I was someone who ate ultra processed food every single day. Last September I watched a few food documentaries and I was done. I’ve been cooking 90% of my meals since then. The other 10% is only ordering from local owned businesses. So far I lost 40 pounds. And it’s not a diet. It’s just cooking.
I was almost 200lbs a few years ago. I got down to 160lbs just by replacing my dishes with smaller ones. But I plateaued there, and my goal was 155lbs. I discovered the problems with ultra processed foods recently (which they didn't even discuss in this video), so I decided to cut out all UPFs. I started losing weight immediately for the first time in over two years. I'm at 156lbs now. My appetite has decreased to what I realize now was normal before UPFs took over. For those who don't know, companies spend billions of dollars engineering UPFs with one goal in mind - increasing consumption. They even hire psychologists to help design their foods. They do A/B testing to see which changes to recipes lead to increased consumption. It's not a matter of self control. That's baloney. The game is rigged in their favor. The only solution is to say no to UPFs.
can you share to us what is/are the diet plan(s) you’re having on this one? i was planning on one with less carb (something like keto) but i need more references
I had stage 4 breast cancer in 2000. Since then, I haven’t eaten processed food or sugar…for the most part. I eat oatmeal, berries, with hemp (for protein), walnuts, almonds, chia seeds, flax, sunflower seeds, pecans and pumpkin seeds on top. For my late lunch, I eat a protein, ( fish, eggs, quinoa, lentils) with kale or spinach, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower etc. I add olive oil and turmeric on top. I usually don’t eat any dinner because I’m so full from lunch. I’ve read that cancer loves sugar, so I try to stay away from processed and sugary foods. The non sugar yogurt is 3 times as expensive, but I buy it because it doesn’t have sugar. So far this diet has worked for me.
The major problem is the supermarket. It's 80% UPF. Shop in the fruit and veg aisle, 1 fresh aisle (meat +milk) and 1 frozen (whole frozen veg only). Outside of those 3 aisles, almost everything is UPF.
Over a million households in the UK don’t have a stove-top cooker or fridge. We really take for granted when saying how easy food is to make, that at some point we bought a chopping board and knife and pots and pans and so on. It’s very out of reach for so many people to home cook meals. It’s really important that we don’t stigmatise the people eating these foods. We live in such an evil food environment where we are bombarded and surrounded by all these foods in a way never before seen in human history.
To cook your own meals you need a certain amount of private space. The biggest issue is likely people being space-poor, the second biggest is people being time-poor. Importing a third of a million homeless people every year probably doesn't help the former.
Take always cooked in seed oils and microwaves meals are a big problem. Add cooking in plastic which adds BPA and Phthalates to your food, non stick coatings are also poisonous. Not only is it healthier to cook from scratch it's a lot cheaper, people unfortunately want convenience and will happily sacrifice their health to save 1 hour of cooking a day.
I used to eat lots of this ultra processed food up to 4 years ago, I was over weight, depressed, stressed, had low self esteem, eczema and the food was easy assessable relatively cheap and gave me a temporary high. Then 1 day I said enough was enough and went total cold turkey and changed my diet completely, 1st 3 weeks were awful with sugar and fat cravings so I started to go running. I now don't eat any ultra processed food and my life is 1000 times better, complete transformation. Just remember that UPF is made for profit and not for your benefit.
Ultra processed food is the result of a culutre and lifestyle where 2 full time working adults in a family is an expected standard. When women didn't work, they would stay at home and have the time to make food by scratch. Someone juggling work, childcare and the rest does not have the capacity to cook a healthy meal and then also make their own mayonnaise from scratch.
I agree but I would also include that the culture of "buying" for convenience is fueled largely by -marketing- that convince starting in about the 1950s... Marketing today will often claim something is 'a part of a healthy diet' aka this is the indulgence. Claiming things like cereal are healthy when they are actually ultra processed.
We try to make everything from scratch if possible. Cakes, bread, sauces, cookies, crackers, meals, stock/broth/soup and even body moisturiser. Our vegetables are grown in the garden, so we cut buying from the supermarket to a minimal. That being said, it is only for families with time as it requires a lot of work. The husband is the sole breadwinner of the family. I contribute this way to cut expenses. It is beneficial for us to avoid UPF as much as possible. For the sake of our health. Also because I don't believe the food corporations need to be any more richer.
It literally takes me 10 minutes to make butter. It takes the same to make mayonnaise. I think we are programmed to believe so much of these things are convenient when in reality, they are really fast and cheap to make.
@@happycook6737 All I know is that mayonnaise is made with raw egg, like Caesar salad dressing. If you keep refrigerated it it’s ok but use it within the time the recipe says. I am not a food safety expert so do your own research.
Would life be so bad without mayonnaise 🤔... I hear people saying healthier things taste better. And making dinner sauces sounds tricky enough. Perhaps I'm still at the start of my story, but I wonder if some thing the industry feeds us are just meant to go. As a mayo lover, I wonder what that would be like. 🥲
This is such a rich country problem. I was introduced to this plethora of packaged ready to eat or just assemble and eat food after moving to Germany from India. In most of India (apart from some big cities), you can only find whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits, the only products that are packaged is sugar, salt and spices.
I disagree. I'm from the global south too, and yes it is quite easy to find fresh fruits and vegetables, even fresh meat and dairy products, but most of times it's way more expensive to cook all of these fresh products than buying tacos, pizza, or any kind of street or fast food. Eating healthy is a rich people thing here, most people work way too many hours a day and barely have time to grab a snack, so it's way more difficult to find the time to cook. There is so much more to see when it comes to issues related to food consumption than the availability of fresh products.
I really liked the speakers takes on how to live with ultra processed food. It was realistic, in that they do their best to eat non-highly processed food but accept it is going to happen in special occasions because it’s a huge part of our society. I think this is the balanced sane way to be.
I live in Singapore and I usually only take two meals a day. I keep it simple by having rice, a meat and a vegetable dish for lunch which usually cost around $5.50-6 Singapore dollars at the nearby coffee shop and then for dinner, it’s a hot meal of rice or noodles with meat and vegetables again with around the price of $6. I wouldn’t say I stay clear of processed food, but I try my best to eat my meals as cleanly as possible even when I know somethings processed food are hard to avoid. I occasionally indulge in ice creams, chocolates, potato chips and bubble tea once or twice a fortnight.
Hawker Centre foods are crap n none are healthy! I once had famous fried noodles for lunch with colleagues and the whole afternoon I had stomach ache from the excessive animal fat
Around 12%, or one in eight, US adults have now tried a weight-loss drug like Wegovy / Ozempic, Zepbound or Mounjaro, according to a new poll, and about 6% are currently taking one. Over 40% of adults in the US are now obese. The majority of those using the drugs (61%) are using them to treat a chronic condition like diabetes or heart disease. Just over 40% are diabetics.
A friend of mine shared that she tried one of these GLP-1 drugs (I don't remember which) and quickly came off. She couldn't tolerate the side effects. People are singing their praises (because some achieve weight loss), but that's only one aspect of using these drugs.
I lost 2 stone in 2 months on semaglutide building the dose up when I needed to. The first two weeks give stomach cramps but a minor sacrifice for the long term health goals
I'm glad to hear a legitimate source include bread in ultra-proccessed food! Whole wheat germs vs sourdough you made at home vs any 'bread' you buy at the grocery store are not the same. Perfect depiction of whole, processed and ultra-proccessed. 👍
I took a class to visit an in store bakery expecting to find a baker and bread being made. Instead I found untrained workers using computer controlled machinery to make up bread mixes from huge sacks with additives in. All you could say was that it was freshly baked.
BBC are not a legitimate source they are a media company with zero expertise and looking for ratings clicks. UPF des not exist. It is pure invention. for money making reasons.
Big Food (Heinz, Nestle, Pillsbury, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Mars), Big Supermarkets (Krogers, Albertsons, Walmart) owe huge thanks to the US FDA for its approval guidelines and ridiculous nutritional labeling and RDA & average serving size. Medical & health insurance industry is grateful for the high obesity rates and resulting medical conditions due to UPF. I blend as much as possible - veg fruit smoothies, soups for meals - impossible to completely avoid UPF, but blending helps to cut down the volume of UPF. Looking at other consumers in the supermarket, they have nothing but UPF in their shopping cart.
In India and other asian countries the ultra processed foods are way to expensive to be eaten frequently. We cook food three times a day, breakfast , lunch and dinner and a tea time snack sometimes. The raw grains, vegetables, fish , eggs and meat are cheaper. Fruits are expensive but local and seasonal ones are budget friendly. I hope it stays that way.
Thanks for this. UPFs are hard to avoid. I like the idea of warnings on packaged UPFs. They may have to change as we know more - so what's new? Eggs have changed on the simple, clunky "A-E" system from "D" to "A" with clear explanations available about why. At the moment both real bread and UPF versions are "A".
Anything made from scratch without processed ingredients would not have UPF. Example growing up that’s how Indian food is made at home. I have achieved this now but it needs lot of pre-prepping of ingredients to save time
You do realize that 8 hours of work is really too much. Even if your office is just 30 minutes away door to door, there are an hour of preparing to go to work and resting after arriving back at home (that's squeezing it really). That's 8 hours sleep, 10 hours work related time. We are left with 6 hours with grocery shopping, cooking fresh meal, eating 3 meals. 4-5 hours in total? 1 hour to spend time with friends and family? Can you lie down on your bed and instantly go to sleep? So winding down needs its own time too. All of these take so much time and energy that people naturally eat "convenient foods", it's not always that these foods are evil and purely made addictive. Now keep wondering why men around the world say women should stay at home and be housewives.
