May 26th, 2024

Author: donich_admin

Ultra Processed Foods

I’ve been reading a lot about ultra processed food (and in fact have read “ultra processed people” up to the point towards the end where it started getting very political and woke).

It does occur to me that R and I eat virtually no ultra processed foods. In particular I eat very very few.

We both only have one full on meal a day which we have at mid-day. For my breakfast I have fruit, museli and skyr yoghurt and a cup of freshly ground coffee. R has the coffee and an organic oat bar. He snacks on those and vegetable crisps through the day and I think both of them may possibly be UPF. I snack on grapes and nuts and have a 30g bar of 85% dark chocolate with coffee after lunch. In the evening I either have a bowl of homemade soup with a homemade roll, or more museli and yoghurt.

In general I make all our bread myself, although as I am still recovering from my foot operation, I tend to buy garlic bread and wraps from ASDA as I can’t stand up for too long. The yoghurt I eat is all plain/natural. R likes flavoured yoghurt which is UPF.

This was our main meal menu for the last week. Except as noted, everything is made from fresh ingredients at home by me. Oil is either vegetable or extra virgin olive. Cooking spread is butter. Stock cubes are organic low salt but I suspect still may be UPF.

Kedgeree – smoked mackerel is processed but not ulta processed.
Salmon stir fry – the chinese sauce I put on this will be UPF
Paella – I sometimes put chorizo sausage in this which is UPF
Tuna pasta with mediterraen veg
piri piri chicken with herbed rice
Veg curry, Dhal, naan bread
Falafels, salad, refried beans, houmus, wraps – since my op I have been buying the Old El Paso beans which are probably UPF

When I am fully recovered I will go back to making more stuff myself and hopefully eliminate more UPF from our diet – anyway, we are very, very far from eating 57% of our calories from it, which is apparently national average in UK.

The picture at the top is Swedish Fish Cakes made by me from entirely unprocessed ingredients.