Ultra processed bread

Sago

Basgetti I use Waitrose own flour, their seeded one is excellent.

If I find my self in a farm shop I love to buy artisan flours.

Here’s today’s loaves

They look fantastic!

I started looking at the ingredients on the bread I bought and was horrified with the number of additives and emulsifiers that were added.
I now make 2 Irish wheaten soda bread loaves a week, no kneading, just mix in a big bowl and 10 mins from start to finish - then 30 mins in the oven. I let them cool, slice and freeze, taking a couple of slices out for toast each morning for me and DH.
Completely non processed and full of porridge oats, seeds etc.

One terrible story regarding us not knowing what we eat was told to me a few years ago by someone who worked in the food industry, the labs have found away to hid that fact there is pork in the prepared meals.
He had no reason to lie but the truth is we don’t know what is in our food which is why I try not to buy commercial processed food.

Are you sure this isn't info from the research project and book called "Pig 05049" by Christien Meindertsma?

She tracked a single pig and found its bio-products were used in 185 different everyday items/foods.

I know people made videos about her research as often it was framed sensationally about labs hiding pig products in food.
Obviously often it's not hidden - pig fat is in most bread and loads of cakes/pastries in Spain it seems to me.

I think labs have actually got better and better at detecting even tiny amounts of pig/horse/grains etc in foods.

This was a food buyer for prepare meals in the 90s so I don’t know, only repeating what he said shall I ask for it to be taken down?

No. Not at all, mokryna it was what you were told!

I just wondered about it as it sounded unlikely.
I smno expert!

Hiding one (cheap) meat in with more expensive meat obviously did happen and labs uncovered horse meat in beef products via DNA.

I can't see the point of expensive lab stuff to hide pork...

The book wasn't until 2007 or 2008 so no, not that!

Cornishgreenhouse

I started looking at the ingredients on the bread I bought and was horrified with the number of additives and emulsifiers that were added.
I now make 2 Irish wheaten soda bread loaves a week, no kneading, just mix in a big bowl and 10 mins from start to finish - then 30 mins in the oven. I let them cool, slice and freeze, taking a couple of slices out for toast each morning for me and DH.
Completely non processed and full of porridge oats, seeds etc.

I make bread also, one spoon, one bowl, bake. Done.

Brilliant.

Airfryer bread-a great use of your airfryer.

NotSpaghetti

*twiglet77*, as someone who has been a label-reader since the early 70s I'd be interested in this app but am honestly not sure how it would help me?

I have lots of apps so am not hostile to them generally - but I already seem to take ages in the supermarket or online reading ingredients - and don't actually buy a huge amount with a barcode that isn't exactly what it says...

Yes cleaning products have barcodes so maybe that will help there?
And suncreams you suggest - but oats and misos (say) are just what they are.

I do buy olives and tinned stuff - tomatoes, beans of various sorts.. I buy a specific tomato ketchup (and a mushroom one), likewise mayonnaise, quite a range of chutney and pickles.

Some things are fairly rare in our house but I admit that some things I love and I know aren't especially good for me... not "usual" things but occasional - crisps, frozen gnocchi, the odd ready-meal, a panettone etc...
I'll happily eat cakes when out but I bake more than I'd buy. My weakness is great bread - but we bake nearly all of ours.

Maybe I should get it for cleaning products?
Just wondering.

Yuka is a free app, why not try it and if you don’t like using it, delete!

Where have I been all my life that all this is quite new to me?
I had no idea that once blameless Hovis or say Waitrose whole meal were on the danger list.
For those who can make their own or get to a proper local baker, lucky you, but surely no need to spread horror stories about what the rest of us eat.

Try buying those package sandwiches, from a well known shop, they came up bad or poor. It’s the additives the commercial companies add in.

winterwhite

Where have I been all my life that all this is quite new to me?
I had no idea that once blameless Hovis or say Waitrose whole meal were on the danger list.
For those who can make their own or get to a proper local baker, lucky you, but surely no need to spread horror stories about what the rest of us eat.

I would think, to be sensible about it, it depends how much bread you eat daily, and what the rest of your diet is like. Eating a couple of slices of supermarket wholemeal bread, whilst eating plenty of fruit and veg, good quality proteins, etc., is not going to be the end of the world.

LucyAnna5

I would think, to be sensible about it, it depends how much bread you eat daily, and what the rest of your diet is like. Eating a couple of slices of supermarket wholemeal bread, whilst eating plenty of fruit and veg, good quality proteins, etc., is not going to be the end of the world.

Well put! 👏👏👏

winterwhite

Where have I been all my life that all this is quite new to me?
I had no idea that once blameless Hovis or say Waitrose whole meal were on the danger list.
For those who can make their own or get to a proper local baker, lucky you, but surely no need to spread horror stories about what the rest of us eat.

Concern has been being expressed over UPFs (Ultra Processed Foods) for 4 or 5 years now. Medical research shows that there is higher incidence of a range of illnesses associated with a high consumption of UPFs.

This doesn't mean that everyone who eats nothing but UPFs is doomed to an early death and having heart attacks. The majority will not, but the probability of this rises, purely for illustration, from, say, 5 people in every hundred to 10 people in every hundred.

Chris van Tulliken's book Ultra Processed people was published in 2023. I have read it and do not agree with everything he says but overall his arguments are convincing.

The problem is the use of UPF's has crept up on us without any of us knowing about it. For example as a child/young person I loved bread but in the 70s and 80s, I began to eat less and less because I no longer liked it or enjoyed it.