1) it needs a good freezer 2) some old fashioned preserving equipment 3) batch cooking. start with doubling the recipes and freeze 1, thus creating variety 4) use off days (one a month for starters) to batch-cook. Envolve the whole family 5) Even if a single income household is possible involve everybody in food preparation as it is a live / saving skill EVERYBODYshould take part in
Removing UPF food from your every day diet is a chore. I downloaded the Open Foods app and found it really informative. My dark chocolate was UPF so I will look for an alternative. Tested 2 brands of peanut butter, one of them was UPF the other not, 3 brands of gluten free pasta, one was UPF, 3 brands of stock, one was not. I think it is worthwhile testing a few common everyday foods that you use, perhaps one or 2 categories each time you shop to see if you can make a better choice. The app will tell you what is the UPF component so over time you will recognise what is UPF and avoid it, it is a great educational tool. Thanks so much for this content, it will improve my health with not too much effort. ❤
Wasn't the Nova system classification developed by brazilian author Carlos Monteiro and his team? Why the show cites repeatedly only Moubarac? Thank you for the clarification on this.
Processed food = Obesity. I lose about 15 pounds when I move from a UPF country to a country with minimal UPF. Almost impossible to avoid UPF in the US, it's everywhere.
Here in Canada I would welcome a Chile-style black label for UPFs. If Chile can do it then other countries like Canada can as well. There will be huge pushback from Big Food. Food companies cannot make huge profits through addictive products without UPFs. There is huge profit in making the vast majority of the population obese. Unfortunately society and our health care system as well as individuals must pay the price.
I live in Chile and I hate the black warning labels especially the ''high in sugar content'' one. The adverse effect on the market is that most food or drinks that used to contain sugar now use sugar substitute like stevia and sucralose to avoid bearing the warning label. I'd rather gain a few pounds than risk having cancer from sugar substitute.
9:39 How is not eating any UPFs drastic? 😂 This shit didn't even exist until very recently in human history. I decided to cut it out (even though I never ate that much of it), and I did it 100% from day one. Only problem is it's more expensive, but my health is worth it.
This program was better than usual for the BBC. However, Kate Haliwell the food manufacturing representative was straight from the "smoking - we need more evidence to know if is bad for your health". In this RUclips video Dr Thomas Seyfried is a Professor of biology, genetics, and biochemistry at Boston College. He has over 150 peer-reviewed publications and is also the author of books such as, ‘Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer’. Explains that cancer is essentially very closely correlated with a western diet and lifestyle. His research clearly demonstrates the link. Maybe the BBC could check him out. A brilliant speaker
In Sydney about 5-10 years ago I was busking in a tunnel that led away from a festival for young people in a park .I had never seen so many obese adolescents in my life .l was staggered but I especially the girls. I will never forget that day. I was horrified .The government has sat back and allowed it to happen. Exercise at school?, parental control, fast food ?
Good job again on the continued improvements, Lynn! In terms of salt, I tried a full week without any electrolytes several months ago and felt not not as alert; felt better with the (unflavored Re-Lyte) electrolytes but I find I dont need as much now (4 scoops now vs 8 scoops daily months ago). I also made my own copycat Re-Lyte to save on costs and decided to play around with the sodium to potassium ratio from Re-Lyte's 2-to-1 to the Salt Fix author's recommended 1-to-1 ratio but noticed for a few straight nights doing this my heart racing at night and not getting as good of sleep, so i went back to the original 2-to-1 ratio, and everything went back to normal for me.
I lived in a SRO in the SF we had a shared kitchen we were not allowed to store food or dishes in we had mini fridges and microwaves in our room but we were not allowed to rules in our HUD lease to a hot plate. Basically haul your food to kitchen and back including your dishes or buy pre packaged food for your microwave. What do you think most residents did ?
If I owned a supermarket, ultra processed food would had been ban. I wouldn’t sold it to people. We need stickers on products saying “ultra processed “. In Israel they mark food with high sugar “contain high amounts of sugar” but people still buy them. Ultra processed food should be ban!
What’s the difference between buying a processed food which already has salt/sugar in it versus cooking a raw produce with salt/sugar yourself? The latter is better for our health? How?
It's depends, is your sugar organic? Also, when you make it, you are putting in just the ingredients. Processed food, read the label. There are fillers, preservatives, added ingredients for shelf stability
It’s important to note that ‘processed’ is not the same as ‘ultra-processed’. A tin of chopped tomatoes is very different to a jar of pasta sauce with additives, colours, flavourings, preservatives. Some pasta sauces might not have these additives (and usually have a shorter shelf life) and they’re fine in moderation, but I would still say it’s better to be able to control how much of everything you’re putting in.
When you make the food from scratch, there’s things you don’t add yourself. When you make a soup, do you add sugar? No, because that doesn’t make sense. In UPFs they add sugar to EVERYTHING. Then you have all the other things they put in it; emulsifiers, modified starches, numerous preservatives. Starches are used because they’re cheap, can be moulded into any shape you want, and can be given any texture and flavour you can think of. The bottom line is this: UPFs are nutritionally deficient, makes you hungrier so you eat more, and the ingredients used don’t match what the body expects so it gets confused - for example a certain chemical that occurs naturally in meat signals to your body that meat is coming, but because it’s an additive in a pack of crisps, no meat shows up.
When I make vegetable soup, I don't add half the sodium as a can of soup vegetable soup and mine tastes better. They add way more sugar and salt than needed in ultra processed food. They say it's in order to give it a longer self life. But you can buy a can of the so called healthy lower sodium soup, and it costs more. I can't understand that.
Does this mean that when I make condiments from scratch (mayonnaise, mustard, tomatopaste) and avoid too much sugar and salt it won't categorize as UVP?
I think the problem, like you mentioned, is that most ultra processed foods have high levels of carbs (including sugar) and fat, because they're addictive, filling and, above all, cheap and with longer shelf life. They could release healthy variations but only proper regulation to provide better labeling and a classification of items based on the percentage of each macro/micro nutrient would help people change behavior, as well as policy that taxes bad food and use the extra revenue to subsidize healthy variations. I personally like processed food for the convenience. If I were wealthy and had someone to cook for me I'd want everything from scratch, but even considering I like to cook, it's just too much to do it for yourself, alone, even when you prepare several meals in advance. The problem also happens with restaurant food. Even less processed food is sometimes bad because restaurants want profit margins and they'll load your plate with cheap carbs, fat and sauces, maybe some vegetables as fillers and only a little bit of animal protein.
Unless you cook for yourself, and from good quality ingredients, you'll pay a very high price for the convenience of UPFs. It's okay when you're relatively young, but with age you may notice that you're unusually exhausted, dragging through the day, needing coffee a lot, but it no longer makes much difference. Then your joints start hurting, the pain makes you feel even more tired. You're overweight and have no energy to do anything, you go to work just to survive, but apart from that all you want to do is to eat, watch telly and sleep. Then your doctor tells you that your stats are bad, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes. The meds lower the stats but you don't feel better, because they come with a set of side effects, so now you have to deal with that too. Then, perhaps depression creeps in, but guess what, there's a tablet for that too... So that's a story of life potential wasted in the name of convenience...
This isn’t necessarily the problem though - people have been eating a lot of carbs and fat in various parts of the world for a long time and are not seeing the impacts that we are in countries like the UK and the US. Not just in restaurants, but if you go to eat with normal families in places like Italy and Greece; the fresh, homemade bread and extra virgin olive oil and cheeses are always being piled liberally onto everyone’s plates! It’s less about macro nutrients and more about the way that UPF breaks down food into components and then puts them back together again or uses additives to mimic ‘real’ food, but making it very soft and ultra-palatable. For example - if you’ve ever made sourdough bread at home: one slice is filling and takes a while to eat. Contrast with supermarket sandwich bread, which most people could eat slice after slice of with no issue. Also, the stripping out of fibre is an issue - many cheap supermarket pastas and of course fruit juices strip out what allows us to digest the food and to feel full from the calories we’ve consumed.
It's actually not about the amount of carbs, fat and sugar in UPF.. it is literally the ultraprocessing that is the problem. There is a lot of evidence for that now and it's very well explained in the book Ultraprocessed People. You should read it. It's also very enjoyable.
I have lived in the UK for the last 7 years. The amount of upf here is insane. People dont cook. The lifestyle here, long working hours exhaustion influences people choices ( IT is morę convenient and faster to buy already prepared meal)
I don't understand why yogurt, beer, and xanthan gum aren't all classified the same or at least beer and xanthan gum. All three are fermentation products. Yogurt is milk fermented by bacteria and is 'minimally proceed', xanthan gum and beer are both made from sugars being fermented by bacteria, but beer is 'processed' and xanthan gum is 'ultra processed'. Randomly grouping foods together based on feelings and then trying to determine if one of the groups is worse than the other seems like the wrong direction.
Just a guess, but I can make beer at home if I wanted to but not xanthan gum. Also xanthan gum isn't necessary to make a product, beer and yogurt require fermentation to make them. Its specifically made to alter a food product.
@@AJ-oy5iv the only reason you can make beer at home and not xanthan gum is because you can easily purchase brewer's yeast but cannot easily purchase the microbe that makes xanthan gum because nobody cares about making unique xanthan gums at home. Per my original point, all 3 products are produced by microbes breaking down sugar. One is a milk sugar fermentation and two are glucose fermentations. Note that if you want to make xanthan gum at home, there are recipes on the Internet, but it will probably take a lot of practice unless you can find a source to purchase the concentrated microbe.
