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 ?

Here's mine if you like.

Day 1
Greek yoghurt, honey, chopped banana, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries
Orange juice

Roast chicken, roast potatoes, green beans, broccoli, carrots

Toast (breadmaker bread), butter, cheddar, cucumber, cherry tomatoes

Day 2
Greek yoghurt, homemade granola, dried apricots, hazelnuts, orange juice

Peanut butter sandwiches, raw carrot, cucumber, bell pepper, cherry tomatoes

Venison saddle (cooked in the pan for 7 mins like a steak) with garlic butter, jacket potatoes and "coleslaw" (chopped carrots and cabbage with raisins mixed with Greek yoghurt and olive oil)

Day 3
Avocado on toast, boiled egg, orange juice

Cheese sandwich, olives, banana, popcorn

Tuna fritters (made with tinned tuna, sweetcorn, cheddar, egg, flour, garlic, parsley, chives), mashed sweet potato, lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes. DH also had baked beans - I buy Tesco organic which are better than average imo.

If you are fussy though it might be easier to try and make swaps that mean you're still eating the same as normal, but better quality versions. Like, there are more and less upf versions of most things.

I'm all for reducing UPFs and do my best to do UPF free at home, but I'm a bit sceptical about this:

"For lunch and dinner I do ‘veggies first’ because of what Jessie Inchauspe says about gut transitions - basically it provides optimum conditions for the gut if you have a plate of veg, meat, carbs. She says eat in the order of veg, meat, carbs to help not have ‘sugar spikes’."

Does Jessie Inchauspe not experience peristalsis? Her insides are like one of those layered sand art vases? 😁

Also, many veggies ARE carbs, so veggies first carbs last won't always work.

Of course they are What do you think it means?

Yes veggies are carbs but unless root veggies they don’t spike glucose as much.

I agree. I started going UPF free just because I wanted to cut down supermarket plastics. Then the big conversation about UPF started. Been doing it for a few years. I have not lost noticed a weight loss due to it. I am mid sixties and have to be active due to looking after 8 month grandson so maybe it has helped without me realizing.

cooking from scratch just saves so much money. Having a freezer to batch cook helps - oooh just wonder does freezing count as a process so I’m actually eating more processed food than I thought????

I realise that. Unfortunately adding in synthetic vitamins is not the same as getting them naturally from food and will generally be less bioavailable and lacking in cofactors which help with absorption.

You should read the book—Inchauspé also thought because of peristalsis that it shouldn't make a difference what order you eat in, but it turns out the science says otherwise.

It's about eating fibre first, not specifically vegetables.

This reads very much like an advert. My teenage grandsons' diet is definitely not 80% upf and mine has always been very low.

No freezing is fine. UPF means adding ingredients that we don’t typically have in our cupboards. Buying frozen veg or fish etc that has not been adulterated is also fine.

Are butter and cheese UPF too?

Following with interest.

They are not. Neither are rice or normal pasta ( not the readymeal kind). Ordinary noodles is not UPF, Pot Noodles is

But spreads are.

Most teens eat school lunches (largely very poor quality) and/or buy shite. Carry-outs, junk food, energy drinks, UPFs. Some teens I know appear to eat virtually nothing that would be called actual food. So 80% sounds absolutely reasonable, although of course that doesn't mean every teen has this diet.

Butter isn't as long as it's just pure butter & not mixed with oils to make it soft.
Processed cheese eg. Cheese strings & the like are Upf. Any other cheese is ok. Even babybels according to the female researcher on the Zoe podcasts.

I'd love to read it - what is the book?

Sounds like a windup.
Not sure what you were wearing before that a new diet with crisps and chocolate still in makes such a difference in a single week.

crisps are still UPF btw.
chocolate likely too

It's called Glucose Revolution. It's fascinating and useful, but her writing style is really annoying (it's all Insta-speak and wanging on about "hacks").

Yeah he definitely says a few things that I don’t align with, end of the day he is selling a product, too. Would be weird if I 100% agreed with everything coming out of his mouth, wouldn’t it

However he has got the attention of the masses and got people to understand gut health and how different people react differently to different types of foods. Nuance. Science in the mainstream.

The best way to get attention to an important cause, unfortunately, is to make a headline grabbing controversial statement, then explain the nuance. Or simplify complex thought. Seems to have worked with the porridge oats!

And that’s the important bit.

I agree with this.

OP, I understand that you don’t have a kitchen so cooking from scratch is not an option, but if you only eat 1000 kcal a day, a bag of crisps and two pieces of chocolate are 1/3 of your total calorie intake. Which means that your diet is really low in fibre and lacking nutrients, crisps are not famously full of vitamins.

I don’t want to rain on your parade but no matter how low on UPF this is, it’s not how healthy eating looks like. You are likely to end up deficient of some key nutrients, starting with folate (as most people in the developed world btw). I don’t know how you ate before your new, low UPF diet, it’s great that you feel better, but it’s quite irresponsible to promote this as healthy eating because it’s not.

Sugar isn't upf though. I'm cutting down on emulsifiers and gums and things.

I'm not worried about the sugar in a teaspoon of jam and honey has its own benefits too.

Someone may already have suggested as not raft but Jason’s is UPF

Fair enough.

Re: mayonnaise, we make our own using the quick blender method from Delia's One Is Fun. Uses a whole egg instead of just yolk, takes about a minute, and is even easier with a stick blender.

Thanks - and for the warning as well about the writing style. I tend to assume anyone who talks about "diet hacks" is making it up as they go along!