Start over with real food: 10 tips to cut down on processed foods at home

UUltra-processed foods (UPFs) have become a hot and scary topic recently, due to the fact that UPFs have been linked to serious effects on physical and mental health – and the fact that UK citizens eat more than any other country in Europe.

In general, when we talk about UPFs, we’re talking about highly modified, highly flavored foods with invisible ingredients that you wouldn’t add to your home cooking. Consider the aisles of confectionery, soft drinks, ready meals, ready-to-eat sauces and pastries and the bulk of store-bought breads and breakfast cereals etc.

It is important to emphasize that UPFs are a broad group of foods and not all UPFs are the same. I eat a little UPF and don’t want to put it all in. It is our government, policy makers and major players in the food industry who have the power to stop their rapid spread and restructure our food system for the benefit of all in society.

I was worried about what I could do to be part of that change. After becoming a parent last year, I was even more determined to come up with a hopeful, healthy, helpful cure for all the scary statistics.

So I wrote a cookbook to help make cooking at home as easy as buying convenience foods. It is called Real Health: get rid of your routine food with simple everyday recipesalong with quick, delicious and affordable meals, it’s your guide to reducing the use of UPFs.

An easy way to reduce your UPF intake is to cook more and stick to whole and lean foods, eg fruit, vegetables, whole grains, beans, lentils, herbs, spices, nuts and seeds. This is easy to say, but it can be difficult to implement when we are short on time and stressed. We need sustainable swaps, shortcuts and solutions that accommodate our busy lives so that we can make simple changes for our long-term lives.

I want to help you become less dependent on UPFs so I’m sharing my top 10 tips for starting over with real food. From how to stock up on healthy foods, to being aware of UPFs, to not obsessing over how much you’re eating, I hope this helps you create healthy and life-changing eating habits.

Don’t force yourself

We know that perfection is the enemy of progress, so a good place to start is to try not to stress – this isn’t a new diet or regime, it’s not all or nothing and no one tells you what rules to follow. follow. If anything, the only guidance I can give is “do more food that makes you feel good”. Find delicious and easy recipes that you enjoy eating.

Find success

Create a base of real food by prioritizing inexpensive staples especially some freezer essentials (I always keep bags of frozen spinach, mixed berries (very cheap) , quick-mixed vegetables like peas, edamame and corn) you always have a quick meal for those evenings when you’re pressed for time and don’t have time to rush to the grocery store. For example, a tin of peas and your favorite spice mix in the cupboard, vegetables in the fridge and tomato puree and yoghurt in the fridge.

Know your food better

Open the packet and read the label. Go ahead and do that with products that you eat a lot or that you eat every day. The variety of products can mean that you can buy UPF or a slightly improved version of one ingredient (sliced ​​bread, which is one of UPF’s best-selling foods). Once you’re on the road, you’ll find it easy to look up the products YOU WANT to take home.

Dishes

Find reusable jars (old honey or jam jars or mustard jars work well) to use for breakfast on the go or to store those decorated lunch salads that I like to call them jalads (aka salad in a jar). You may also find it useful to invest in a bottle for homemade smoothies and hot meals on the go. One of my favorite recipes is the White Chicken Chilli on page 62. I have several airtight containers for keeping in the fridge or safe. Always try to write down the date, you always think you will remember and then you don’t! Trust me.

Get together and share the load

Get together with a colleague, friend or roommate to share a meal here and there. We know from making fitness and other life commitments that it’s always easier to create a new habit or try something new with someone involved. One of you could make a light meal for 4pm and the other could make a big delicious salad to enjoy as a functional lunch, then the next week you switch.

Make a meal plan

Some of us like projects and some of us don’t! I’m not suggesting that you have to sit down every Sunday and write a meal plan for the week, every week, but a simple and easy weekly guide that fits the schedule yours will be very helpful in your weekly list and help you. you add more food to that list and fewer UPFs.

It will also help you save money by wasting less food! If you don’t want to be prompted every day, how about prioritizing the times you find yourself relying on UPFs to help you avoid the same pitfalls over and over again (for example, working out lunch or breakfast)? Letting your kids choose a recipe for dinner each week can help encourage them to try new ingredients or take an interest in cooking.

