Guess which country has the most ultra processed food as a share of household purchases?

MissAdventure

I would have thought most ready meals must be processed, not that I know anything about ultra processing at all.

Is it the amount of different processes a food goes through before it ends up on the plate?

It has more to do with the ingredients than the number of processes.

These are the ingredients listed by Tesco as being in their white batch loaf: Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin], Water, Yeast, Salt, Preservative (Calcium Propionate), Soya Flour, Spirit Vinegar, Emulsifier (Mono- and Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Rapeseed Oil, Flour Treatment Agent (Ascorbic Acid).

How many of these would you have in your kitchen and how many would youuse if you were to make a white loaf.

When I made bread. Flour, yeast and salt were all I used.

Despite all this dreadful ultra-processed food we British eat, we are surprisingly low on the list of stroke and deaths due to cardiovascular incidence in Europe:

www.statista.com/statistics/1417035/stroke-incidence-in-europe-by-country/
www.statista.com/statistics/1420801/share-of-deaths-attributed-to-cvd-in-europe/

I would have thought most ready meals must be processed, not that I know anything about ultra processing at all.

Is it the amount of different processes a food goes through before it ends up on the plate?

Allira

What's ultra-processed?
Is it Charlie Bigham? Is he ultra-processed?
If so, guilty as charged

We had one of his curry’s, quite expensive really & hardly any meat. Had one each even though it say serves two 🙄

I think it should be made clear what are ultra-processed foods.

Good ready meals are not necessarily in that category and, for those unable to cook from scratch can be a good alternative.

The Britih Heart Foundation lists these:
Unprocessed or minimally processed foods: Fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat and grains.
Processed culinary ingredients: Sugar, salt, butter, lard, oils, vinegar.
Processed foods: Freshly made, unpackaged bread, tinned fruits and vegetables, salted nuts, ham, bacon, tinned fish and cheese.
Ultra processed: Ice cream, ham, sausages, crisps, mass-produced bread, some breakfast cereals, biscuits, carbonated drinks, fruit-flavoured yogurts, instant soups, and some alcoholic drinks including whisky, gin, and rum.

Other nutritionists may disagree.

NHS:
Ultra-processed foods include things like:

sweetened drinks
crisps
packaged cakes and biscuits
ice cream
sweets and chocolate
some ready meals
packaged meat pastries like pies and pasties

I'd add aspartame as a danger additive.

Oh bother! I’d forgotten about the sprouts. . . . And let’s not omit the stuffing!!!

Mollygo

MissAdventure

Seventhly, people who aren't rapturous about lentils.

7.5 ly, those who avoid lentils because the lentils cause excessive flatus for them, potentially damaging the atmosphere.

😁

Don't forget sprouts.
There will be plenty of methane around after all those Christmas dinners.

MissAdventure

Ah, yes.
I've never known anyone to feed their family separate ready meals for each member.

That would be mad, as well as expensive.

A meal for four based on frozen ready meals rarely comes in one box, unless the portions are so small they need extra packets/ food from other sources.

Most homes only have one microwave so you spend ages putting frozen food in and out of microwaves, trying to keep one packet reasonably warm wjile another defrosts and heats through.

I cannot be bothered.

MissAdventure

Seventhly, people who aren't rapturous about lentils.

7.5 ly, those who avoid lentils because the lentils cause excessive flatus for them, potentially damaging the atmosphere.

Seventhly, people who aren't rapturous about lentils.

Sixthly those who are tempted by food that requires little preparation, less fuel for cooking and tastes OK.

Fifthly, men who find it difficult to stand and cook, and sixthly, people who have carers.

Fourthly women who find it difficult to stand at a stove cooking any more.

MissAdventure

I wonder who is buying all this ultra processed food, seeing as it's not any of us, or anybody we associate with.

My bet would be: those with full-time jobs and fractious children while shopping in the half-hour after picking the children up from day-care and getting home after work!

Second, not neccesarily the same as in the first group, all those who are ten-fifteen years younger than we and never learned to cook!

Third, men who have lost their wives, late in life, and have until widowed eaten food prepared first by their mothers and later by their wives. Many of these men never learned or wanted or were encouraged to learn to cook

Members of either sex who detest cooking,

You only have to look around to see that this article is true. Most of our generation cook from scratch. I do even though it bores me to tears. Fruit and veg is cheap, often free in places, so there is no excuse not to eat it. But many of today's generation don't bother to cook like that and don't know how to in spite of the wealth of information that is available. Too busy on their phones.

MissAdventure

I wonder who is buying all this ultra processed food, seeing as it's not any of us, or anybody we associate with.

Mmmm, good point.

Perhaps there is more of this sort of food actually available in the UK? Mostly we get fresh stuff because that is what there is mostly. Not because we are particularly health conscious, just because it’s there. Unless you go to Costco of course.

M0nica

Its the people in front, and behind me in the queue for the person operated checkout.

I’m so sorry you were stuck behind my OH! Don’t let him in the supermarket very often and he went wild - scotch pies, pork pies, salami, marzipan bites. He thought he was being good by buying walnuts. He won’t be allowed out again.

orly

"Dinahmo

The UK is the highest at 50.7%......"

Maybe, but fortunately Wes Streeting is rolling out weight reducing injections on the NHS for all fatties so they can get back to work.

What are they rolling out for fat pensioners, do you know?

Grandmabatty

You need Mediterranean weather for a Mediterranean diet, I suppose. Where I live-scotland - it's too blooming cold and dreich for a truly, plant based, healthy diet. Porridge, unless it's the prepackaged sort and warming stews and casseroles are the order of the day. I suppose there's fish, but it needs to be served with chips 😂
I am being a tad light hearted

I lived in Spain for many years. Whilst El Pais and other Spanish newspapers frequently ran self congratulatory articles on how healthy the Spanish diet was, full of fruit and vegetables, my own observation was that what Spaniards really tucked into were vast slabs of pork floating in seas of lard. Quite doable in Scotland, I think!

"Dinahmo

The UK is the highest at 50.7%......"

Maybe, but fortunately Wes Streeting is rolling out weight reducing injections on the NHS for all fatties so they can get back to work.

Allira

^still contains ingredients our grandmothers would not recognise as food^

My Grandma, born in the 1870s, would not recognise an advocado, mango, garlic, rice as an accompaniment rather than a pudding, plus many ingredients we take for granted now.

Just as a matter of interest, my grandma would have recognised all of those except possibly garlic. She was born and brought up in the West Indies. Avocado was known as 'poor man's butter' (it grows everywhere on very big trees), mangoes are common and rice was a staple.

In fact, given the size of the Empire and the huge variety of foods experienced by British settlers, soldiers and administrators I suspect that many of our grandparents would have been more familiar with foods like that than we give them credit for. They just couldn't buy them in the UK.

These are the the figures for Europe, if you include the USA you'll find they top the charts by a long way.

I expect the point is that we do eat ultra processed food, despite what we say, petal53.