- and again it feels as if they are banging their heads against the wall. They are particularly concerned for younger people, who are consuming the wrong stuff while their bodies are still developing - and storing up trouble for the future.I'm 68, so I recognise I am definitely not young anymore. But I believe I do have a responsibility to be a good role model for my grandchildren and encourage them to eat well. But it is so difficult for parents these days when peer pressure means their kids want to eat at McDonalds, or snack in front of the TV. Most families will admit that at some stage, their children have been fussy eaters - and they have given in for the sake of family harmony. And families who are really struggling to manage the budget often find it is quicker, easier and cheaper to buy UPF ready meals than to buy ingredients and prepare foods from scratch. Much as I love fresh, home made bread, I'm not sufficiently organised, and often buy loaves from the supermarket.
In 1987, the year Liz started school , we Mums stood around discussing Maurice Hanssen's book "E for Additives" and diligently avoided feeding the kids anything with dodgy E-numbers [E102 - tartrazine yellow is the one I remember straightaway] They still have E-numbers, but these days you are more likely to find the full scientific name of the ingredient on the label. e.g. E300 will be called ascorbic acid [or just Vitamin C] Having an ingredient with an E number [as Hanssen's book pointed out] is not necessarily harmful. This is just a convenient labelling system. E415 is xanthan gum. CVT says he is unhappy about this ingredient, mentioning it is used in industrial products like paint and wallpaper paste. But many coeliacs I know rely on this one to make their gluten free foods digestible. And people put milk into paint, and they used to put flour into wallpaper paste - I'm not sure of the relevance to diet.
On the whole I am unhappy about UPFs, but I'm trying not to become obsessive. I have to say here that I've read articles by CVT but not read his bestseller yet [a quick skim through the pages on a wet Wednesday in Waterstones doesn't count]
It is really difficult to maintain a consistent approach to major lifestyle decisions whether about food, or travel or green issues.
- Bea Johnson, chief promoter of Zero-Waste, flies around the world to give talks about it. Maybe she avoids the disposable cutlery with her inflight meal, but the couple in the seats in front don't.
- The "Plastic Free July" people have a website. You need a plastic device to access it
- Living in a village with infrequent public transport means I use my car more than I'd like (I'm trying to cycle more)
- Most diet programmes allow for lapses. Devotees of Slimming World have their "syns"
- A number of vegetarian/vegan options, particularly the "imitation meats" are UPF
I don't think I can be as rigid as CVT in avoiding all UPFs. But another book I've just finished reading has proved very informative. It presents an alternative approach which I think is worthy of consideration. I shall review it tomorrow.
Are you avoiding UPFs? How is it working for you? What is the hardest thing?
I decided I wasn't eating enough strange things to worry about it and that was the end of that!
ReplyDeleteYour diet has always included lots of fresh/homegrown produce, and you make your own bread - but looking at the other trollies in the supermarket, you realise readymade/convenience foods form a large proportion of the diet for many people.
DeleteMy husband refuses to eat any vegetables apart from potatoes and eats UPF almost exclusively. I've given up trying to get him to eat better but I eat almost no UPF.
ReplyDeleteI follow your blog - you are infinitely patient with him! Just concentrate on keeping yourself healthy ❤️
DeleteMost of the diets like slimming world and weight watchers plus all the others either have their own range of UP foods or they use powders as meal replacements. I did slimming world for a while and at first was using quite a few of their ready meals and their bars and my blood pressure actually went up even though I lost 3 stone, so that says something. Heather
ReplyDeleteThankyou Heather. Many of my friends have done SW - with mixed results. Interested to read about your BP going up despite weight going down
DeleteI eat veggie alternatives like sausages or facon or tofu sometimes need to try and avoid those more. The plastic and UHP balance is hard and though I don't buy ready meals really, sometimes it is hard. I do eat a lot of veg though.
ReplyDeleteI think I need a list of what products count as this definition! Kxx
You eat lots of fresh veggies , and you cycle...so can excuse the occasional ready meal !
DeleteThe advice I had many years ago as supermarket ready meals started appearing was to look at the contents and be wary about anything that would not be in the pantry of a well-organised cook. I think that is a good place to start from.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good piece of advice
DeleteThank you for a very informative post. I shall continue making my own bread and most of our meals from scratch - at least I know what’s in them.
