Did you watch Panorama last night?

Feta isn't processed if made traditionally.

Here's an answer to the Feta and processing question:

Is feta a processed cheese?

No, absolutely not! A processed cheese (according to the Codex Alimentarius) is basically left over or sub-par cheese, to which cream, emulsifiers and several other things are added.

Feta on the other hand is a PDO (Protected Denomination of Origin) cheese produced ONLY in certain regions of Greece under very-very strict conditions. Only ewe’s and goat’s (max 30%) milk may be used. Since milk powder from these animals is actually more expensive than fresh milk, it follows that all Feta cheese produced is made with fresh milk and milk powder isn't used. In order to call the cheese Feta a very strict protocol needs to be followed which translates to NO additives, NO flavorings, pretty much just milk,salt and rennet. Since my job is an analyst in an official food control lab and includes analyzing dairy products I can tell you that regulations are indeed adhered too. If you try to fiddle with Feta the fines are astronomical.

Of course all I have written above is only true about the real thing, i.e. Feta produced in Greece. The stuff that is sold under the name “Feta” outside the EU, and sometimes in the EU, can be made with skimmed milk powder or microfiltrated milk or what not. I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.

How can you tell the cheese is actually Feta? Look for the PDO sign

Thought this might be of interest Foxie

inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/ultra-processed-foods-cancer-127176

I think you and I can carry on drinking our oat milk Wyllow --in moderation.
I wish I liked my tea and coffee black but I don't.

Primrose
I read your link. Very interesting especially because it doesn’t differentiate between different eating choices unless you cook everything from scratch, avoiding oils and processed fats.
This paragraph did make me laugh though.
I bet that I could perform a similar study and ‘prove’ that shopping at Waitrose prevents cancer, simply because that is where more affluent people shop, and they are less likely to get sick.”

Primrose53

inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/ultra-processed-foods-cancer-127176

Just type ultra processed food research into Google, there are myriad studies reported, work is going on worldwide, it’s not scaremongering, or just people making money as you put it, in the UK. It’s serious.

British Medical Journal reports two large studies here.
www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/new-evidence-links-ultra-processed-foods-with-a-range-of-health-risks/

Casdon

Primrose53

inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/ultra-processed-foods-cancer-127176

Just type ultra processed food research into Google, there are myriad studies reported, work is going on worldwide, it’s not scaremongering, or just people making money as you put it, in the UK. It’s serious.

British Medical Journal reports two large studies here.
www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/new-evidence-links-ultra-processed-foods-with-a-range-of-health-risks/

Yes, it is serious, but as the article points out, the causal links haven't been established. Nobody really knows why there's a correlation between highly processed food and poor health.

There's also a question mark over whether it's the number of times a food item has been process which is the problem or whether the processing itself destroys nutritional content. Most processed foods also have salt, sugar and some fats added. Many also have high fructose corn syrup, which is sweeter than sugar, so cheaper. There continues to be debate about fructose.

Many highly processed foods can be cheaper than home made. Think of meat pies and pasties. I spotted some in B&M for 99p and I thought to myself that I couldn't have made one with decent meat and the cooking costs for 99p. The manufacturers must have used the cheapest meat possible and thickened the gravy with something to bulk it out.

On the other hand, some ultra processed foods have an important role to play. They're handy when people can't get to the shops - most tinned, bottled and packaged and frozen ready meals good are ultra-processed. They last months or years and are healthier than eating rancid or rotten once fresh food.

As ever, there's polarisation of views.

Growstuff - tinned beans or tinned corn may be processed but it's not necessarily ultra processed.
Anything cooked is going to be processed.

Unless I eat a raw diet I'm eating processed foods.

NotSpaghetti

Growstuff - tinned beans or tinned corn may be processed but it's not necessarily ultra processed.
Anything cooked is going to be processed.

Unless I eat a raw diet I'm eating processed foods.

I realise that!

I wrote "most", not all.

During the summer months, I do eat mainly raw foods, apart from eggs, cheese, cooked meat and fish. I rarely use sauces.

I'm just reading what people understand by ultra processed foods and wonder if they really realise how much of it they eat (not that I think small amounts will do much harm anyway). The problem is almost certainly that if people get all their energy (calories) from ultra-processed food, they won't be getting essential minerals, vitamins and fibre and too much salt, sugar and saturated fat. UPF isn't poison!

I think this article gets it right:

www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/behind-the-headlines/ultra-processed-foods

I've just watched the programme on i player. One issue I have with it is that all emulsifiers are now classed as baddies, when they aren't. Xanthan gum, for example, may actually have health benefits, such as lowering cholesterol and blood pressure. It also adds soluble fibre to the diet, so doesn't provide calories. It only has negative effects if taken in huge quantities.

The impression the programme gave is that all emulsifiers are bad and could cause all sorts of health problems.

I watched the programme last night. The twin girls eating trial for the two weeks was rather biased, as the one eating the UPF didn’t appear to eat anything healthy, so not surprising she put on weight and her blood sugars were all askew.

A more moderate approach might have been fairer.

Timely warnings about UPF are not aimed at oldies who have been home-cooking all their lives.
The people who should be worrying are poor and uninformed, who buy what they can afford and what they and their kids have seen heavily advertised. Those children are probably living off UPF and little else.
An unhealthy population with obesity, diabetes and bad teeth is not in the future, it’s right here right now.

There seems to be confusion over what products make a food an UPF. I gave the example up the thread that any manufactured product (the example was oat milk) with the ingredient list including rapeseed oil, includes UPFs as the production of rapeseed oil for food manufacturing, subjects the rapeseed to a range of processes including bleaching that puts it in that category.