@@TheDaspiffy Beer has been made by ancient societies long before you could purchase brewers yeast. Buying it makes the process easier but isn't necessary. Sourdough starter could be the source. When you finish fermenting for yogurt, kimchi, beer etc., you get a processed edible product. When you ferment X. campestris you get sludge not used in food until a scientist figured it out in the 1960s. Other processes are needed to use it as an additive for food that can be made without that product. I understand it being a sign of UPF and don't think it was an emotional decision (sorry if Ive misquoted you). However, the bacteria is found on brassicas, its the pathogen causing black rot disease. So if you want to try to ferment that and use it as a food product I'd love to know how it goes! I don't feel comfortable using it as of now. I can't think of anything its necessary in besides a Starbucks Frappuccino.
@@AJ-oy5iv the other processing is drying and grinding, which is far less processing than beer typically, though not necessarily, takes. Most beers have additives to coagulate everything floating around in it for easy filtration, so arguably beer is more processed than xanthan gum. It is true that xanthan gum has not been used nearly as long, but if the argument is that it hasn't been used as long then rather than discussing the processing level of food, there should be a length of consumption. The problem with that is that the authors want to group some foods, such as sugar, into the processed or ultra processed category because they know that some foods are bad for us. But that is poisoning the well in order to get a desired outcome. My point is that the research and determination should be done on a case by case basis.
@@TheDaspiffy I think you may be "missing the forest for the trees" here. Beer filtration being more processing is grasping at straws. (which you could use to avoid filtering the beer :)) I honestly think this group is doing putting in the work for the classifications here and not scare-mongering. I'm not trying to argue anything, I just thought you were genuinely curious as to why they made the decision to separate foods made by fermentation from an additive put into foods that don't require them. I'm just offering a different perspective. Time is irrelevant but I think that is evidence of it being unnecessary. My argument is that the process required for xanthan gum doesn't leave you with a food product. We don't eat the sludge created. We do consume the end product of fermentation when it comes to beer, yogurt, etc.
I realize that all my life I ate almost no processed foods! Without difficulty. The main processed food that I ate was bread, sometimes pasta. I always cook from scratch what by the way can be very quick and easy if you stick to meat, fish, chicken and beans, (frozen) vegetables and eggs, chess, fruit (no fruit juice, no sugars). You can stew meat or slow cook in the oven for days at the time and vacuum the portions but also quick meat, 5 minutes on the stove. I also use a bread machine.
Sounds like people trying to avoid processed food are making more of it themselves. Whatever happened to eating good old meat, and veg, fish and eggs? There's nothing at all wrong with saturated fat. That isn't in ultra processed food. It's too bloody expensive for processed food.
My dentist told me about 3 years ago that the enamel on my teeth was degrading. I didn't listen to her. Late last year She showed me with a bright light and a magnifying mirror what was happening. I had a filled cavity in one of my back teeth. The filling was fine but my tooth around it was dissappearing. She put me on a flouride regimen and told me to cut out sugars. Even though I was drinking alot of water I also was drinking alot of soda. A certain cola that has SULPHURIC ACID as one of its ingredients was the culprit. I lost 10 pounds within the first month.
A little over a quarter of users have heart disease. In March, Wegovy became the first weight-loss medication to be given FDA approval as a treatment to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. Less than a quarter, or 22%, are taking the drugs because they have been diagnosed as being overweight, but 38% say they take the drugs to lose weight.
Too bad you missed pointing out a big culprit here which are ultra processed and everybody seems to ignore: Seed oils Margerine, sunflower oil, canola oil, etc. are all ultra processed foods. Yet for some reason they’re being put forward also “healthy” Butter, lard, etc. all very healthy and unprocessed, yet somehow those are the ones that get the bad rep.
I was shocked recently to see several aisles in Tesco full of ready meals, giving the impression that that is what to eat, that is what everyone eats. Snacks amazes me. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when eating between meals was frowned on’( you’ll spoil your dinner) and a snack was the word used when you just had a sandwich for your lunch instead of a proper meal. Commercial marketing has been so successful in persuading people to eat between meals and to consider such highly processed food as MacDonalds as a treat. I’m sceptical about pub menus where you can see it is all frozen bought in products.
Thanks for sharing, that's interesting to me as someone that grew up in 2000's. Was it also less common to hang out with friends at food establishments? Since I've been old enough to go out with friends, we always go to the food court or something nearby for food "refill". Not really specifically for a lunch or dinner, but just to get food. Almost 30 now and it's the same. Sometimes I feel lucky about my autism in some ways. My parents also tried to give me lots of snacks, but I refused to eat anything that wasn't plain thin pasta or plain white rice. I am better now (almost 30) but this persisted into much of my 20's. Wouldn't even eat the cake at birthdays. lol
@@AaaAaa-yb2nb Yes 'hanging out' at food establishments never happened more or less. Apart from anything else they practically did not exist like all fast food places there were cafes only. As children at home we also never ever took any food, even a biscuit without asking first. We just did not graze between meals. Also an old probable autistic, I eat the same things often on the same days and a tiny range of food items. It is easy and no problem. Especially if you do not have any attraction to 'going out' pointlessly. I always packed the same two sandwiches for lunch every day of my working life, never ever paid for food out.
@@nicholaspostlethwaite9554 Thanks for sharing. I find it fascinating to learn that my generation is not just seeing a massive change in the type of food we eat (such as ultra-processed), but cultural habits around food have changed too. That is great, I always had trouble figuring out my lunch in the office. So I conditioned myself to not be hungry during the 9-5 and just eat breakfast and dinner instead. I have 2 pieces of plain toast in the morning and then plain pasta or rice at night and I enjoy the routine. I like it too, it's easy and helps keep my grocery bill down. People comment on it a lot, and food gatherings are awkward, but it is what it is. I can compromise now that I'm older and eat things I really don't want to for social peace.
It is really hard to find real food in the store. As a petson trying ro drastically reduce upfs. I stand in the stores and don't know what to buy on s budget.
They make i seem like UPF is really complicated to work out. I don't think it's so difficult to understand when you frame the question as whether the product is primarily for the purpose of making ever increasing amounts of money for shareholders. If it is, you should be treating it with the assumption that it is UPF until proven otherwise. The heavier the marketing (including health claims), probably the more this is true. This mechanism is simple - if I eat more of this food, I buy more of it. So large corporations are motivated to get me to eat as much as possible, for the least cost to them. And their commercial strategy is very effective at achieving this outcome. The nutrition labels in the UK were developed with the industry, so it's easy to see that they can find ways to make the nutrition work for them. After all, diet coke gets all greens in the traffic light system- implying that it's basically the same as drinking water. But I think we all know these are not the same. All that said, the difficulty is the making good choices in this societal environment. To make whole food cheaply at home you must have time, a resource the poorest in society do not have. Or you need plenty of money.
Just buy vegetables and potatoes, wholegrain rice or pasta. The best carbs are fresh potatoes because they naturally contain vitamines and even a bit of calcium. Its just a solid base for every lunch or dinner. And you can easily mix things up by getting whats on sale or whats in season. I usually stirfry my veggies to keep them nice and crispy. And add protein to flavour. I like ovenroasted chicked the best, because it basically cooks in its own fat keeping it nice and lean. Just normal legs are great for that. But somedays ill just fry up some eggs. And you can make it as exciting as you want: Go asian with the rice? Just mix in some garlic, soy sauce and ginger etc... Having this type of flexible base concept really helps with keeping costs down. If you make a shopping list with precise ingredients, it can get really expensive if you really want to follow this one specific recipe. If you think more in line with : Veg, carbs, proteine and mix and match on the go you can save a lot of money by taking advantage of deals. This is all kind of obvious but for me this base concept is what I use 90% of the time. And my pro tip: Cook in large batches and save a meal or two in de fridge or even the freezer. First of all, almost everything is cheaper when you buy more. Secondly, having a meal ready for you after a long day really helps with staying away from delivery food saving you money and an unhealthy meal. It takes some discipline to prepare everything yourself from scratch but after a while when you build it in to your daily routine it becomes enjoyable. Often I just peel a large batch of potatoes on the couch in front of the telly. One of the supermarket chains in my area have a special on wednesday where they sell big 4kg bags for just 2.49. It almost becomes a sort of sport to hunt for these type of deals and really try to make something very nice from these humble ingredients. What you put in to your body is quite important so its probably a good idea to spend some time and energy on it. And im not a zealot by any means. Sometimes I enjoy a nutella sandwich or use a packaged sauce, things like that, but all in all its a very small percentage of my total diet.
Sorry to say this I wanted to watch this. I guess it’s made for listening, that little bubble after , while it is annoying( I’m going to listen while I’m doing my walking to the loo )
Kids need 2 snacks per day [7:09]: ***TOTAL BS!!!!** Feed yourself a proper human diet and you will not need or want any snacks. You don't even need to eat every day :)
veggie these days had all sort of pesticide and herbicide that kinda linger even after we wash it, so, every cheap veggie we have might have "dirty farmers" hand on it
Wish they would have defined ultra processed, or cited the studies, or done anything to give me somewhere else to research. Oh well, I'll just keep up with the idea that calories is ultimately the important factor, while monitoring macro nutrients.
I would suggest it depends. There are canned sardines in native Olive oil and Salt only. I think they are category 3. But as soon as you use artificial stabilizers and more chemicals it may leak Into cat.4?
Being able to fuss over food is a luxury of having plenty of it. And a hig reason why we have plenty is because we process our food to have longer shelf life. But yeah it's convenient to the point were it can get unhealthy. In general though I'm not too worried, people have never lived longer and we don't see as much famines as we used to. So the modern way of farming and processing food is a net positive. We just need to be watch out for overindulgence.