ReplyDeleteI really must get back into the regular breadmaking habit. I have no excuse
DeleteThe UPFs which I use most often are table sauces, like mayonnaise or tartare sauce. I would find it really difficult to cut them out. However, I used to eat far more and I have found that my innards have thanked me for my consideration!
ReplyDeleteYou have made me realise how often table sauces and mayo feature in our diet. (belgian Bob wouldn't dream of putting vinegar on his fries) but for people not living in large families, a jar of mayo in the fridge is much easier/more economic than making a fresh batch each time
DeleteI was brought up on a diet of 'make something from nothing' (spam and chips on Saturdays but other than that, fresh seasonal ingredients), no butter since we couldn't afford it, fresh fish from the local fishmonger's and almost all of my married life, followed a mainly Mediterranean diet and still I've developed IBD and just last week doc prescribed statins to bring down my cholesterol. I think it's the luck of the draw. I just hope I've passed nothing on to my sons and their children. Interested to read your review on the new book. Didn't CVT recently have heart problems or was that his twin brother?
ReplyDeleteMy health/diet history is similar. High cholesterol is a familial problem for me so been on statins for years. I didn't know about cvt/brother heart issues. I do remember that the founder of Cranks, (the pioneering vegetarian restaurant) sadly died of a heart attack. You cannot choose the genes you inherit!
DeleteYou bring up some good points, Angela. I haven't really thought about it, but I do think it is very difficult to avoid ultra processed food, these days, unless we grow or buy the most basic whole ingredients and cook from scratch.
ReplyDeleteI eat very little bread, so not worth making my own, but I do try to buy good locally homemade loaves. Mostly, now it's just me, I eat very simply and liken my diet to our childhood meals. Lots of fresh vegetables, salads, fish and very little meat. Ad I do admit to the odd M/S ready meal in the freezer!
ReplyDeleteI think companies like M&S work hard to use as few UPF as possible in their ready meals [which they now advertise as 'healthier' I notice!] OI looked at a few of the choices on the website, andf almost all the ingredients were 'real' foods I recognised!
DeleteOn the subject of E numbers and processed foods there are an increasing number of children with allergies now. My daughter works for a company who provide the school meal services for North Yorkshire and she has to do a risk assessment when a child is known to have an allergy. They can no longer make any meals with nuts in them at any school and there is one school now where a little boy has just started and has a pea allergy so peas have had to be taken off the menu for the whole school so he doesn't come into contact with one.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter herself has allergic reactions to Sodium metabisulphite it is used in anaesthetics as well as many processed foods like sausages and is a bleaching agent.
She has to work full time and when she collects the children from school they are starving and do not want to wait for her to make a meal from scratch so they often end up with more of a quick meal during the week just so they can eat at a reasonable time and not keep having snacks before tea. I do think that the school meals are not quite as substantial and filling as the old meat and two veg. The puddings now are often just a biscuit so I can see that with a lot of startchy, sugary foods they can become hungry much sooner.
This is a really informative post. It is good that they take children's needs into account. I think the "hungry gap" between school and evening meal is definitely a bad time for snacking. Around 4pm, many of us feel the need for an energy boost - and reach for the biscuit tin!
DeleteAs a former ER nurse, I hope your daughter has the information about her allergy to some anesthetics in her wallet along with her ID. Should she ever need urgent care, those caring for her need to know that!
DeleteHugs!
I changed my diet to a plant-based, whole foods one back at the beginning of July. I've always made almost all our food from scratch, but since I made this change I've seen so many positive changes. I've lost 26 lbs., a lot of my health problems have stopped and this week the doctor told me I can get off my blood pressure medicine. I haven't had any sugar, processed foods, dairy, oil and have cut way back on my salt intake. I definitely have seen a huge benefit to eating differently.
ReplyDeleteI've watched your progress with interest Terri and admire your determination. I recognise that you, like me, are often eating out at church events, where the catering is generous portions, but not always healthy! I'd find it hard to cut back on dairy though. I am glad your new whole food regime has made such a positive difference to your health.
DeleteThe main reason I've gotten rid of dairy is the fat; not that I'm opposed to eating it. I love cheese but when I saw how much fat is in one tiny cube of cheese it made sense to stop it.
Delete🧀🧀😥😥
DeleteMy husband bought Graze bars as a “healthy” alternative having read the packaging.
