Is there a game changer and is this it? UPF

[Sandcastles24]

Inspired by the tread on AIBU which has been deleted. It was a great thread despite the bad starting tone.
The podcast referenced here:
Addicted to food

It says that not all calories are equal. Our weights have got out of control since the introduction of mass production of convenience food in the 60s. Brazil has categorised food which should be avoided as a category 4: ultra processed food.
There have now been loads of studies that suggest it works even I'd they don't pinpoint the reason for the problem with processed food.
I have been thinking of giving this a go for a few years even though it doesn't sound easy at all. Now feels like the day!
I will cut out bought lunches and sauces but I won't be able to cut shop bought bread.

Is anyone else going to try and what will you cut or keep?

will be interested to see what others say. I didnt read the full other thread but saw bits of it and have heard of UPFs before.

Generally I think we eat ok. We do eat shop bought bread - id tried getting the bakery bread and freezing it but with slicing and less options it just didn't work out! We get a seedy wholemeal one which is quite good for protein and healthy fats so I think its OK.

we try to follow a plant based mostly whole foods diet. We do have vegan 'meats' now and again but not more than once or twice a week. don't generally eat vegan cheese. aware both of these are highly processed! lunches are mostly salad and hummus with quinoa/black rice/falafel or homemade soup. Tea would be something lentil, bean or tofu based with veggies and rice (brown shortgrain) or pasta (DS eats wholemeal but I hate it and eat white 😳)

we do eat some rubbish, pizza, ice cream, biscuits etc but in moderation and definitely not every day.

Snacks are usually fruit, bars which only have dates and nuts in, dried fruit, or crisps.

Things I'm changing are

• olive or coconut oil for cooking instead of sunflower
• find out if there's a better bread I could get but still supermarket/off the shelf
• find out if there's a better dairy free butter/spread

also just something I've noticed is that when I stopped eating dairy, I found it much easier to manage my weight. I was a competitive swimmer until about age 21 so weight was never an issue. when I gave up I struggled to keep it where I wanted it despite eating healthily. I gave up dairy and noticed that it was far easier to keep my weight where I wanted it. I also stopped suffering from acid reflux which was awful all through my teens and medicated for long periods of time. I almost never get it now. I gave up dairy about 5 or 6 years ago now though so it not a new change. I do occasionally eat cheese if there's isnt much else or I happen to desperately want some (currently pregnant!)

You might consider ditching bread altogether -now that's a game changer.

Some interesting ideas. I don't think I could give up bread completely or dairy! I love cheese on toast too much. They are things I can cut down on though. I don't eat toast for breakfast anymore. I have swapped it for porridge which I can share with my baby. It is so much nicer too

Swapping the oil is interesting. Haven't thought about cooking oil. I use sunflower too as it doesn't burn but maybe olive would be better for me.
I have actually decided to switch from low fat spread to real butter. I know that is controversial. At least we know what is in butter

@boydy99 not that switching for butter would be possible for a vegan

@Sandcastles24 it's partly being vegan and partly the dairy intolerance as to why we use dairy free butter. I have considered trying butter again but so far not made any moves!

I read that something happens to sunflower oil when heated to high temperatures (sorry can't remember what exactly!) and that olive, avocado or coconut are better alternatives.

no bread is indeed a big gamechanger but I dont know if we can do that! my fussy toddler loves peanut butter on toast and I'd rather not cut out something relatively healthy that he will eat. we do have toast for breakfast though, I've gone through phases of porridge or overnight oats but never stuck to it, maybe I'll try it again in place of toast.

while we're talking peanut butter! Aldi do 1kg tubs of pure peanut butter, nothing added, for a good price. and smaller jars too.

Making your own bread is quite achievable with a bread maker, although I now make sourdough as DH thinks it helps his IBS. I'm quite time pressed but manage to fit it in on work at home days.
It's in another league to sliced bread like fresh brewed espresso vs instant coffee.

I have also ditched cereals for porridge or plain yoghurt with fruit.

Haven't lost any weight but that's probably down to my snack habit.

I personally find when I eat no UPFs I feel so much better, more energetic and have less achey joints.

IMO there is absolutely nothing to lose in ditching UPFs.

I find it hard to sustain as I am weak when it comes to chocolate but any reduction is a positive.

I tried making bread about 10 years ago with a bread maker. It was OK but always came out heavy. I felt that I was eating more calories because the bread was denser.
Do you find that with your breadmaking or ws it just that I had a really cheap bread maker

Why was the other thread deleted??! Hate when that keeps happening. I was wondering where it went to.

Why was it deleted? It was an interesting thread. I feel deletions are getting beyond a joke now.