Lead the preparation ahead…

…both for the foods you like to eat and the foods you’d like to eat more! Think about the foods that you like the most and that you make regularly. For example, do you enjoy roasted vegetables, tomatoes or broccoli? You can probably do a large number of them once a week to save yourself time. And is there a food you would like to eat more but keep forgetting? Maybe a salad and lentils.

Try preparing some of these in advance and making a jar of salad dressing (it can last for several weeks in the fridge) so you can enjoy them often. On a day, I know I have more time, like Sunday evening, I make something like one pot of “lazy lasagne” so that all I have to do is reheat it when I come home from work on Monday night. Or every other week, I make a bunch of muffins and freeze half – one week it’s sweet and I make lemon blueberry muffins for a snack, then I switch to make delicious muffins next week like my frittata muffins perfect for breakfast (usually. add cottage cheese or feta, tomatoes, eggs).

Batch cook and freeze as desired

I don’t mean eating the same leftover stew four nights in a row (unless you want to!). It can be as simple as doubling your dinner so you have leftovers for lunch. Like many of us, I grew up with parents who both worked full-time – a sane military father (who couldn’t cook but couldn’t handle spoilage) and a- have a thrifty Filipino mother who advocated “cook once, eat twice”.

I often find myself making a larger batch of the stuff so I can freeze half for a rainy day (see big batch, bulk veg bolognese recipe on page 168). Or you can choose dinner recipes that will give you enough leftovers to cook for lunch the next day (like the toss-all lentils on page 144, I’ll eat them with rice or quinoa one day and flatbreads the other night).

Change it

We’re creatures of habit, so it’s very easy to find ourselves on a shopping spree, so why not pick something up from the shop every weekend for a change? One week it might be trying a different type of salad leaf – watercress and rocket instead of lettuce, sweet potato instead of potato – then the next it might be trying a different grain like pearl barley instead of rice or a packet of whole grains for variety. .

This not only prevents us from getting bored with the same foods but means that we get a much wider variety of foods to eat. Maybe every week, you could challenge yourself to add whole foods to the shopping basket and take out one UPF? In a month, you have eaten four fewer UPFs and added four more foods. In a year you not only cut down on 50 UPFs but also added 50 whole foods!

Eating mindfully

I know this word makes some people cringe but we have a lot to learn about our bodies. I find it helpful to take a moment to look at how I feel after eating certain foods. If I have energy, headaches, or find myself feeling confused or having a bit of brain fog, I naturally try to avoid these foods during the week when I’m working. it’s too much, parenting and I’m already feeling stressed.

I want food to feed me, not charge me more than I already feel stressed! When I notice certain foods give me energy, I’m happy and satisfied until the next meal, I’m motivated to eat more. Real food is good food.

Chocolate peanut butter (no-bake) bar

Makes 16

It takes 20 minutes, plus editing time

Keeps for 1 week, at room temperature

250g smooth peanut butter

100 g of ground almonds

100g of porridge oats

6 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

A pinch of sea salt

For the chocolate layer

180 g dark chocolate, roughly broken

1 tbsp smooth peanut butter

Fine sea salt, for sprinkling

1. Line a small tin or dish (about 15 x 8cm or square-equivalent) with greaseproof paper, making sure it goes up enough on the sides so you can lift the mixture out tin is not set.

2. Mix the peanut butter, ground almonds, oats, maple syrup, vanilla and salt together in a bowl. Transfer to a lined tin, pressing with the back of a spoon or spatula to make it even.

3. For the chocolate layer, melt the chocolate in a bain-marie (a heatproof bowl placed over a pan of very little water, making sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water). Once melted, stir in the peanut butter and pour this evenly over the base. If you are using whole nuts, scatter these over the chocolate layer.

4. Sprinkle on a small pinch of coarse sea salt. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm, then cut into 16 pieces to serve.

Excerpted from Real Healthy by Melissa Hemsley (Ebury Press, £26). Photography by Lizzie Mayson