A while ago I finished reading the heavy book about Ultra Processed Food - it didn't worry me too much as I soon realised that by eating lots of home made and basic foods not a lot of weird ingredients were included in my diet. Ever since I did that month of using value range basic food and preparing more main meals from scratch I'd stopped buying most of the ready prepared vegetarian shove-in-the-oven things and that had cut out several strange, chemical, unpronounceable 'stuff'.
(In my little book about Suffolk Words and Dialect it says that Suffolk people use the word 'stuff' for all sorts of random collections of items, more than any other part of the country!).
Just to prove that, I kept a piece of paper in the kitchen and made a note of anything eaten which had an ingredient that was something that you wouldn't normally have in your kitchen or be able to buy. Then took a few photos of some of the things noted (Too much time on my hands?)
Pataks Naan Bread
Willow 'butter' spread
Hellmanns Mayo
Aldi Mayo has other things
Coffee sachets
The food I eat with no strange additions...... Home made bread and marmalade. Honey, butter, nuts, fruit and vegetables and herbs and spices. Home made pickles and chutneys. Cheese and milk and eggs. Frozen Fish and canned fish. Things using home made pastry (pasties and quiche). Home made cakes and biscuits. Pasta in various forms. Rice and home made curries.
Checking labels of some things I had in the freezer and cupboards it was interesting to see how many additions there are to the sausages and sausage meat which are from a local producer using their own pork. Do I dare go into a butchers with the list of ingredients and ask them which they use in their own sausages?
A month or two ago I bought some 'artisan' burgers from the Wyken Farmers Market. Nothing weird in them but the Lamb and Mint had no flavour of mint and were really greasy. The Pork and Apple were pretty tasteless too and I don't like beef burgers so for the odd occasion -perhaps just once a month - I want a burger I'm going to carry on buying the Linda McCartney (just waiting for someone to tell not to eat a burger then!)
Below is a list I cut from something I've never bought before and never will again (shouldn't have gone shopping without breakfast).
An amazing list.......... could you guess what they were from this?
On my shelves for so many years that I can't remember how long, is this set of 7 small books about food and cooking through the ages from Prehistoric to the 19th Century.
They are fascinating and no mention of Xanthum gum or aspartames anywhere!
Back Tomorrow
Sue
Many chemical compounds, things like niacin, are essential for the human body and when written down with proper names sound evil but are not. Best not to over think it in my opinion, avoid over-processed ready made stuff and prepare from basics for yourself.
ReplyDeleteI read the book and decided for myself what I want to do
DeleteI'm currently reading the book and it's frankly cynical how the food industry uses essentially chemical waste by products to thicken and extend the shelf life of processed food. Cooking simple fresh food from scratch is the way to go!
ReplyDeleteIt has ever been thus! I remember the fuss about turkey products made from the waste back in the 80s
DeleteYou would find the podcast ‘A Thorough Examination’ interesting. I now read every label!
ReplyDeleteI have fewer labels to read now and will look up the podcast
DeleteProbably wrong, but I'm going to guess chocolate muffins for the mystery ingredient panel.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting to read the book, meanwhile I'm reading Food for Life by Tim Spector who was on Panorama looking at UPF. I'm sure there will be a lot of overlap between the books. It's quite disturbing stuff, but nothing new I'm sure; humans are a dodgy bunch and have been fiddling with food for more profit for a very long time. 🥺
No, not muffins. I think I watched the Panorama programme too. Back in years gone by chalk was added to flour by unscrupulous millers
DeleteTry also reading The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
ReplyDeleteI will see if the library have it
DeleteI think I agree with Jane, some sort of baked chocolate "treat". SIL staying this week, and he is currently on a very restricted diet (no dairy, gluten, or alliums) so much label reading going on here!
ReplyDeleteIt was baked, minimum of chocolate but not much of a treat!
DeleteI was also going to say chocolate muffins or biscuits (although with no % listed they cannot have been very "chocolatey").
ReplyDeleteLook the look of those English Heritage books . . . I may have to go firtling around eBay or AbeBooks!
No not muffins or biscuits.
DeleteI often remember where I got books but these have been around forever - probably from a boot sale
UPF food is made specifically to appeal to our taste buds. I did not know, heard it the other day, that crisps are moulded in their shape to give your tongue the full flavour shot. Yet no matter how righteous we are with our family about the stuff we eat, we were brought up on a more simpler diet. It is a problem the manufacturers have to answer for.
ReplyDeletePringles especially fit the tongue! and are very more-ish
DeleteI used to eat them as part of lunch with a sandwich but they are too expensive now and I've given up regularly eating crisps now anyway
I am half way through the book, interesting and a bit hard going, but worth the read. We have a bread maker, for years I said no, but a friend told me to read the ingredients list on a loaf of bread, we went out that weekend and got the bread maker. We make most of our meals from scratch, they taste better too.
ReplyDeleteTook me an age to read a bit at a time - heavy going.