ReplyDeleteBiomass Chicory root waste, citrus waste, and corn waste all were used to pad them out cheaply. Then there was the palm oil, lecithins, and Xanthan Gum.
Flapjacks are so easy, something you make with the children.
My only encounter with Graze Bars is that Kirsten has some of their postal boxes - which make great packaging for our cross stitch [slim enough to post at 'large letter' rate which is cheaper than regular parcels] But yes, many of these products look good at first, but read the small print and you discover otherwise!
DeleteJohn Robbins book ‘Diet for a new America’ is an excellent ant thought provoking read.
ReplyDeleteAnn T
Thank you Ann - this is not a book I know anything of. Maybe it is more widely known in the USA, where it was nominated for a Pulitzer award when it came out in 1987.I understand it has an "animal rights, pro-environment, vegetarian message" I'm happy with the first two principles - not 100% ready to go vegetarian/vegan yet!
DeleteI agree with the correspondents who go for ' if it's not in my kitchen....' approach. I've come to the conclusion that xanthan gum contributes to too much mucus production; so some ice creams are fine, others like mini magnums are not. It's generally the budget brands of table sauces, dressings and mayo that gave more undecipherables in the ingredients, and as for prepacked longer life xakes and muffins...oh my word! We eat a lot of ready meals (husband does the cookings, so he chooses what we eat) but in general they are OK except rather salty for my taste. For me, not worth making a big deal of in view of the other things we eat; no takeaways, biscuits and cakes occasionally, not many cafe stops or meals out.
ReplyDeleteIt is all about keeping things in balance I think. I agree about budget brands often having suspicious fillers
DeleteI decided that we both really needed to lose some weight, I have severe back problems and husband is waiting for the first of two knee replacements he needs. Being a bit heavier than we should be wasn't helping either of us!
ReplyDeleteWe've cut out bread almost entirely, even though we either made our own or bought fresh from our local bakers.
I make my own wraps, or Staffordshire Oatcakes, but try not to make them too often.
Our meals are almost exclusively made from scratch, and there's a lot of fruit and veg in our diet. We eat meat twice a week, fish three times, and have two completely veggie days.
Breakfast is usually fruit with yogurt, or cereal with whole milk. I'd rather have a huge bacon and egg sandwich, but………..
Our lunches are always made from eggs and/or fruit and veg, with small amounts of cheese.
Husband's failing is biscuits, mine's crisps, but we've both cut down on 'treats' and feel far better for it!
Our grandson is going through a phase of liking McD's, BK, and KFC, but his parents allow him one meal every two months from one of the three, so apart from his friends birthday parties, he only has 6 'rubbish' meals in a year, so not bad!
He's with us this evening, and all three of us will be eating wholewheat pasta with home made tomato sauce, chopped chicken breast and courgettes. It's commonly known in our family as 'red pasta with green bits'! X
It sounds like you are really trying hard with your diet - I do hope you have lost weight! My failing is having something to eat in the evening - a slice of toast or a biscuit. I'm definitely making fewer puddings these days
DeleteI don't know how grocery stores in the UK are organized, but in the US, healthy whole foods (eggs, cheses, meats and veg are usually located on the side and back asiles so that's where its best to shop: around the perimeter!
ReplyDeleteWe don't have E numbers here or if we do, I've never seen them.
Hugs!
Our supermarkets vary in layout. Most have the bakery section along the back wall, and greengrocers near the entrance
ReplyDeleteI try to avoid UPFs but sometimes the need for something quick and painless gets the better of me. I once bought a frozen meal I had never come across before without checking the sodium content and was shocked at how high it was. That sent me back onto the path of avoiding UPFs as much as possible!
ReplyDeleteAvoiding UPFs is nigh on impossible, even if you dedicate your whole life to growing and cooking your own food. If you want an interesting diet you will almost certainly find yourself using them.
ReplyDeleteMy mum used to cook everything from scratch as well as going out to work but once convenience foods became more available and affordable she embraced them with a huge relief as it took a lot of the drudgery out of her life.
I think the giant food manufacturers have a lot to answer for. They make rubbish look and taste good, knowing it's far from good for us. Food used to be manufactured with much more honesty but now profit is the king.
Like you, we eat UPFs but our diet is not based on them exclusively and I think that is the key.
You are right. It is nigh on impossible - but you provide some fantastic recipes on your blog which are UPF free (your cakes are splendid!)
Delete