It was the late 1980s before I found out of the development of the Chorleywood method of making and cooking bread, and how it had changed the bread we eat, and understood why I no longer liked bread. Once I bought a bakers loaf at a farm shop, my love of bread was back in an instant.

And this is the problem is that all these extra ingredients have crept in over the years without any of us noticing, as manufacturers try to make food more and more cheaply and more consistent in taste, texture etc.

We all need to assess what and how we eat No one is going to be able to reduce their consumption to nil. There are some products whose convenience is so strong, we just keep them in our pantries. We were out this morning and got uite cold. When we got in I made us both a cuppa soup, i suppose we could have had a cup of tea or coffee, but the psychological comfort of a uick mug of soup takes a lot of beating.

What can we do to reduce the UPFs in our diet? Well to begin with we should do what we should be doing already and that is reading the contaiers for food, whether a lable on a tin, a card sleeve for a ready meal, so we know what we are buying and eating and then we should try as far as we can to cook from scratch. We can make double portions of meals and freeze the second portion - a home made ready meal, - eat more fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables.

But, as I said, we can never entirely eliminate them from our diet, but we can minimise them.

twiglet77
I have finally tried this app.
I don't know why I didn't just do this in the first place!

I scanned a lot of items in my home probably 60 or so - it amazed me that I even had that many but I do have a lot of pots and jars of things like indian pickles and so on. Of the items that it knew what they were maybe a quarter were apparently "excellent" and most were at least good (so 👍) and quite a few it didn't understand.

I know someone said it did cosmetics so I'll have a go with that later.

The "bad" ones I scanned were Henderson's Relish - which is a bit like Worcestershire Sauce (it suggested a beetroot and horseradish pickle or a Vadasz jalapeño relish (which I already have) -neither of the suggestions in this case are at all useful I'm afraid.

It didn't like my Miso (salty), my Zoug paste (chlorophyll I think) and some frozen vegetarian frankfurters made by Tival which I do know are junk but as we only have them maybe 2 or 3 times a year I can give myself a pass on this!

I didn't bother scanning the big packet of crisps I bought yesterday!
...maybe I should?

It says it doesn't scan detergents and didn't understand my other cleaning products either which is a pity.

Anyway, an interesting experiment!
Thank you!
I think my older grandchildren may like it.

The thing to remember is that none of the ingredients used in UPF food is a dangerous in itself. There are laws and tests that make it illegal for any manufacturer to use any item not considered safe for human consumption.

The problem is that so many ingredients have been denatured by being broken up into constituent parts in order to assure completely uniform product every time that the 'wholeness' that comes from the wheat, and which supplies the trace elements and vitamins in the product as grown, is lost in the processing

To produce these processed products from the plant itself, usually involves various chemical and other processes. Most vegetable oils will not be cold pressed like the products in the supermarket, the raw materials, olives, rapeseed etc, will have been heated up and then put through presses of various kinds to extract every drop of oil in the raw materials. This often leads to oil that is a strong colour or has an unpleasant and bitter taste, so the oil will then be subject to further chemical processes to bleach the oil and change the flavour.

As I said none of these products are inherently unhealthy or unfit for human consumption. The best comparison is with sugar, sugar in your tea, an odd slice of cake, or bar of chocolate will do you no harm at all, but have a diet that is full of sweetened drinks and sweetened food items - and remember sugar is a flavour enhancer and can be found in many savoury processed foods - and you are setting yourself up for Type 2 diabetes, particularly as an excessive consumption of sugar often leads to excessive weight gain.

The answer is not just cooking from scratch, but eating from scratch; snack on fruit and vegetables, not sweets and biscuits and so on.

I’m sure that all of you who eat ‘good bread’ are doing the right thing and those baking their own bread are even more to be admired. I do keep reading however that bread, even if bought from a supermarket and UP, is a good product to eat.
Certainly better than many items seen in supermarket trolleys.
I pay £4.50 for a loaf now in our little bakery and unfortunately that is way beyond many family budgets.

I remember the advertising strap line of ‘six slices a day is the well-balanced way’ ……… think of all the UPF in that! I have two slices of store baked bread a day……the loaf is frozen on the day of purchase and I take out what I need each day.
As for other UPF, I don’t eat chicken nuggets, burgers, ready meals, turkey twizzlers, or the like…….if we want something like that I make it myself.

Astitchintime

I remember the advertising strap line of ‘six slices a day is the well-balanced way’ ……… think of all the UPF in that! I have two slices of store baked bread a day……the loaf is frozen on the day of purchase and I take out what I need each day.
As for other UPF, I don’t eat chicken nuggets, burgers, ready meals, turkey twizzlers, or the like…….if we want something like that I make it myself.

There seems to be UPFs in everything, All those spreads people us instead of butter, all relishes: salad cream, mayonnaise, processed cheese, sausages, soft drinks.

I bought some venison burgers in Tesco and assumed they would be just meat, but they had half a dozen other ingredients.

Read the ingredients on every food product you buy in a week. You will be shocked just how many foods include UPF ingredients.

I started doing that a while back M0nica. The first thing I looked at was the non-mammary fluid milks.
Evidently the best way to avoid UPF versions is to make your own.
I decided I’d rather drink edible mammary fluid, but interestingly, making porridge with water means you don’t have to bother blending 1 part oats with 3 to 4 parts fresh water, and straining using a cheesecloth. You can just use water for exactly the same effect.