I used to take my kids to play centre and it used to amaze me - all these kids ripping into packets of bright orange snacks or two crackers and some 'cheese' sludge. Everything was flavoured and coloured with extra salt and oil and stuff. And every second day someone would have a cake. Then their parents would complain they couldn't get their kids to eat vegetables. No kidding, Sherlock. Everywhere we went, half the kids would be sucking on a plastic pouch of mush or a sweetened softdrink. Library story time, parks, playgroups .... everywhere. We used to eat our share of biscuits and muesli bars, but mostly carrots, water, celery, apple or orange pieces. And not all the time - kids don't need to be permanently attached to a food bag. Food is marketed as being fun - but it's not. Playing with blocks or on a swing is fun, not sucking down obesity in a plastic packet. It is like tablets - yes we use tablets and watch videos, but not all the time. But sometimes I think parents use food, expensive toys and devices to make themselves feel like they are 'parenting' without having to actually engage with their kids.
When I was a child in the 1970's, kids didn't snack. We ate breakfast, school lunch, and then dinner. Treats were only at holidays or birthdays. Most kids were very skinny! I was chubby and teased .
children should be made to involved in making thr food with ur hands/support is the best way to make them respect the food instead of unknow food made smwhere
28:20 In simple language - its deliberately confusing so that consumers doubt the science. Plus, its best to follow government guideline (which we the industry influence heavily through lobby groups and political donations). Did i get that correct?
During the pandemic our health markers went up bc we were forced to cook, even if it wasn’t all whole foods. Now we are back to our old behaviours and markers are down again. Time is the key ingredient and most people can’t afford it. Our society is designed to keep us busy and unable to find time to cook, learn and improve the was we eat everyday. We are what we eat, and what we eat is making us sick and in some cases killing us. Do what you can and grow from there.
Back when one parent could stay at home to cook and clean this wasn't a problem. Now both parents need to work in order to survive so they don't have time to cook and have no choice but to buy the ultra processed stuff.
@roaldruss4211 Well, if you find pasta sauce, you can find simple tomato sauce and make your own. If you can find cold cuts, you can find a piece of meat. As a rule, it's better to buy as simple and raw as possible. If tomato sauce is much more expensive than pasta sauce, we have a big problem!
Listened 17 min and surprised people on the podcast are surprised /didn't suspect boullion, cereal bars, and fish fingers to be ultra processed. Was looking to learn more on identifiable chemicals, did hear of one or two.
I really don't appreciate the way ultra processed foods are defined in this. They literally described a regular recipe which isn't a significant level of processing. A combination of ingredients is not in itself unhealthy. Utra processed food would be natural ingredients that has undergone a drastic process such as extracting or concentrating. Being combined with emulsifiers, or having nutrients extracted or added in is high level cooking processing. Food looses it's nutritional value, even without loosing the actual nutrient profile, because of ultra processing. However, because the content of the ingredients were altered they don't absorb or metabolize the same.
They called something UPF because it contained xanthan gum. They're doing exactly what they did with sugar: they didn't want to lie but were reluctant to hurt the industry, so they came up with a compromise - they muddled the message, sugar is bad but we also need sugar, sugar is in fruit and veg too, and as we know fruit and veg is healthy. They confused a lot of people, including medical doctors, and it worked, while the truth was pretty simple: we need carbohydrates, but we don't need sucrose. There's literally nothing that we need in sucrose, and it's called "empty calories" for this reason. Here they're doing a similar thing. Telling people that UPF is unavoidable or extremely hard to avoid. That it is so hard to distinguish from normal food, that we might as well give up trying. Truth is that you not only can, but also must cut out UPF drastically if you want the change to matter for your health. UPF is designed in such a way that it makes you crave more and more of it. But it works the other way too, the less you eat it, the less you crave it. If you eat UPF every day, you'll always crave it, and you will sacrifice your health to make the food industry guys even richer.
The term ultra-processed food as defined in this video is largely political and ideological, preying on ignorance and lack of education. Processing foods can increase nutrient availability.
Dark chocolate is quite good for you - a couple of squares of 80% is good for the heart. It might be processed but you're having very little of it. And only 1gr of sugar per square.
People need the skills of making food from the ingredients only. I minimized the amount of upfs after I started reading the label of my “fresh” bread from the bakery 5 years ago. Food staple at my house that should only consist of 2 ingredients, salt and flour, had 10+ ingredients! Once you learn the necessary skills, it’s super easy to make and store your own mayonnaise, butter, bread, pasta, yogurt, stock etc. Do not trust the food industry or any “healthy” label on an upf! Green washing is absolutely everywhere!
Apple bread and pasta are processed food. I like bread I’ve cut that drastically on the pasta and I have 40 pounds. But I do eat pastries as long as they’re made by an individual bakery, not an industrialized company and unlimited the amount.
I recently visited france countey aide and it amazes me how people eat. They have a very simple eating habbits naturally avoids processed food. They eat alot of veggies , some cheese amd bread.
Maybe if people were not being economically coerced to waste half of their day or more at the workplace just to have a place to sleep and some cancer inducing slop to fill their bellies, they would have enough time to stay informed and cook/prepare/shop for 3 healthy meals a day! But alas, the cogs just have to keep spinning, don't they? Mr. Posh needs his new yacht now and not later!
I would guess her kids don't eat much lunch or breakfast. I heard a few years ago that eating smaller portions spread out through the day is healthier than eating the same amount in 3 meals.
Why can't the kids eat carrot sticks, homemade snacks, drink only water, small pieces of fresh fruit, homemade oatmeal pots. There are dozens of healthy options.
@@cassieoz1702 I had to read up on it, 6 US states now apparently offer free school lunches to all students. Welcome to the civilized world if you live in one of those 6 states!
It baffles me that UPFs are cheaper than less processed variants. The stuff that takes more effort to make (process), costs less? That does not make sense to me. I do understand that fresh products can be expensive because they spoil, but that should mean, in my opinion, the minimally processed variants (to only improve preservation) should be the cheapest, right?
Using stock cubes is more problematic because of the salt content and not because it is UPF. Reducing UPF for me is about reducing calories from UPF, and not about eliminating specific ultraprocessed foods from m'y diet. A stock cube has hardly any calories but a bag of chips, upf pizza or mayonnaise has a lot... and obviously that contribues to health problems. I pay attention to harmful additives too.
For me, eating hyperpalatable foods like a stock cube ratchet up my cravings astronomically! If I avoid stock cubes my cravings are less. How do I know? I went whole foods minimally processed plant based no added oil, no sugar. I got near my goal weight but still suffered from cravings. Then I quit stock cubes. It was hard but helped me eat less naturally. Not sure if is true for everyone.
It's even more difficult when you are on a very small budget. It tends to be cheaper and can be a way to extend the time between or even skip homemade meals. Not everyone has the time or money to do so. We need healthy options.
I was someone who ate ultra processed food every single day. Last September I watched a few food documentaries and I was done. I’ve been cooking 90% of my meals since then. The other 10% is only ordering from local owned businesses. So far I lost 40 pounds. And it’s not a diet. It’s just cooking.
Congrats, well done! Thanks for your real inspiration!🎉❤🎉
Me too !
Good for you! I stopped eating upf and sugar a year and a half ago, best decision I ever made. I wonder now how far down the path to diabetes I was.
I was almost 200lbs a few years ago. I got down to 160lbs just by replacing my dishes with smaller ones. But I plateaued there, and my goal was 155lbs. I discovered the problems with ultra processed foods recently (which they didn't even discuss in this video), so I decided to cut out all UPFs. I started losing weight immediately for the first time in over two years. I'm at 156lbs now. My appetite has decreased to what I realize now was normal before UPFs took over.
For those who don't know, companies spend billions of dollars engineering UPFs with one goal in mind - increasing consumption. They even hire psychologists to help design their foods. They do A/B testing to see which changes to recipes lead to increased consumption. It's not a matter of self control. That's baloney. The game is rigged in their favor. The only solution is to say no to UPFs.
can you share to us what is/are the diet plan(s) you’re having on this one? i was planning on one with less carb (something like keto) but i need more references
I had stage 4 breast cancer in 2000. Since then, I haven’t eaten processed food or sugar…for the most part. I eat oatmeal, berries, with hemp (for protein), walnuts, almonds, chia seeds, flax, sunflower seeds, pecans and pumpkin seeds on top. For my late lunch, I eat a protein, ( fish, eggs, quinoa, lentils) with kale or spinach, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower etc. I add olive oil and turmeric on top. I usually don’t eat any dinner because I’m so full from lunch. I’ve read that cancer loves sugar, so I try to stay away from processed and sugary foods. The non sugar yogurt is 3 times as expensive, but I buy it because it doesn’t have sugar. So far this diet has worked for me.
So glad you survived it and are able to lead a healthier lifestyle
Same hear it’s so expensive and nearly impossible to find anything with no sugar in
@@ashmeyer21 🩷🩷🩷
Don’t be caught in the “cause and effect” cycle
Get Japanese green tea. Make sure it isn't Chinese. Breast cancer protective.
The major problem is the supermarket. It's 80% UPF. Shop in the fruit and veg aisle, 1 fresh aisle (meat +milk) and 1 frozen (whole frozen veg only). Outside of those 3 aisles, almost everything is UPF.
Where I live those aisles are huge and the make out the biggest part of the supermarket. I barely ever look at the rest.
Milk is ultra processed
@@RJAH355 milk is only processed, not ultra processed.
@@BrendonBoshell I’d look that up.
