Foods to avoid...

As my clients know, my approach is very much 'add these amazing foods into your diet' rather than 'avoid this, this, this, and this' BUT if I was going to vilify anything, it would be ultra-processed foods (UPFs).

WHAT ARE UPFs?

This term has been banded about quite a lot recently, but there's no clear definition of what it means. It's essentially food you wouldn't be able to make at home because they're mostly made from things extracted from food, like specific starches or fats, and they tend to include more than 5 ingredients.

For example, a homemade cookie would include flour, eggs, sugar, butter, baking soda, and chocolate (which ideally just contains 3 ingredients), whereas this is what's in Maryland cookies. Have you ever cooked with partially inverted sugar syrup or soya lecithin?!

This shows the progression from unprocessed to UPFs:

WHY SHOULD YOU AVOID THEM:

To caveat this, I don't think it's possible or necessary to avoid these foods 100% of the time. Sometimes we're in a rush and we grab a bag of crisps to keep us going, other times we're watching a film and want some Phish Food (shout out Ben & Jerry's) to accompany it and that's fine.

What is a problem is if these become your staples, as is the case for 57% of the UK population (Rauber et al, 2019). You may think your diet is 'not that bad', but starting the day with Special K and a fruit yoghurt, then having a Pret sandwich for lunch, a protein bar in the afternoon and then an oven pizza for supper means you're having at least 90% UPFs in the day. They're good at hiding in plain sight!

They increase our risk of disease. UPFs negatively impact our microbiome and our neurotransmitters (including serotonin and dopamine), and they deliver calories more rapidly than our body can account for, leading to excessive calorie intake (Soil Association, 2022). As a result, studies have linked UPFs to weight gain, obesity, cancer, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and the list goes on... (Elizabeth, 2020).

They're designed to be addictive. UPFs are made in labs where they manufacture the levels of sugar, fat and salt to hit your tastebuds in a specific way to keep you coming back for more. These aren't combinations you find in nature. This is one of the reasons it's so difficult not to have another Pringle, chip, chocolate biscuit etc. - it's not your willpower failing you, it's the way the food was made.

They deplete us of nutrients. Take sugar as an example; during the process of making refined sugar (e.g. converting sugar cane to granulated sugar), essential trace minerals our body needs to digest it are stripped away. When we then eat the biscuit which contains the sugar, the body takes these minerals it needs to digest the sugar from its stores (usually in our organs and tissues,) which can lead to nutrient deficiencies - especially of zinc, calcium, magnesium and B vitamins (Wild, 2012).

HOW YOU CAN AVOID THEM:

1. Do a weekly food shop. This means you'll have a well stocked kitchen so you can cook for yourself when you get in after a busy day. If you shop little and often, stopping off on your way home from work, you'll likely be shopping tired and hungry so you'll be tempted to buy the filled pasta and a jar of pesto because you don't have the energy to think about what to cook (no judgement, I've very much been there!)

2. Focus on whole foods. 90% of your shop should be fruit and veg (fresh or frozen), eggs, meat (ideally organic and unprocessed e.g. steaks / mince / chicken thighs rather than sausages / bacon / chicken nuggets), fish (tinned or fresh), cheese, yoghurt, dried goods like pasta, freshly made good quality bread, beans and lentils. Obviously add a couple of fun things like quality chocolate if you'd like!

3. Learn to cook a few basic things. Boiled eggs on quality sourdough with ferments on the side. A steak with broccoli and salad. Spaghetti with a fresh pesto. Fish with noodles and veg. This means you'll have something easy up your sleeve so you can avoid a ready meal.

4. Be prepared. Have nuts or fruit with you if you're out and about. Get boiled eggs as a snack if you couldn't bring your own. Take a packed lunch with you to the office. It's often when we're out that we fall into the UPF trap.

5. Read labels. If there's an ingredient you couldn't easily buy in the supermarket, it's an UPF. If there's something in there you don't recognise, it's a UPF. If it has more than 5 ingredients, it's probably a UPF.

Taking the time to cook the majority of your meals from scratch is one of the best things you can do for yourself nutritionally. Buy the best quality you can of simple, seasonal ingredients and you can't go far wrong.

If you'd like more support, head to my 'bookings' page and book yourself in for a free discovery call to see how we could work together :)