Did anyone watch "What are we feeding our kids?" on BBC1

[MarchXX]

Here's link.

i astounded that there has been little to no research of the effect of UPSs on our brains and bodies. The results on Chris (after one month) were dire indeed.

Chris's brain scans before and after were shocking but not surprising as UPF food manufacturers spend multi££££millions on research to find the perfect bliss point to skewer and keep new addicted consumers eating their products again and again.

I was interested in the huge increase in our consumption of UPF foods since 1980 but would have liked to see the difference from 1970 or 1960 because when I was a child growing up (in 60s) there was virtually no UPF foods in our home, all meals were cooked using fresh meat/fish, eggs, veg and fruit with some dried/tinned goods and no ready meals/takeaways. Eating out (or takeaways) was a very rare treat indeed and snacking between meals was frowned upon and not encouraged.

The representative from the food industry was, not surprisingly, reticent about their role in the deteriorating health of our nation's population. Nestle's success in infiltrating remote communities with their UPF-packed supermarket-boats and creating new addicted consumers (and an obesity epidemic) was an eye-opener but not at all surprising seeing as their role in exploiting breastfeeding mothers in third world countries is well known, too.

Anyway, did anyone watch it. What did you think?

It's all very well but it's practically impossible to avoid UPF unless you have a huge amount of time and money.

I have a bread maker but when I use it a loaf disappears in one meal because a) it's delicious and b) you can't cut thin slices so everyone has massive doorsteps so it's no good for sandwiches. I also bake cookies and cakes frequently and it costs a lot more in ingredients than buying a 25p packet of malted milk. They are also very moreish and a batch will be eaten in a day. So I don't really buy the idea that only processed food makes you want to eat more and more. My son would eat homemade cookies until they were gone given half a chance.

As almost everything is processed, it seems to me that saying "avoid processed food" is the same as saying eat as much fresh fruit and vegetables as possible. Which a) everyone knows is healthier but b) as stated by others, costs a lot.

I agree that making people feel guilty and worried about food is possibly more dangerous. Better to promote an "everything in moderation" and eat as much fruit and veg as possible idea.

It scandalous how there are few low cost food shops in low income areas. I bought a tin of tomatoes from a food shop in a low income area and it was £1. That’s about x3 the price in Aldi. No wonder we have food poverty in the UK. Greengrocers and butchers should pay zero business rates and be subsidised if necessary

@bonbonours factory food producers spend millions developing food that is very moreish.

@DobbyTheHouseElk
We do buy organic yeo valley, but yes it’s all processed.

I buy either this, or Rachel's, and make layered fruit yogurt with it using either raspberries, strawberries, blueberries or blackberries (or a mix of them). I thought I was avoiding crap additives by doing this as I don't like flavoured yogurt.

I think with yoghurt it can either be minimally processed (e.g. no added sugar natural yoghurts), or more highly processed (i.e. with added sugar, flavouring, stabilisers etc), it really depends on which type you’re having.

Someone earlier posted this BBC summary, which explains the levels of processing quite well I think. The documentary was very much focussed on Ultra Processed Foods.

www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_food

@FourWordsImMuNiTy

A tin of tomatoes needs to be cooked for half an hour or more to taste nice, and have herbs/spices/puree etc added to taste. A jarred sauce has already been precooked for that time.

I use just a tin of organic chopped tomatoes, red onions, garlic, basil, olives and black pepper to make a sauce. Sometimes I'll put chilli in it. This works on its own with pasta, or I sometimes put in chicken. Cooks in 15-20 minutes. Occasionally I will liquidise tomatoes myself. Also use Doves Farm or free from pasta as well. Fast food, takes less than half an hour to cook. But does taste better on Day 2 so often I make loads!

@Sandra15

I do the same. I add fruit to the plain yogurt. Occasionally we use honey and ground cinnamon.

I think plain yogurt must be ok ish. But I might contact Yeo Valley and ask. We live near to Yeo Valley and I know some farming friends who’s milk goes there.

I think with tinned tomatoes it’s a question of adjusting your taste buds. I used jar sauce as an emergency quick meal. Now I always use tinned tomato, onions, peppers and Basil.

I found a jar in the cupboard and used it, but it tasted foul. Very sweet and wrong. It used to taste fine to me, but I’m now very aware of sweetness.

@MarchXX Offal meats are really inexpensive and I use them regularly.

Liver stroganoff, home made, is fantastic.

Cheapest cuts of meat are often the nicest tasting.

At the risk of sounding high-handed, I didn't find the programme that shocking. The bits about Chris's brain "wiring", yes. But the actual classification of food, and the makeup of a typical UK diet, no.

We're sitting here arguing the toss about Lloyd Grossman v homemade bolognese, but that family in Stockport was wall to wall nuggets, readymade kebab meat (?) - things that are very far into the realm of ultraprocessed. If that lad lived on a diet of Lloyd Grossman sauces, white pasta and cheese no one would bat an eye and I doubt he'd have the cravings he did.

There are lots of people living in food deserts, pushed for time, in poverty, relying on metered gas and electric that makes a 20 minute nuggets and chips meal more viable than a slow-cooked dhal or whatever. That's before you get to teaching people from quite a young age about the basics of making a meal. Not - here's a bolognese, but here's a fried egg, here's how you cook pasta, or rice, or what you do with a broccoli. Here's what seasonal food means. So Nestle et al come along with products that entice people and seem to solve all their problems in one - hard to resist really. And by the time their kids are two/three, their habits are quite firmly ingrained.