Yup. That’s all I eat; meat, veggies, and my carbs has to be UPF, rice or noodles.
I think the secondary issue here too is that people don’t cook their meals.
Over a million households in the UK don’t have a stove-top cooker or fridge. We really take for granted when saying how easy food is to make, that at some point we bought a chopping board and knife and pots and pans and so on. It’s very out of reach for so many people to home cook meals. It’s really important that we don’t stigmatise the people eating these foods. We live in such an evil food environment where we are bombarded and surrounded by all these foods in a way never before seen in human history.
To cook your own meals you need a certain amount of private space. The biggest issue is likely people being space-poor, the second biggest is people being time-poor. Importing a third of a million homeless people every year probably doesn't help the former.
Capitalism. Overworking. Underpay.
So cook processed meals😮?
Take always cooked in seed oils and microwaves meals are a big problem. Add cooking in plastic which adds BPA and Phthalates to your food, non stick coatings are also poisonous.
Not only is it healthier to cook from scratch it's a lot cheaper, people unfortunately want convenience and will happily sacrifice their health to save 1 hour of cooking a day.
I used to eat lots of this ultra processed food up to 4 years ago, I was over weight, depressed, stressed, had low self esteem, eczema and the food was easy assessable relatively cheap and gave me a temporary high. Then 1 day I said enough was enough and went total cold turkey and changed my diet completely, 1st 3 weeks were awful with sugar and fat cravings so I started to go running. I now don't eat any ultra processed food and my life is 1000 times better, complete transformation. Just remember that UPF is made for profit and not for your benefit.
Ultra processed food is the result of a culutre and lifestyle where 2 full time working adults in a family is an expected standard. When women didn't work, they would stay at home and have the time to make food by scratch. Someone juggling work, childcare and the rest does not have the capacity to cook a healthy meal and then also make their own mayonnaise from scratch.
I agree but I would also include that the culture of "buying" for convenience is fueled largely by -marketing- that convince starting in about the 1950s... Marketing today will often claim something is 'a part of a healthy diet' aka this is the indulgence. Claiming things like cereal are healthy when they are actually ultra processed.
Women have always worked. Homemaking is work.
@@shannonpierre8714You literally just proved his point. NPC
Interesting point
@@shannonpierre8714that depends on how you view your love ones/family. It's not work in a loving house hold.
We try to make everything from scratch if possible. Cakes, bread, sauces, cookies, crackers, meals, stock/broth/soup and even body moisturiser. Our vegetables are grown in the garden, so we cut buying from the supermarket to a minimal. That being said, it is only for families with time as it requires a lot of work.
The husband is the sole breadwinner of the family. I contribute this way to cut expenses.
It is beneficial for us to avoid UPF as much as possible. For the sake of our health. Also because I don't believe the food corporations need to be any more richer.
I feel the same way!
It literally takes me 10 minutes to make butter. It takes the same to make mayonnaise. I think we are programmed to believe so much of these things are convenient when in reality, they are really fast and cheap to make.
What about salmonella and raw egg? I'm asking because I'd like to DIY Mayo but worry.
@@happycook6737 it is only on the outside, and rarely in Europe. Wash them beforehand and you're good
@@happycook6737 All I know is that mayonnaise is made with raw egg, like Caesar salad dressing. If you keep refrigerated it it’s ok but use it within the time the recipe says. I am not a food safety expert so do your own research.
@edl6398: Cut your 10 minutes down to ONE with an immersion in the appropriate sized wide mouth mason jar to make mayonnaise. Look it up.
Would life be so bad without mayonnaise 🤔... I hear people saying healthier things taste better. And making dinner sauces sounds tricky enough. Perhaps I'm still at the start of my story, but I wonder if some thing the industry feeds us are just meant to go. As a mayo lover, I wonder what that would be like. 🥲
So so happy UPF is getting more coverage now. Let’s push for more affordable healthier options, more expensive UPF items to discourage consumption.
This is such a rich country problem. I was introduced to this plethora of packaged ready to eat or just assemble and eat food after moving to Germany from India. In most of India (apart from some big cities), you can only find whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits, the only products that are packaged is sugar, salt and spices.
I disagree. I'm from the global south too, and yes it is quite easy to find fresh fruits and vegetables, even fresh meat and dairy products, but most of times it's way more expensive to cook all of these fresh products than buying tacos, pizza, or any kind of street or fast food.
Eating healthy is a rich people thing here, most people work way too many hours a day and barely have time to grab a snack, so it's way more difficult to find the time to cook.
There is so much more to see when it comes to issues related to food consumption than the availability of fresh products.
At present, India has 100 million diabetes cases. Sugar, sugar, sugar.
Nope. Poor areas of South America have terrible problems with commercial sugary soda.
I really liked the speakers takes on how to live with ultra processed food. It was realistic, in that they do their best to eat non-highly processed food but accept it is going to happen in special occasions because it’s a huge part of our society. I think this is the balanced sane way to be.
No😂
I live in Singapore and I usually only take two meals a day. I keep it simple by having rice, a meat and a vegetable dish for lunch which usually cost around $5.50-6 Singapore dollars at the nearby coffee shop and then for dinner, it’s a hot meal of rice or noodles with meat and vegetables again with around the price of $6. I wouldn’t say I stay clear of processed food, but I try my best to eat my meals as cleanly as possible even when I know somethings processed food are hard to avoid. I occasionally indulge in ice creams, chocolates, potato chips and bubble tea once or twice a fortnight.
Hawker Centre foods are crap n none are healthy! I once had famous fried noodles for lunch with colleagues and the whole afternoon I had stomach ache from the excessive animal fat
@@ManlyHK1 I mentioned the coffee shop, i often get economic rice and zi char as it’s considered healthiest.
Singapore has delicious fruit so go for that as a treat. Your health is important.
@@ditsygirl5409Ask for extra vegetables as they are very healthy.
Around 12%, or one in eight, US adults have now tried a weight-loss drug like Wegovy / Ozempic, Zepbound or Mounjaro, according to a new poll, and about 6% are currently taking one. Over 40% of adults in the US are now obese.
The majority of those using the drugs (61%) are using them to treat a chronic condition like diabetes or heart disease. Just over 40% are diabetics.
A friend of mine shared that she tried one of these GLP-1 drugs (I don't remember which) and quickly came off. She couldn't tolerate the side effects. People are singing their praises (because some achieve weight loss), but that's only one aspect of using these drugs.
I lost 2 stone in 2 months on semaglutide building the dose up when I needed to. The first two weeks give stomach cramps but a minor sacrifice for the long term health goals
Ozempic is not a drug. It is a peptide that your body produces itself.
I'm glad to hear a legitimate source include bread in ultra-proccessed food! Whole wheat germs vs sourdough you made at home vs any 'bread' you buy at the grocery store are not the same. Perfect depiction of whole, processed and ultra-proccessed. 👍
I took a class to visit an in store bakery expecting to find a baker and bread being made. Instead I found untrained workers using computer controlled machinery to make up bread mixes from huge sacks with additives in. All you could say was that it was freshly baked.
BBC are not a legitimate source they are a media company with zero expertise and looking for ratings clicks. UPF des not exist. It is pure invention. for money making reasons.
Big Food (Heinz, Nestle, Pillsbury, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Mars), Big Supermarkets (Krogers, Albertsons, Walmart) owe huge thanks to the US FDA for its approval guidelines and ridiculous nutritional labeling and RDA & average serving size. Medical & health insurance industry is grateful for the high obesity rates and resulting medical conditions due to UPF. I blend as much as possible - veg fruit smoothies, soups for meals - impossible to completely avoid UPF, but blending helps to cut down the volume of UPF. Looking at other consumers in the supermarket, they have nothing but UPF in their shopping cart.
Keep it simple, so many high quality videos on youtube and TikTok from legit Chefs
In India and other asian countries the ultra processed foods are way to expensive to be eaten frequently. We cook food three times a day, breakfast , lunch and dinner and a tea time snack sometimes. The raw grains, vegetables, fish , eggs and meat are cheaper. Fruits are expensive but local and seasonal ones are budget friendly. I hope it stays that way.
A more helpful label would be one that certifies "no ultra processed foods", like we have for organic foods.
Thank you! I needed this! I too am recovering from a rare cancer, and diabetes. I am overhauling my daily habits for healthy habits. This will help!
Thanks for this. UPFs are hard to avoid. I like the idea of warnings on packaged UPFs. They may have to change as we know more - so what's new? Eggs have changed on the simple, clunky "A-E" system from "D" to "A" with clear explanations available about why. At the moment both real bread and UPF versions are "A".
Looking at the ingredients on the back is a good way to identify
Try to eat fresh veggies and fruits. Also avoid those UPFs as much as possible. Luckily I do not like to eat those strong processed food.
No pictures??
BBC is an outstanding service. My dad listened to it for most of his 90 years.
Anything made from scratch without processed ingredients would not have UPF. Example growing up that’s how Indian food is made at home. I have achieved this now but it needs lot of pre-prepping of ingredients to save time
What cooking oil do you use?
You do realize that 8 hours of work is really too much. Even if your office is just 30 minutes away door to door, there are an hour of preparing to go to work and resting after arriving back at home (that's squeezing it really). That's 8 hours sleep, 10 hours work related time.
We are left with 6 hours with grocery shopping, cooking fresh meal, eating 3 meals. 4-5 hours in total? 1 hour to spend time with friends and family? Can you lie down on your bed and instantly go to sleep? So winding down needs its own time too.
All of these take so much time and energy that people naturally eat "convenient foods", it's not always that these foods are evil and purely made addictive.
