Is anyone trying to stay away from UPF (Ultra processed food)?

Over Clocker

Over Clocker

Over Clocker

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Hey guys, after a bit of a healthscare last year, I've been looking at my diet quite a lot, and have recently found myself reading up a lot about ultra processed foods (UPF). I'm trying to not be too virtuous about it as some talk on UPF always seems like religious preaching, but I am now far more aware of looking at ingredients of things and not getting sucked into options such as low fat, fortified cereals, random flavourings and weird ingredient that have nothig to do with food!

Is anyone else going down this route at the moment? As someone who doesn't cook all that much, it's quite difficult, and very expensive!

Thanks,
Mal
 
Yep, read Ultra Processed People recently and have cut out most processed stuff.

I haven't found it particularly more expensive myself as a lot of the junk food is quite expensive anyway, although I do cook all of my food from scratch pretty much anyway. I guess it's either more time/effort or more money needed!

I had been a bit more lax recently but am back on it now. One thing I did do was buy a good bread machine with a dough function, that gets rid of a lot of the crappy bread additives and makes making your own pizza or other bread products a lot easier.

I think it's hard getting away from making your own food really, pretty much everything you buy pre-made has some kind of bacterial gum, emulsifier or hydrogenated oil in it.

You're definitely right about not being too extreme with it, I don't want to be round someone's house and be like "oh sorry, I can't eat that", but there are ways to keep roughly on track when eating out (steaks instead of more processed food options etc).

I definitely feel better for doing it, I used to get IBS like symptoms fairly regularly as well as heartburn and general bloating, but since cutting out UPF those have subsided. One thing to be careful of is getting too good at making your own food and losing some of the benefits of a more natural diet!
 
I'm looking to reduce my intake but won't be eliminating it completely. UPF's are so easily available and easy to consume it's an easy trap to fall into. Thankfully I actually enjoy cooking so it's making that a more consistent habit again where I'll improve.
 
Over Clocker said:
Hey guys, after a bit of a healthscare last year, I've been looking at my diet quite a lot, and have recently found myself reading up a lot about ultra processed foods (UPF). I'm trying to not be too virtuous about it as some talk on UPF always seems like religious preaching, but I am now far more aware of looking at ingredients of things and not getting sucked into options such as low fat, fortified cereals, random flavourings and weird ingredient that have nothig to do with food!

Is anyone else going down this route at the moment? As someone who doesn't cook all that much, it's quite difficult, and very expensive!

Thanks,
Mal
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It's definitely not that expensive, meat and veg are cheap.

Buy high fat mince and chicken on the bone (both better for you anyway). Eggs, loads of eggs. Stuff like suarkraut is delicious, super healthy and super cheap.

You just have to change your mindset that food isn't for flavour but to provide your body with nutrition.
 
Since 2017 I have made an effort to go eat healthier. These days my UPF intake is minimal but I do still pig out now and then on UPF if I feel like it.

My main take away is eat healthy 75% of the time. The other 25% is my indulgence.
 
It’s unavoidable.

Most if not all condiments are ultra processed.

Anything that’s pickled or preserved are ultra processed.

I have stopped buying mince out of packaging. Instead get cuts from butcher and ask them to mince for me as then I know what goes into the mince.

Also buying from butcher for general meat instead of packaged stuff. And fish from fish monger instead.

Definitely not buying anything like burgers and sausages etc.

Also cutting out certain cereals and retaining the ones that are more natural.

I went 2 months without a sausage roll. But couldn’t resist the other day. Hahaha, I think I will have sausage roll as my guilty pleasure.
 
Anything except raw meat and uncooked veg are processed. Humans were only able to develop big brains because we cooked food and could get more calories out of it.
I hear the slowly defrosting mammoth carcases in siberia taste absolutely divine at this time of year.
 
Hotwired said:
Probably the high level of processing that goes into flour. The romans mashed grains between two rocks and called it a day. We get perfect flour by throwing specially grown grains through a gigantic processing building.
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Romans had a life expectancy of under 30 years, so I'm not sure it was all roses.
 
Hotwired said:
Probably the high level of processing that goes into flour. The romans mashed grains between two rocks and called it a day. We get perfect flour by throwing specially grown grains through a gigantic processing building.
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Mechanically grinding grain isn’t ultra processing. I think UP is reference to chemicals processes.