Food has been divided into categories according to the extent of processing. They are called the Nova categories and are as follows:
1) Unprocessed and minimally processed foods;
2) Processed culinary ingredients;
3) Processed foods
4) Ultra-processed foods.

This link gives a full description of what each group contains www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/an-introduction-to-food-science/0/steps/163454

watermeadow I am sorry but your confidence in the diet of older people is unwarranted. Products like salad cream, tomato sauce, brown sauce, mayonnaise, mustard all include UPFs. It isn't just cheap ready meals.

I have randomly pulled 4 items from my larder. Cream of tomato soup, baked beans, horse radish sauce and a tin of ratatouille, which I thought contained nothing but vegetables, but all include UPFs as follows

_tin of cream of tomato soup_: rapeseed oil, modified maize starch, acidity regulator, citric acid, basil extract, flavourings
tin of baked beans modified maize starch, flavouring
horseradish sauce rapeseed oil (main ingredient), modified maize starch, stabiliser (Xanthan gum)
tin of ratatouille modified maize flour, acid regulator, citric acid.

It is the build up of UPFs in all sorts of foods we might think as 'safe' and eat without worry that is the cause of the problem. All supermarket bread contains UPFs.

I agree with MOnica about "oldies". If my mother were still alive, her diet consisted mainly of ultra-processed foods. When she died, we threw away dozens of tins and microwave meals.

Thanks NotSpaghetti I'll look out for that!

I’m still on the fence about tinned food, because it’s not the canning process that makes it ultra processed, like everything else it’s the additives for flavour and colour - so, for example tuna in spring water, chickpeas, or tomatoes are good, but baked beans with sausages isn’t - looking at all the labels seems to be a better way forward than not eating any at all to me.

I didn’t think I ate UPF regularly but after a few days on the Zoe plan I went to my usual Pilates class and had the most awful muscle cramps. Everything was cramping and eventually my left calf cramped so badly I was shouting for the teacher to help me as my leg and foot had totally locked and I couldn’t move it. She had a job to bend my foot up to ease it and thought I might be low on potassium/magnesium. After contacting the nutritionist at Zoe she checked my journal to see what I’d been eating and said my food intake had more than provided me with enough minerals. She decided that as I had been cooking from scratch I had suddenly dropped my salt intake as most processed food has added salt and sugar. She advised me to add a little more salt for a few days and then reduce it. I haven’t had any problems since but I was surprised as I don’t add much salt to my food as a rule but it just goes to show how much we are getting from these foods. The cramp was so bad my calf muscle was hurting for almost a week after.

I've just checked a can of cannellini beans in water. It contains sodium metabisulphate and calcium chloride, both of which are preservatives. A jar of black olives in water contains ferrous gluconate, which is used as a colouring but is also used to treat iron deficiency.

Sodium metabisulphate can trigger asthma, but all these additives are a necessary part of the canning/bottling process to maintain the stability of the product.

Programmes like the Panorama concern me a bit because people are going to be scared to buy anything with a chemical sounding name in the ingredients. They're not all bad.

growstuff

I've just checked a can of cannellini beans in water. It contains sodium metabisulphate and calcium chloride, both of which are preservatives. A jar of black olives in water contains ferrous gluconate, which is used as a colouring but is also used to treat iron deficiency.

Sodium metabisulphate can trigger asthma, but all these additives are a necessary part of the canning/bottling process to maintain the stability of the product.

Programmes like the Panorama concern me a bit because people are going to be scared to buy anything with a chemical sounding name in the ingredients. They're not all bad.

I’m sure you’re right. I don’t tend to use canellini beans, and I usually buy Biona chickpeas, I just checked and they are just chickpeas and water. I guess label checking is the way forward with tinned food, and as you say, understanding which additives are necessary regardless.

TBH I think the Panorama programme tried to cover too much, so it didn't do anything well. However if it gets people thinking about what they are eating, then it's a start. I worry about children who live on a diet of reformed chicken nuggets, cheap beefburgers and sausages with oven chips and fizzy drinks. I think there's a lot that do if trolleys at supermarket checkouts are anything to go by!

I didn't have any chickpeas, which is why I used the can of cannellini beans. How much do Biona chickpeas cost compared with supermarket brands?

NotSpaghetti

Growstuff - tinned beans or tinned corn may be processed but it's not necessarily ultra processed.
Anything cooked is going to be processed.

Unless I eat a raw diet I'm eating processed foods.

Indeed

Many foods are processed in some way - wheat is processed to flour.

Tinned pulses, lentils are processed - rather than cooked from dry.

We avoid chemicals and preservatives for health. Scratch cooking with real ingredients (flour, dry pulses, oats, etc) avoids many UPF.

I agree with you foxie that it tried to do much and I think people could come away with a very superficial view. The vast majority of additives aren't toxic and make food safer to eat. Nobody even knows why there's a correlation with high UPF intake and some lifestyle illnesses. As you say, it's more likely to be the overall pattern of choices than single items.

growstuff follow up the link in my previous post. It gives a very clear defintion of the foods in each category.

Whether the food is in a tin or not is irrelevant as to whether a food is ultra processed or not. Ultra processing is what is done to the basic ingredients and the extra chemicals involved.

Norah Do you make all your own condiments? tomato sauce, brown sauce, mustards of all kinds, worcester sauce, horse radish sauce, all salad dressings, Soy sauce, etc?

growstuff

I didn't have any chickpeas, which is why I used the can of cannellini beans. How much do Biona chickpeas cost compared with supermarket brands?

They cost more, I normally get them in Tesco. However, I’ve been shopping to Lidl today, and although I didn’t check the chickpeas, you had got me thinking about canellini beans so I got some. They were 63p, and had no additives at all, just beans and water - Freshona. Maybe we should have a new thread for UPF ingredient free goods.