Now keep wondering why men around the world say women should stay at home and be housewives.
So true we are just exhausted and the income does not reflect the struggle, anymore.
1) it needs a good freezer
2) some old fashioned preserving equipment
3) batch cooking. start with doubling the recipes and freeze 1, thus creating variety
4) use off days (one a month for starters) to batch-cook. Envolve the whole family
5) Even if a single income household is possible involve everybody in food preparation as it is a live / saving skill EVERYBODYshould take part in
Removing UPF food from your every day diet is a chore. I downloaded the Open Foods app and found it really informative. My dark chocolate was UPF so I will look for an alternative. Tested 2 brands of peanut butter, one of them was UPF the other not, 3 brands of gluten free pasta, one was UPF, 3 brands of stock, one was not. I think it is worthwhile testing a few common everyday foods that you use, perhaps one or 2 categories each time you shop to see if you can make a better choice. The app will tell you what is the UPF component so over time you will recognise what is UPF and avoid it, it is a great educational tool. Thanks so much for this content, it will improve my health with not too much effort. ❤
Not a chore, A CHOICE
Why can't we see the video
Wasn't the Nova system classification developed by brazilian author Carlos Monteiro and his team? Why the show cites repeatedly only Moubarac? Thank you for the clarification on this.
This is so true. Double check your references, BBC!
Processed food = Obesity. I lose about 15 pounds when I move from a UPF country to a country with minimal UPF. Almost impossible to avoid UPF in the US, it's everywhere.
Here in Canada I would welcome a Chile-style black label for UPFs. If Chile can do it then other countries like Canada can as well. There will be huge pushback from Big Food. Food companies cannot make huge profits through addictive products without UPFs. There is huge profit in making the vast majority of the population obese. Unfortunately society and our health care system as well as individuals must pay the price.
I live in Chile and I hate the black warning labels especially the ''high in sugar content'' one. The adverse effect on the market is that most food or drinks that used to contain sugar now use sugar substitute like stevia and sucralose to avoid bearing the warning label. I'd rather gain a few pounds than risk having cancer from sugar substitute.
9:39 How is not eating any UPFs drastic? 😂 This shit didn't even exist until very recently in human history. I decided to cut it out (even though I never ate that much of it), and I did it 100% from day one. Only problem is it's more expensive, but my health is worth it.
This program was better than usual for the BBC. However, Kate Haliwell the food manufacturing representative was straight from the "smoking - we need more evidence to know if is bad for your health". In this RUclips video Dr Thomas Seyfried is a Professor of biology, genetics, and biochemistry at Boston College. He has over 150 peer-reviewed publications and is also the author of books such as, ‘Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer’. Explains that cancer is essentially very closely correlated with a western diet and lifestyle. His research clearly demonstrates the link. Maybe the BBC could check him out. A brilliant speaker
Might as well be a radio program I prefer video!!
In Sydney about 5-10 years ago I was busking in a tunnel that led away from a festival for young people in a park .I had never seen so many obese adolescents in my life .l was staggered but I especially the girls. I will never forget that day. I was horrified .The government has sat back and allowed it to happen. Exercise at school?, parental control, fast food ?
Good job again on the continued improvements, Lynn! In terms of salt, I tried a full week without any electrolytes several months ago and felt not not as alert; felt better with the (unflavored Re-Lyte) electrolytes but I find I dont need as much now (4 scoops now vs 8 scoops daily months ago). I also made my own copycat Re-Lyte to save on costs and decided to play around with the sodium to potassium ratio from Re-Lyte's 2-to-1 to the Salt Fix author's recommended 1-to-1 ratio but noticed for a few straight nights doing this my heart racing at night and not getting as good of sleep, so i went back to the original 2-to-1 ratio, and everything went back to normal for me.
What's the name of the app that tells you if something is ultra-processed?
I have been trying to find the URL for the food program mentioned in this video. I would like to be able to test my foods to see which one are UPF.
I lived in a SRO in the SF we had a shared kitchen we were not allowed to store food or dishes in we had mini fridges and microwaves in our room but we were not allowed to rules in our HUD lease to a hot plate.
Basically haul your food to kitchen and back including your dishes or buy pre packaged food for your microwave. What do you think most residents did ?
We need to retrain ourselves to stop scrolling on social media and take time to prepare whole fresh foods
Been on that path for years
What a pity that the industry is so reluctant to be transparent. A pity, but not surprising.
This is intellectual property rights
When you stand in her position
If I owned a supermarket, ultra processed food would had been ban. I wouldn’t sold it to people. We need stickers on products saying “ultra processed “. In Israel they mark food with high sugar “contain high amounts of sugar” but people still buy them. Ultra processed food should be ban!
Most crisps are full of seed oil hence UPF.
What’s the difference between buying a processed food which already has salt/sugar in it versus cooking a raw produce with salt/sugar yourself? The latter is better for our health? How?
It's depends, is your sugar organic? Also, when you make it, you are putting in just the ingredients. Processed food, read the label. There are fillers, preservatives, added ingredients for shelf stability
It’s important to note that ‘processed’ is not the same as ‘ultra-processed’. A tin of chopped tomatoes is very different to a jar of pasta sauce with additives, colours, flavourings, preservatives. Some pasta sauces might not have these additives (and usually have a shorter shelf life) and they’re fine in moderation, but I would still say it’s better to be able to control how much of everything you’re putting in.
I never add that much sugar.
For egzample Heinz ketchup has 22,8% sugar. If I make homemade tomato sauce, I never add 1/5 sugar to the tomatoes.
When you make the food from scratch, there’s things you don’t add yourself. When you make a soup, do you add sugar? No, because that doesn’t make sense. In UPFs they add sugar to EVERYTHING. Then you have all the other things they put in it; emulsifiers, modified starches, numerous preservatives. Starches are used because they’re cheap, can be moulded into any shape you want, and can be given any texture and flavour you can think of. The bottom line is this: UPFs are nutritionally deficient, makes you hungrier so you eat more, and the ingredients used don’t match what the body expects so it gets confused - for example a certain chemical that occurs naturally in meat signals to your body that meat is coming, but because it’s an additive in a pack of crisps, no meat shows up.
When I make vegetable soup, I don't add half the sodium as a can of soup vegetable soup and mine tastes better. They add way more sugar and salt than needed in ultra processed food. They say it's in order to give it a longer self life.
But you can buy a can of the so called healthy lower sodium soup, and it costs more. I can't understand that.
Does this mean that when I make condiments from scratch (mayonnaise, mustard, tomatopaste) and avoid too much sugar and salt it won't categorize as UVP?
I like the nova classifications , make this a legal requirement !!
I think the problem, like you mentioned, is that most ultra processed foods have high levels of carbs (including sugar) and fat, because they're addictive, filling and, above all, cheap and with longer shelf life. They could release healthy variations but only proper regulation to provide better labeling and a classification of items based on the percentage of each macro/micro nutrient would help people change behavior, as well as policy that taxes bad food and use the extra revenue to subsidize healthy variations.
I personally like processed food for the convenience. If I were wealthy and had someone to cook for me I'd want everything from scratch, but even considering I like to cook, it's just too much to do it for yourself, alone, even when you prepare several meals in advance.
The problem also happens with restaurant food. Even less processed food is sometimes bad because restaurants want profit margins and they'll load your plate with cheap carbs, fat and sauces, maybe some vegetables as fillers and only a little bit of animal protein.
Unless you cook for yourself, and from good quality ingredients, you'll pay a very high price for the convenience of UPFs. It's okay when you're relatively young, but with age you may notice that you're unusually exhausted, dragging through the day, needing coffee a lot, but it no longer makes much difference. Then your joints start hurting, the pain makes you feel even more tired. You're overweight and have no energy to do anything, you go to work just to survive, but apart from that all you want to do is to eat, watch telly and sleep. Then your doctor tells you that your stats are bad, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes. The meds lower the stats but you don't feel better, because they come with a set of side effects, so now you have to deal with that too. Then, perhaps depression creeps in, but guess what, there's a tablet for that too... So that's a story of life potential wasted in the name of convenience...
@@frusia123 true, that is the lifestyle cycle of modern society.
This isn’t necessarily the problem though - people have been eating a lot of carbs and fat in various parts of the world for a long time and are not seeing the impacts that we are in countries like the UK and the US. Not just in restaurants, but if you go to eat with normal families in places like Italy and Greece; the fresh, homemade bread and extra virgin olive oil and cheeses are always being piled liberally onto everyone’s plates!
It’s less about macro nutrients and more about the way that UPF breaks down food into components and then puts them back together again or uses additives to mimic ‘real’ food, but making it very soft and ultra-palatable. For example - if you’ve ever made sourdough bread at home: one slice is filling and takes a while to eat. Contrast with supermarket sandwich bread, which most people could eat slice after slice of with no issue. Also, the stripping out of fibre is an issue - many cheap supermarket pastas and of course fruit juices strip out what allows us to digest the food and to feel full from the calories we’ve consumed.
@@frusia123r
It's actually not about the amount of carbs, fat and sugar in UPF.. it is literally the ultraprocessing that is the problem. There is a lot of evidence for that now and it's very well explained in the book Ultraprocessed People. You should read it. It's also very enjoyable.
I have lived in the UK for the last 7 years. The amount of upf here is insane. People dont cook. The lifestyle here, long working hours exhaustion influences people choices ( IT is morę convenient and faster to buy already prepared meal)
I don't understand why yogurt, beer, and xanthan gum aren't all classified the same or at least beer and xanthan gum. All three are fermentation products. Yogurt is milk fermented by bacteria and is 'minimally proceed', xanthan gum and beer are both made from sugars being fermented by bacteria, but beer is 'processed' and xanthan gum is 'ultra processed'. Randomly grouping foods together based on feelings and then trying to determine if one of the groups is worse than the other seems like the wrong direction.
