I’ve gone non UPF, I just can’t believe the difference it’s made in a week

[LaurieFairyCake]

I feel like such an idiot. I can’t believe how well I feel, how much I’m ready for bed and how much better I sleep.

this shit is radical. I was eating 40% upf (a teenagers diet is 80% 😱) and I feel brand new.

i have zero pain in my joints, during the day loads of good energy

does anyone else do this ?

Out of idle curiosity, as someone who doesn't buy ready meals, jars of sauce etc as routine, and can afford to buy high quality ingredients (free range, organic etc) I downloaded the app someone mentioned upthread. To see how UPF or not my food is.

Scanned various things in my fridge/cupboard. Can anyone explain why raw chicken has a lower rating than my loaf of bread?

I am all in favour of healthy eating, but an awful lot of the posts on here are almost bordering on religious in their fervour. Life must be exhausting to have to inspect everything and evaluate constantly whether it meets some arbitrary criteria on its merits.

My 5% is chocolate, crisps, occasional white bread or wraps or pizza, occasional sauces.

I didn't grow up eating ready meals or processed stuff so it's not difficult to do without those. And I don't eat meat or fake meat so growing up we never went to Mcdonalds or Greggs. We did eat pizza.

Placebo effect

Aren’t babybels just Edam cheese?
Most food is processed in some way it’s ultra processed we need to avoid.
You can cook and eat unhealthy on a UPF diet.
Just like cooking from scratch isn’t always healthy.

Can I ask why you have no kitchen at moment?

@soupyspoon

When I refer to people, including me, to eat less and more plants within that, Im talking about lowering the extremist narrative that one cant touch a home made fruit smoothie or bowl of porridge for fear of obesity or diabetes.

This is a straw man. No-one has said you can never touch these things. It's just the reality that things like smoothies and porridge are widely considered to be de facto healthy, and then people eat too much of them too often. I used to do exactly this, with exactly those two food items.

There is a massive difference between porridge made with whole oats and water, and Ready Brek with golden syrup. Ready Brek and those microwave porridges are ground down so they have less fibre. Anyone eating the latter every day for breakfast will be spiking their glucose more than someone eating the former. Same with e.g. a tropical fruit smoothie vs a fruit salad.

My hob/oven broke, can’t afford to replace them right now. The actual floor blew last week (it’s a laminate) due to a leak so replacing the floor has to take priority. I can’t boil eggs hence buying ready made egg mayonnaise (non upf one).

There is no explanation, its absolute nonsense to have ratings like that.

Technically condensed milk is not a UPF. Its processed, highly processed but only contains milk and sugar.
I made fudge out of this yesterday. Its horribly moreish, hugely sugary, home made 'scratch cooked'.

It probably definitely gave me one of those deadly glucose spike. I felt ill after eating it. It wasnt for me but I made sure I had my fair share.

This is not part of a regular healthy diet for anyone, but technically not a UPF.

So you know, its ok and better than shop bought bread!!

I’ve been (almost) no UPFs for the past 2 months. My diet was awful before. I definitely have more energy and have lost a stone, but I’m getting sooo bored of eating the same things every day! I’m an extremely unimaginative cook so most days consist of fruit, plain yoghurt, eggs, nuts, avocado, smoked salmon, most dinners are chicken breast/salmon/tuna fillet and veggies.
@LaurieFairyCake do you have any meal ideas/inspiration you can share?

Its not a straw man when the comment I first responded to was in relation to someone posting about their home made smoothie and using the bland blanket statement of 'giving you a glucose spike' without any context to it.

Ready Brek is not porridge so somewhat irrelevant to the conversation.

Trolling?

All the evidence is that eating healthily / less UPF is better for you long term.

She is reducing Ultra processed not processed food!

Another good one to follow is Zoe Harcombe.

You can eat pasta and make your own sauce. It's not UPF.
Or stirfries with your own soy, ginger, chilli sauce and noodles.
Or rice with any kind of curry or daal.
Or quesadillas. The wrap may be processed but you could make your own tortillas.
Or home made pizza.

Literally all normal food!

There is huge confusion on this thread over improving diet and banning UPF. Most people are simply improving their diet by cutting out UPF. UPF is not poison!! If you cut down on sugar etc then yes many people will feel better it is not cutting out UPF per se. Also it's cultish and incredibly irritating and non scientific "ban UPF" just ridiculous. People like something to latch on to though so it appeals to basic psychology I suppose, a bit like joinging a club. Don't kid yourselves that UPF is necessarily bad for you which is the general gist of this thread. EG there was a fitness professional who did a challenge on line of eating only Mars bars (very calorie restricted though) they lost weight and felt better because their overall calorie intake per day was reduced to allow weight loss even though they were eating chocolate. Just focus on the facts not the cultish hype.

I buy De Cecco pasta.

I agree with much of what you say but I would be surprised if someone eating only mars bars, despite losing weight on them, would 'feel better'. What were they eating before, plutonium and heroin or something?

You could eat a diet of 1500 cals worth of mars bars a day, whats that about 4 of them?

You'd be a sick as a dog probably after a day or so. You probably couldnt even face them after that.

How long did he do this for?

People are confusing UPF and processed food. Rice or pasta or wheat or chicken are not UPF. They may be processed but that's ok. Rice or pasta or chicken in a readymeal or microwave rice with a ton of additives is UPF.

Regardless if you eat too much rice like I used to, it may lead to diabetes!

This is me also. I don’t spend too much time thinking about UPF but I cook meals from scratch pretty much every day and stay active.

I think we would be better served by trying to get people to prepare meals with fresh ingredients rather than making these kind of drastic changes.

Basic/value pasta is not UPF. It's durum wheat and water...

The filled pastas/shaped tinned pasta might be UPF depending on ingredients

A lot of ready meals and microwave rices are not UPFs. I dont want to bring out my regular post of the Tesco basic lasagne, but I might have to!

I dont know why people think ready meals ergo are UPFs.

Sorry can’t find it in the thread - what app is it?

But many are? I guess one would have to read the ingredients.

Ironically this is far more of a cultish view as you've watched a 'fitness professional' (intrigued what their qualifications are) and believe what they have said to be true despite it flying in the face of common sense and science. Yes someone eating only mars bars under their BMR of calories then they'll lose weight, and they may feel better because they've lost weight, but they would feel infinitely better if they'd eaten below their calories in non UPF foods.

Got a Panasonic bread maker for Xmas. Genuinely takes about 2 or 3 mins to chuck the ingredients in and press go. Total game changer for us.