DeleteMy bread-maker makes the best bread for toasting although it's not so good for sandwiches as it soon dries out
My husband does all the cooking now as I am unable to and hates it, so needless to say we have 'convenience' meals sometimes and I dread to think what we've been eating. If he has something I don't like eg burgers and shop bought pies and pasties I will have a salad or that type of thing. When he's in the mood he does cook some lovely meals from scratch.
ReplyDeleteI mostly start from scratch and batch bake but may not want to as I age.
DeleteI agree with Rachel that it's good not to over think this. If you list the chemical ingredients of a lot of homegrown and raw fruit, you may be dismayed! Ascorbic acid! Omg, my orange juice is acid, etc. I agree that the preservatives and stabilizers included by manufacturers to keep foods shelf stable are probably best avoided though. But without a degree in chemistry, many of us don't know the vital ingredients from the unnecessary
ReplyDeleteThat said, I cook from raw ingredients as far as possible, no bought bread, baked goods, prepared meals. It's really good to know what you're eating. And I enjoy cooking to suit myself now that I live alone.
The toothpaste manufacturers tell us we eat too much fruit! But I love fresh fruit so will carry on
DeleteFor the last 49 years I have always read labels since I gave birth to a child with life threatening allergies.She’s an amazing cook who makes almost all her food from scratch. I drink a decaff one of those coffee sachets most days and I know they probably aren’t good for me but it’s a choice I make. I think your ingredients came from a pain au chocolat because of the yeast or a muffin. Catriona
ReplyDeleteI don't think one coffee sachet each day is going to do you much harm. It's the people eating 80% UPFs who should be worried!
DeleteNo not Pain au chocolate or muffins
The local little food pantry woman told me if the food they have needs preparing they don't want it. She said any fresh veggie that need peeling and cooking She can't get rid of. Makes me so sad that a lit of people don't know how to prepare a meal from scratch
ReplyDeleteCathy
Proper cookery isn't taught now and so many people out at work with less time for cooking - really is a problem
DeleteMight it also be that they either don't have appropriate kitchen facilities to cook vegies, or can't afford the has it electricity to cook?
DeleteI struggle to find cream without guar gum here.
ReplyDeleteI only buy fresh cream at Christmas or raspberry/ strawberry time! and manage without the rest of the year
DeleteThanks for the heads up about your post. I appreciated your take on this book.
ReplyDeleteIt was a very heavy book in many ways!
DeleteCrumpets?
ReplyDeleteNo. Crumpets would have been much better
DeleteI think you should keep talking about these unhealthy ingredients as a public service. Most people don't even read the labels.
ReplyDeleteNo more UPF posts - people will have to manage without me!
Deleteof course, we could turn the clock back a few hundred years when bread flour was bulked out with sawdust and other unsavoury unknowns, and all the poor could eat was that bread and weak tea made with reused leaves while the better off gorged themselves on saturated fat and sugar washed down with beer because the water wasn't safe to drink neat.
ReplyDeleteRemoving tongue from cheek!
All sorts of things were added to flour - Millers were always the wealthiest people in the village. And the poor had Gin!
DeleteI haven’t read the book but will do so. Surely the point of books such as that are to make you think!
ReplyDeleteMy guess is a brownie - thought you mentioned no breakfast so that doesn’t sound right.
I did make me think and my thoughts said " you're doing OK so don't panic!
DeleteNo not a brownie
Many food items bought in the stores are prepared for a long shelf life. Preservatives guarantee shelf life. Artificial sweeteners are a problem too. Our food is often genetically modified and that can not be ideal as well. In my opinion, home (or farmer's market) grown food is best. That said, I'm not giving up coffee shops and an occasional restaurant meal. Everything in moderation is ok.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite frightening how long the date is on packaged cakes . I've been mostly making my own for a long time.
DeleteCoco pops or some other choccy cereal? xx
ReplyDeleteNo, it wasn't something normal people would eat for breakfast!
DeleteI have cut out much of the crap from my diet...don't count calories and the pounds have fallen off (finally!) x
ReplyDeleteVirginia here … Google has the snitch today! I try to cook most of our food from scratch, and I do read labels, as I react badly to the Nightshade family. It’s such a nuisance. Years ago I limited my buying to foods that I recognised the ingredients of, and avoided the E numbers… I’m not fanatical about it, but I do try.
ReplyDeleteI also try to cook as much as possible from scratch. I really like knowing what is in my food.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I need to get back on the from scratch cooking more. Some of the ingredients in things are just plain scary. I mean, if I don't know how to pronounce them or what they are, should I put them in my mouth?
ReplyDeleteIt was a really good book to read, as you said slow going at times as I did have to sit back and absorb what I was learning and read lighter things occasionally. But I am so glad that I read it all, and now I look at all labels and make my decision whether it stays in my diet or goes. The best bit of advice in the book was NOT to throw out all your UPF straight away but to read the book and eat them for a while longer. I actually loved the Pringles chapter the most.
ReplyDelete