Just a guess, but I can make beer at home if I wanted to but not xanthan gum. Also xanthan gum isn't necessary to make a product, beer and yogurt require fermentation to make them. Its specifically made to alter a food product.
@@AJ-oy5iv the only reason you can make beer at home and not xanthan gum is because you can easily purchase brewer's yeast but cannot easily purchase the microbe that makes xanthan gum because nobody cares about making unique xanthan gums at home. Per my original point, all 3 products are produced by microbes breaking down sugar. One is a milk sugar fermentation and two are glucose fermentations.
Note that if you want to make xanthan gum at home, there are recipes on the Internet, but it will probably take a lot of practice unless you can find a source to purchase the concentrated microbe.
@@TheDaspiffy Beer has been made by ancient societies long before you could purchase brewers yeast. Buying it makes the process easier but isn't necessary. Sourdough starter could be the source.
When you finish fermenting for yogurt, kimchi, beer etc., you get a processed edible product. When you ferment X. campestris you get sludge not used in food until a scientist figured it out in the 1960s. Other processes are needed to use it as an additive for food that can be made without that product. I understand it being a sign of UPF and don't think it was an emotional decision (sorry if Ive misquoted you).
However, the bacteria is found on brassicas, its the pathogen causing black rot disease. So if you want to try to ferment that and use it as a food product I'd love to know how it goes! I don't feel comfortable using it as of now. I can't think of anything its necessary in besides a Starbucks Frappuccino.
@@AJ-oy5iv the other processing is drying and grinding, which is far less processing than beer typically, though not necessarily, takes. Most beers have additives to coagulate everything floating around in it for easy filtration, so arguably beer is more processed than xanthan gum. It is true that xanthan gum has not been used nearly as long, but if the argument is that it hasn't been used as long then rather than discussing the processing level of food, there should be a length of consumption. The problem with that is that the authors want to group some foods, such as sugar, into the processed or ultra processed category because they know that some foods are bad for us. But that is poisoning the well in order to get a desired outcome. My point is that the research and determination should be done on a case by case basis.
@@TheDaspiffy I think you may be "missing the forest for the trees" here. Beer filtration being more processing is grasping at straws. (which you could use to avoid filtering the beer :))
I honestly think this group is doing putting in the work for the classifications here and not scare-mongering. I'm not trying to argue anything, I just thought you were genuinely curious as to why they made the decision to separate foods made by fermentation from an additive put into foods that don't require them. I'm just offering a different perspective.
Time is irrelevant but I think that is evidence of it being unnecessary. My argument is that the process required for xanthan gum doesn't leave you with a food product. We don't eat the sludge created. We do consume the end product of fermentation when it comes to beer, yogurt, etc.
So if I make a sauce from scratch it becomes processed food because I have added flour, salt or sugar?
I realize that all my life I ate almost no processed foods! Without difficulty. The main processed food that I ate was bread, sometimes pasta. I always cook from scratch what by the way can be very quick and easy if you stick to meat, fish, chicken and beans, (frozen) vegetables and eggs, chess, fruit (no fruit juice, no sugars). You can stew meat or slow cook in the oven for days at the time and vacuum the portions but also quick meat, 5 minutes on the stove. I also use a bread machine.
I would love to know how much restaurant (not fast food) is UPF!
In the USA nearly all restaurant food is UHP unless they scratch cook. Very few places scratch cook.
It would be helpful to put label “Not Ultra Processed” similar to All Natural, Organic.
Is there no video?
Where is the video?
I cook everything, absolutely everything. It takes me little time, makes little mess in an air fryer and microwave. I don't even use a frypan anymore.
PFAS. Look it up. Weep. Get angry. Then look for safer replacements for the things/foods you use the most.
Sounds like people trying to avoid processed food are making more of it themselves. Whatever happened to eating good old meat, and veg, fish and eggs? There's nothing at all wrong with saturated fat. That isn't in ultra processed food. It's too bloody expensive for processed food.
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Too bad you missed pointing out a big culprit here which are ultra processed and everybody seems to ignore: Seed oils
Margerine, sunflower oil, canola oil, etc. are all ultra processed foods. Yet for some reason they’re being put forward also “healthy”
Butter, lard, etc. all very healthy and unprocessed, yet somehow those are the ones that get the bad rep.
Is olive oil bad?
@@venusforfran Olive oil isn't bad, but like everything else in life, moderation is key
@@slayer2450 okay! Thank you :)
I was shocked recently to see several aisles in Tesco full of ready meals, giving the impression that that is what to eat, that is what everyone eats.
Snacks amazes me. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when eating between meals was frowned on’( you’ll spoil your dinner) and a snack was the word used when you just had a sandwich for your lunch instead of a proper meal. Commercial marketing has been so successful in persuading people to eat between meals and to consider such highly processed food as MacDonalds as a treat. I’m sceptical about pub menus where you can see it is all frozen bought in products.
Thanks for sharing, that's interesting to me as someone that grew up in 2000's. Was it also less common to hang out with friends at food establishments? Since I've been old enough to go out with friends, we always go to the food court or something nearby for food "refill". Not really specifically for a lunch or dinner, but just to get food. Almost 30 now and it's the same. Sometimes I feel lucky about my autism in some ways. My parents also tried to give me lots of snacks, but I refused to eat anything that wasn't plain thin pasta or plain white rice. I am better now (almost 30) but this persisted into much of my 20's. Wouldn't even eat the cake at birthdays. lol
@@AaaAaa-yb2nb Yes 'hanging out' at food establishments never happened more or less. Apart from anything else they practically did not exist like all fast food places there were cafes only.
As children at home we also never ever took any food, even a biscuit without asking first. We just did not graze between meals.
Also an old probable autistic, I eat the same things often on the same days and a tiny range of food items. It is easy and no problem. Especially if you do not have any attraction to 'going out' pointlessly. I always packed the same two sandwiches for lunch every day of my working life, never ever paid for food out.
@@nicholaspostlethwaite9554 Thanks for sharing. I find it fascinating to learn that my generation is not just seeing a massive change in the type of food we eat (such as ultra-processed), but cultural habits around food have changed too.
That is great, I always had trouble figuring out my lunch in the office. So I conditioned myself to not be hungry during the 9-5 and just eat breakfast and dinner instead. I have 2 pieces of plain toast in the morning and then plain pasta or rice at night and I enjoy the routine. I like it too, it's easy and helps keep my grocery bill down. People comment on it a lot, and food gatherings are awkward, but it is what it is. I can compromise now that I'm older and eat things I really don't want to for social peace.
It is really hard to find real food in the store. As a petson trying ro drastically reduce upfs. I stand in the stores and don't know what to buy on s budget.
What the hell. This might have well been an audio. I didn't watch/listen as a result after fastforwarding
I enjoyed this programme
On what grounds we should equate ultra processed food as bad food?
@ parties 😂😂
They make i seem like UPF is really complicated to work out. I don't think it's so difficult to understand when you frame the question as whether the product is primarily for the purpose of making ever increasing amounts of money for shareholders. If it is, you should be treating it with the assumption that it is UPF until proven otherwise. The heavier the marketing (including health claims), probably the more this is true.
This mechanism is simple - if I eat more of this food, I buy more of it. So large corporations are motivated to get me to eat as much as possible, for the least cost to them. And their commercial strategy is very effective at achieving this outcome. The nutrition labels in the UK were developed with the industry, so it's easy to see that they can find ways to make the nutrition work for them. After all, diet coke gets all greens in the traffic light system- implying that it's basically the same as drinking water. But I think we all know these are not the same.
All that said, the difficulty is the making good choices in this societal environment. To make whole food cheaply at home you must have time, a resource the poorest in society do not have. Or you need plenty of money.
Just buy vegetables and potatoes, wholegrain rice or pasta. The best carbs are fresh potatoes because they naturally contain vitamines and even a bit of calcium. Its just a solid base for every lunch or dinner. And you can easily mix things up by getting whats on sale or whats in season. I usually stirfry my veggies to keep them nice and crispy. And add protein to flavour. I like ovenroasted chicked the best, because it basically cooks in its own fat keeping it nice and lean. Just normal legs are great for that. But somedays ill just fry up some eggs. And you can make it as exciting as you want: Go asian with the rice? Just mix in some garlic, soy sauce and ginger etc... Having this type of flexible base concept really helps with keeping costs down. If you make a shopping list with precise ingredients, it can get really expensive if you really want to follow this one specific recipe. If you think more in line with : Veg, carbs, proteine and mix and match on the go you can save a lot of money by taking advantage of deals.
This is all kind of obvious but for me this base concept is what I use 90% of the time. And my pro tip: Cook in large batches and save a meal or two in de fridge or even the freezer. First of all, almost everything is cheaper when you buy more. Secondly, having a meal ready for you after a long day really helps with staying away from delivery food saving you money and an unhealthy meal. It takes some discipline to prepare everything yourself from scratch but after a while when you build it in to your daily routine it becomes enjoyable. Often I just peel a large batch of potatoes on the couch in front of the telly. One of the supermarket chains in my area have a special on wednesday where they sell big 4kg bags for just 2.49. It almost becomes a sort of sport to hunt for these type of deals and really try to make something very nice from these humble ingredients. What you put in to your body is quite important so its probably a good idea to spend some time and energy on it. And im not a zealot by any means. Sometimes I enjoy a nutella sandwich or use a packaged sauce, things like that, but all in all its a very small percentage of my total diet.