@carefullycourageous I need to feel better in myself too. Since having a baby everything aches. I need all the help I can get

Olive oil shouldn't be used for cooking, it has a low smoke point, which turns it into bad fat. Unless you buy very expensive types with specific qualities.
The best is vegetable oil, has the lowest smoke point. You want a monounsaturated oil.
Olive oil is only healthy if you use it uncooked say, drizzled on salad.
Also, reheating oil is a disaster. So reheating roast potatoes turns the oil into heart disease. Chip shop chips are so nice because of the many times reheated oil.

www.masterclass.com/articles/cooking-oils-and-smoke-points-what-to-know-and-how-to-choose#how-to-choose-the-right-cooking-oil

Sunflower oil is the healthier option than olive when cooking. I learned this very recently from an NHS course and it blew my mind! I'd been using olive for 20 years thinking it was the healthiest.

I'm more than happy to be corrected if this is all nonsense, a cursory Google is telling me it's true and also the opposite of true and everything in between of course.

I've started listening to this. Strong stuff. Giving kids fizzy drinks is as bad for their health as cigarettes...!

That's fascinating. I always thought olive oild was the best for everything too. I have bought into the Mediterranean idea of it too much without thinking
Maybe that's why reheated roasties are so good too.
I feel that I am learning. If it tastes really good I shouldn't be eating it which is a bit depressing

Panasonic are well known to be the best bread maker. White bread comes out quite decent, wholemeal is denser than shop sliced bread but TBH that is how bread should be. You can eat fewer slices. Also wholemeal keeps better but the white will go stale quickly, like a baguette, so you make a small loaf or freeze half.

It is a game changer but it’s actually almost impossible to achieve in our food environment, everything is packed with shit ingredients,

I try and avoid upf, really try, and I’m sure I eat less than most (yes I’m very healthy) but what you learn is that it’s the processed seed oils that are the game changer for health. And eliminating them is so so hard.

If you really want to do it, it means making your own mayonnaise, bread, burgers (!), sauces.
Seed oils are just put in everything. See palm oil in pretty much anything packaged.

I drink raw milk and besides it being delicious, it has none of the allergy type symptoms with it too. Pasteurisation strips it of the vital nutrients and upsets the lactose balances, which is why people react to it. They don’t tend to react to raw milk. And you get all the microbiome benefits as you’ve not killed off all the good bacteria in pasteurisation.

anyway, yes, upf is the devil, but by god it’s hard to cut out completely such is the state of food production!

@DinoDay

sunflower oil is terrible for you. It destroys your mitochondria. Yes, it’s cooking heat may be good but what it does to your insides ain’t pretty.

we should really be cooking with butter, beef dripping or lard. They are stable fats that the body can handle easily that don’t impact long term health

Blimey. I feel like there is no right choice to make sometimes. I read that avocado oil is the best but I've never seen it.
I'm trying to cook with oil less altogether. Just bought myself a food processor to try to get more fresh veggies into our diet.

We need better omega balance as well, so that means no sunflower or veg oil.
Olive, coconut or lard are better. I take an omega supplement as well, to help, as I don't like oily fish.

It is a game changer but it’s actually almost impossible to achieve in our food environment, everything is packed with shit ingredients Personally, I don't think it is that hard to massively reduce it. 100% purity on almost everything is hard to achieve - but the average calories from UPFs is 60% and it is easy to reduce that unless there are very serious money issues.

The biggest culprits in percentage terms in many people's diets are bread and breakfast cereals - these are quite straightforward to substitute. Making bread is perceived to be time consuming but actually isn't in terms of the number of minutes the cook has to be actively interacting with it. It is a matter of timings and not forgetting to move it to the next stage, but it is easy to make large batches.

Cereal it is easy to switch to oats.

I personally find the fats very confusing. I use butter on toast/in baking, use olive oil in dressings, use sunflower for frying (only shallow e.g. onions for sauces as we never deep fry). Our bread has no oil in it.

Is there any definitive research on fats people can share? Am interested to get this all sorted out in my head!

A dietician at a work seminar re healthy living recommended rape seed oil for cooking. I was buying expensive rape seed oil until someone told me Tesco vegetable oil was rapeseed oil.

The link in the original post doesn't work. Would you mind redoing it please @Sandcastles24

This is a pretty good summary - the ratio between Omega 6 and Omega 3, the double bonded formation of these polyunsaturated fats and how that makes your cells more sensitive to oxidation (harming the cells) are the things that seems to be the problem with these seed oils.

Saturated fats have been vilified in the past 50 years, yet humans lived on them for thousands of years, very healthily. I think you first need to accept that saturated fats (which have no double bonds in their formation) are easily and healthily metabolised in the body's cells - which goes against a lot of the 'wisdom' of today. The (re)emerging wisdom is that saturated fat neither causes heart disease or for you to be obese.

www.healthline.com/nutrition/are-vegetable-and-seed-oils-bad#oxidation