FWIW, I run a food bank - people come along each week and choose for themselves from a selection of tins, ambient items such as bread, fruit, veg, some meat, some dairy items. Various ages, quite diverse demographics. I'd never thought about our typical selection through the lens of UPF but did after this programme. The most popular foods/ingredients week on week are chopped tomatoes, tinned fish, milk, cheddar cheese, biscuits, cereal (all sorts... I'd say muesli/granola the most popular), apples, bananas, tomatoes, other fruit and veg when we have it in (with the exception of things like turnip and celeriac which very few people want), bread. If there's a range of bread on offer I've noticed that the UPF bread (soft white burger buns from a supermarket, rolls etc) will go first, ahead of (literally) handmade sourdough surplus from a bakery collected fresh that morning that sells for £4.50, but other than that I'd say that actually - cost considerations aside - the people we serve will choose less processed items. It's anecdotal, obviously, but leads me to think that the most critical factor is cost.

Eggs, is another popular one. Sausages or chicken pieces such as drumsticks when we have them.

I think completely natural yogurt is fine. There was a bowl of it on the table in category one in the doc

@FishyFriday

Yes *@MarchXX* the programme is about UPFs. But what happens is people simplify it down and decide that 'processing' is the problem and 'unprocessed' is inherently best.

The problem is not the processing in itself. It's what is being processed and how. And the marketing that goes along with it. And various societal conditions that contribute to people's diets being made up disproportionately of highly processed industrial food like substances.

I totally agree, @FishyFriday. There is a significant difference between Group 3 processed foods which we can prepare in our own kitchen and Group 4 which consist of ultra processed foods and have been specifically designed to be overeaten. The programme seems to show that these UPFs cause changes in our brains and that our children are particularly vulnerable.

It is a real worry.

How did we get here?

We seem to have wandered into a toxic food environment with our eyes closed. Is it supermarkets? Are they the conduit that enabled the UPF industry to get in our kitchen cupboards? I well remember growing up in the 60s not having supermarkets at all where I lived.

We had a green grocers, grocers, bread shop, fish shop, butchers, tobacconist/sweet shop, haberdashery, chemist, post office. No freezers, everything fresh, single ingredients. No UPFs.

We have lost our way and become addicted to these UPFs. We don't want to give them up. I certainly didn't and procrastinated for months before going cold turkey and stopping them all. Phew, it was hard initially but the benefits have intinued to accrue and I won't return to eating UPFs, ever.

I hate ready meals but I do confess to a liking for Charlie Bigham chilli and cottage pie which I have occasionally, once or twice a month maybe. The ingredients are far better than the Waitrose Classic one that they sent me once as a substitute and I stupidly kept.

I don't really like bread, hate flavoured yogurt and fruit juice (guilty pleasure is San Pellegrino Limonata or Aranciata), normally cook everything from scratch and don't drink much. But I do eat too much chocolate.

If your Granny wouldn't recognize it as food, don't buy it.

Granny lived in a different era.
I don't think that's a fair thing to say.

@IHaveBrilloHair

Granny lived in a different era. I don't think that's a fair thing to say.

Ok, how about if you don't understand the ingredients on the label don't buy it? It isn't difficult to avoid buying and eating UPF if you really want to. It's the easy option.

@DobbyTheHouseElk

I think with tinned tomatoes it’s a question of adjusting your taste buds. I used jar sauce as an emergency quick meal. Now I always use tinned tomato, onions, peppers and Basil.

I found a jar in the cupboard and used it, but it tasted foul. Very sweet and wrong. It used to taste fine to me, but I’m now very aware of sweetness.

Yes, I agree. I only started consciously avoiding processed foods this year, but as it happens my husband doesn't like those jar sauces so we've been doing our own sauces with tinned tomatoes for years. I used to have them regularly and think nothing of it but now if I have a jar sauce, it has an artificially sweet taste. It doesn't take much longer to do, say, a bolognese with tinned tomatoes.

My Granny smoked 80+ a day so I don’t think she was the healthiest. She used to eat a lot of pilchards.

I thought I was saving time by using a jar. But actually it isn’t taking much longer to quickly chop a few veg and Chuck in a tin of tomatoes. Also it’s nicer. I won’t buy a jar sauce again.

@DobbyTheHouseElk

My Granny smoked 80+ a day so I don’t think she was the healthiest. She used to eat a lot of pilchards.

At what age did she die?

70’s. Very early compared to her siblings who lived til 90+. She consumed a lot of sugar too. Thin as a rake.

@viques. I like bread to rise and not sink so add salt, a little olive oil just because

@fishyfriday

why do you think that oats aren't providing nutrients? They have the following vitamins and minerals and they are high in fibre. You could make porridge from buck wheat instead or mixed, kasha is full of vitamins and minerals and plenty of fibre www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/buckwheat#vitamins-and-minerals

Manganese. Typically found in high amounts in whole grains, this trace mineral is important for development, growth, and metabolism (25Trusted Source).
Phosphorus. This mineral is important for bone health and tissue maintenance (26Trusted Source).
Copper. An antioxidant mineral often lacking in the Western diet, copper is considered important for heart health (27Trusted Source).
Vitamin B1. Also known as thiamine, this vitamin is found in many foods, including grains, beans, nuts, and meat.
Iron. As a component of hemoglobin, a protein responsible for transporting oxygen in the blood, iron is absolutely essential in the human diet.
Selenium. This antioxidant is important for various processes in your body. Low selenium levels are associated with increased risk of premature death and impaired immune and mental function (28Trusted Source).
Magnesium. Often lacking in the diet, this mineral is important for numerous processes in your body (29Trusted Source).
Zinc. This mineral participates in many chemical reactions in your body and is important for overall health

added to this as the foods aren't ultra processed and both have many other benefits