing, formula.
Toddler's do not need melty puffs or sticks to survive.
It's a simple argument, but I suppose when you combine the twin frothers of bfeeding and UPF, it's bound to attract extreme posters who have no grip on proportion.

I think the bigger issue is among households where adults and children follow different diets/eat separately. That seems to lead to a diet of unhealthy beige food.

we didn’t do very many pouches (I handmade purées for my PFB, totally baby led no.2). We did do some of the snack foods, mostly the giant carrot wotsits and the rice cakes. I found those were quite useful for grabbing and coordination alongside real foods.