Sorry to say this I wanted to watch this. I guess it’s made for listening, that little bubble after , while it is annoying( I’m going to listen while I’m doing my walking to the loo )
I live in chile, and we do have those black labels on the food products. It actually helps me, and some friends of mine eat healthier
❤thank you very much for this
Kids need 2 snacks per day [7:09]: ***TOTAL BS!!!!** Feed yourself a proper human diet and you will not need or want any snacks. You don't even need to eat every day :)
veggie these days had all sort of pesticide and herbicide that kinda linger even after we wash it, so, every cheap veggie we have might have "dirty farmers" hand on it
Still better than your KFC.
@@frusia123 better have my veggie from my own plastics covered green house at home
There are companies, what do you expect, only the bottom line counts at the end of the day
Wish they would have defined ultra processed, or cited the studies, or done anything to give me somewhere else to research.
Oh well, I'll just keep up with the idea that calories is ultimately the important factor, while monitoring macro nutrients.
Read or listen to Ultraprocessed People - it explains it all
I have always wonder about this question. Thank you
Are sardines canned in olive oil or in their own juices ultra processed?
I would suggest it depends. There are canned sardines in native Olive oil and Salt only. I think they are category 3. But as soon as you use artificial stabilizers and more chemicals it may leak Into cat.4?
Being able to fuss over food is a luxury of having plenty of it. And a hig reason why we have plenty is because we process our food to have longer shelf life. But yeah it's convenient to the point were it can get unhealthy. In general though I'm not too worried, people have never lived longer and we don't see as much famines as we used to. So the modern way of farming and processing food is a net positive. We just need to be watch out for overindulgence.
I used to take my kids to play centre and it used to amaze me - all these kids ripping into packets of bright orange snacks or two crackers and some 'cheese' sludge. Everything was flavoured and coloured with extra salt and oil and stuff. And every second day someone would have a cake. Then their parents would complain they couldn't get their kids to eat vegetables. No kidding, Sherlock. Everywhere we went, half the kids would be sucking on a plastic pouch of mush or a sweetened softdrink. Library story time, parks, playgroups .... everywhere.
We used to eat our share of biscuits and muesli bars, but mostly carrots, water, celery, apple or orange pieces. And not all the time - kids don't need to be permanently attached to a food bag. Food is marketed as being fun - but it's not. Playing with blocks or on a swing is fun, not sucking down obesity in a plastic packet.
It is like tablets - yes we use tablets and watch videos, but not all the time. But sometimes I think parents use food, expensive toys and devices to make themselves feel like they are 'parenting' without having to actually engage with their kids.
When I was a child in the 1970's, kids didn't snack. We ate breakfast, school lunch, and then dinner. Treats were only at holidays or birthdays. Most kids were very skinny! I was chubby and teased .
children should be made to involved in making thr food with ur hands/support is the best way to make them respect the food instead of unknow food made smwhere
28:20 In simple language - its deliberately confusing so that consumers doubt the science. Plus, its best to follow government guideline (which we the industry influence heavily through lobby groups and political donations). Did i get that correct?
During the pandemic our health markers went up bc we were forced to cook, even if it wasn’t all whole foods. Now we are back to our old behaviours and markers are down again. Time is the key ingredient and most people can’t afford it. Our society is designed to keep us busy and unable to find time to cook, learn and improve the was we eat everyday. We are what we eat, and what we eat is making us sick and in some cases killing us. Do what you can and grow from there.
Perhaps you could read Michael Pollan? He successfully simplifies an issue which your program unfortunately complicates.
Back when one parent could stay at home to cook and clean this wasn't a problem. Now both parents need to work in order to survive so they don't have time to cook and have no choice but to buy the ultra processed stuff.
We can complain all we want, but when one buys pasta sauces, frozen lasagna and cold cuts, it's simply a matter of choice.
You've forgotten two key variables: availability and price. It's not always as clear cut as you'd like to believe...
@roaldruss4211 Well, if you find pasta sauce, you can find simple tomato sauce and make your own. If you can find cold cuts, you can find a piece of meat. As a rule, it's better to buy as simple and raw as possible. If tomato sauce is much more expensive than pasta sauce, we have a big problem!
yes. or intelligence.
@@roaldruss4211
Veggies can be cheap
Listened 17 min and surprised people on the podcast are surprised /didn't suspect boullion, cereal bars, and fish fingers to be ultra processed. Was looking to learn more on identifiable chemicals, did hear of one or two.
I really don't appreciate the way ultra processed foods are defined in this. They literally described a regular recipe which isn't a significant level of processing. A combination of ingredients is not in itself unhealthy. Utra processed food would be natural ingredients that has undergone a drastic process such as extracting or concentrating. Being combined with emulsifiers, or having nutrients extracted or added in is high level cooking processing. Food looses it's nutritional value, even without loosing the actual nutrient profile, because of ultra processing. However, because the content of the ingredients were altered they don't absorb or metabolize the same.
They called something UPF because it contained xanthan gum. They're doing exactly what they did with sugar: they didn't want to lie but were reluctant to hurt the industry, so they came up with a compromise - they muddled the message, sugar is bad but we also need sugar, sugar is in fruit and veg too, and as we know fruit and veg is healthy. They confused a lot of people, including medical doctors, and it worked, while the truth was pretty simple: we need carbohydrates, but we don't need sucrose. There's literally nothing that we need in sucrose, and it's called "empty calories" for this reason.
Here they're doing a similar thing. Telling people that UPF is unavoidable or extremely hard to avoid. That it is so hard to distinguish from normal food, that we might as well give up trying. Truth is that you not only can, but also must cut out UPF drastically if you want the change to matter for your health. UPF is designed in such a way that it makes you crave more and more of it. But it works the other way too, the less you eat it, the less you crave it. If you eat UPF every day, you'll always crave it, and you will sacrifice your health to make the food industry guys even richer.
The term ultra-processed food as defined in this video is largely political and ideological, preying on ignorance and lack of education. Processing foods can increase nutrient availability.
What is the name of the app?
It's called Open Food Facts
Dark chocolate is quite good for you - a couple of squares of 80% is good for the heart. It might be processed but you're having very little of it. And only 1gr of sugar per square.
Some brands of dark chocolate have been found to have high levels of lead which shocked me.
People need the skills of making food from the ingredients only. I minimized the amount of upfs after I started reading the label of my “fresh” bread from the bakery 5 years ago. Food staple at my house that should only consist of 2 ingredients, salt and flour, had 10+ ingredients! Once you learn the necessary skills, it’s super easy to make and store your own mayonnaise, butter, bread, pasta, yogurt, stock etc. Do not trust the food industry or any “healthy” label on an upf! Green washing is absolutely everywhere!
Thank you for this amazing beneficial program
Apple bread and pasta are processed food. I like bread I’ve cut that drastically on the pasta and I have 40 pounds. But I do eat pastries as long as they’re made by an individual bakery, not an industrialized company and unlimited the amount.
I recently visited france countey aide and it amazes me how people eat. They have a very simple eating habbits naturally avoids processed food. They eat alot of veggies , some cheese amd bread.
Maybe if people were not being economically coerced to waste half of their day or more at the workplace just to have a place to sleep and some cancer inducing slop to fill their bellies, they would have enough time to stay informed and cook/prepare/shop for 3 healthy meals a day! But alas, the cogs just have to keep spinning, don't they? Mr. Posh needs his new yacht now and not later!
Why do kids need to take 2 snacks to school?? We never did.
2 kids, 2 snacks. Some less developed countries don't provide free meals in school...
@zapfanzapfan yes, but that's not the comment was about. This woman's children go to school in California
I would guess her kids don't eat much lunch or breakfast. I heard a few years ago that eating smaller portions spread out through the day is healthier than eating the same amount in 3 meals.
Why can't the kids eat carrot sticks, homemade snacks, drink only water, small pieces of fresh fruit, homemade oatmeal pots. There are dozens of healthy options.
@@cassieoz1702 I had to read up on it, 6 US states now apparently offer free school lunches to all students. Welcome to the civilized world if you live in one of those 6 states!
It baffles me that UPFs are cheaper than less processed variants. The stuff that takes more effort to make (process), costs less? That does not make sense to me. I do understand that fresh products can be expensive because they spoil, but that should mean, in my opinion, the minimally processed variants (to only improve preservation) should be the cheapest, right?
Because they use cheap ingredients and produce in mass
Using stock cubes is more problematic because of the salt content and not because it is UPF. Reducing UPF for me is about reducing calories from UPF, and not about eliminating specific ultraprocessed foods from m'y diet. A stock cube has hardly any calories but a bag of chips, upf pizza or mayonnaise has a lot... and obviously that contribues to health problems. I pay attention to harmful additives too.
For me, eating hyperpalatable foods like a stock cube ratchet up my cravings astronomically! If I avoid stock cubes my cravings are less. How do I know? I went whole foods minimally processed plant based no added oil, no sugar. I got near my goal weight but still suffered from cravings. Then I quit stock cubes. It was hard but helped me eat less naturally. Not sure if is true for everyone.
I remember a time when we were told that 1 in 4 would get cancer, now it's 1 in 2.
Need I say more.
It's even more difficult when you are on a very small budget. It tends to be cheaper and can be a way to extend the time between or even skip homemade meals. Not everyone has the time or money to do so. We need healthy options.
I've been hearing a lot about this UPF but not until now did I know what they really are.
And I thought I knew what was UPF but never considered condiments!
I’m not sure I’m bothered about stock cubes tbh. If that’s the only source of upf in your diet I’m sure you can sleep easy.