Human digestive track is far too short to be able to effectively digest food if unprocessed.

Processed food is ok, we need it to take up the nutrients. I think processed food has had a real bad rep over the year as meaning something aweful.

And those “processed foods” are really ultra processed - such as burgers/sausages/ham/stuff in the tins etc

One thing I am really worried about is all the alternative milk ie Soya/oat/almond etc. my boy is dairy allergy and he has no option, and supposedly these are full of chemicals and emulsifiers that is bad for you. I ain’t got a clue now.
 
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Not consciously taking account of UPF but I buy unprocessed vegetables and cook most meals from basic ingredients. I certainly use rice, dry pasta and bread (are they UPF sins?) and although I buy fresh ginger and garlic I don't try to make my own fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce or whatever. For curries I will use powdered spices rather than anything premade in a jar (I do buy coconut milk but choose the ones that have the highest percentage coconut and least additives) and I don't buy premade pasta sauces (although I do consider tomato puree and passata to be essentials).

Sometimes I am a bit surprised by the content of people's trolleys at the supermarket - piles of ready meals, confectionery, fizzy drinks etc. Who pays £2.50 to take home 300 grams of McCain salt and pepper fries, when you can get 2.5kg of Maris Piper or King Edward potatoes for £1.70 and make chips for days!
 
My father passed away in Feb, which led to me doing everything mostly by my lonesome (single child). The toll it took on me was very high and I ended up with Stage2 hypertension. I was told I won't really last long unless major changes were made.
I already ate well beforehand and didn't snack much but weighing in at 15.5stone did mean I was overweight regardless. So, I cut out almost all processed foods/meats and lowered my already low sugar/salt intake. Sadly we live in an UPF world and have been engineered to crave the crap.

I turned to Huel Black in the mornings to help me up my protein intake and keep my nutrient intake up whilst I have a Huel Savoury 2-3 times a week. Luckily my job and commute keeps me active and burning around 900-1000kcals a day too. I used to lecture/work at a gym back in the day so my focus once set on something is easy to keep. Aside from Huel, my main foods are tuna, wholemeal rice, pulses, kidney beans, lentils etc.

The end result since July has been 3stone lost and counting. It is nice seeing old muscles at 47 showing up again :) I have a blood pressure checkup this month with my GP and I do look and feel a lot better.

It is expensive though - all my nice clothes have had to be set aside for charity because everything is so loose. All my old coats now have to be parted with too becasue the sleeves come down to my knuckles. Jeans literally fall down when I put them on.
Buying a new wardrobe is an absolute pita because going from a shirt size of XL to Medium, or 36 to 32 waist size means these sizes aren't always available for the apparel you want.
 
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pc-guy said:
Mechanically grinding grain isn’t ultra processing. I think UP is reference to chemicals processes.

Human digestive track is far too short to be able to effectively digest food if unprocessed.

Processed food is ok, we need it to take up the nutrients. I think processed food has had a real bad rep over the year as meaning something aweful.

And those “processed foods” are really ultra processed - such as burgers/sausages/ham/stuff in the tins etc

One thing I am really worried about is all the alternative milk ie Soya/oat/almond etc. my boy is dairy allergy and he has no option, and supposedly these are full of chemicals and emulsifiers that is bad for you. I ain’t got a clue now.
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A lot of the problem is the race to the bottom in recent years substituting ingredients where possible for the cheapest and nastiest alternative, etc. hence many childhood favourites now tasting like **** (and not just a perception change due to time/age). Some of this stuff really isn't good even if it is just mildly upsetting the digestive system.

For most people an incidental amount won't be a problem but if it makes up a larger portion of your intake it might be.

Rather than cutting it out entirely, though possibly a bit harder discipline wise, most people would probably benefit from periodically giving their body a rest from it - though maybe not the whole fast/detox thing entirely.
 
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kona786 said:
Since 2017 I have made an effort to go eat healthier. These days my UPF intake is minimal but I do still pig out now and then on UPF if I feel like it.

My main take away is eat healthy 75% of the time. The other 25% is my indulgence.
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That's probably about where I am. Saying that, the 25% makes me feel worse than the other 75% so I'm trying to cut that back too now.
UP food isn't really food...
 
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