Is a healthy diet more expensive?

Longwalker

MattMattMattUK said:

trailingspouse said:

DiamondLil said:

and of course I do love them as chips ( who doesn't? ) but I limit chips to once a week,

I don't like chips, never have since the fifties. They are in my "smells delicious, totally tasteless" category. I think it's a combination of not being fried in lard any more and my having to follow a low-to-no-salt diet.

I agree!! Chips and coffee fall in to the 'smells better than it tastes' category for me.

Good coffee and good chips taste just as good as they smell, cheap, badly made coffee and mass produced chips far less so.

Cant beat them

My potato of choice for chips and roasties are Agria. I dont think they are sold to the general public, they are sold for chipping

Always fluffy, always tasty and always golden crispy.

Sometimes I do them in goose fat ( roasties ) OMG, they are just heaven. My BIL who doesn't get roasties at home will demolish a tray full if allowed 

Markies, and Sagitta are also really good but Agria pip them on the taste test 

MattMattMattUK

Longwalker said:

MattMattMattUK said:

trailingspouse said:

DiamondLil said:

and of course I do love them as chips ( who doesn't? ) but I limit chips to once a week,

I don't like chips, never have since the fifties. They are in my "smells delicious, totally tasteless" category. I think it's a combination of not being fried in lard any more and my having to follow a low-to-no-salt diet.

I agree!! Chips and coffee fall in to the 'smells better than it tastes' category for me.

Good coffee and good chips taste just as good as they smell, cheap, badly made coffee and mass produced chips far less so.

Cant beat them

My potato of choice for chips and roasties are Agria. I dont think they are sold to the general public, they are sold for chipping

Always fluffy, always tasty and always golden crispy.

Sometimes I do them in goose fat ( roasties ) OMG, they are just heaven. My BIL who doesn't get roasties at home will demolish a tray full if allowed 

Markies, and Sagitta are also really good but Agria pip them on the taste test 

I agree that the right potato can make a real difference, but even a bog standard supermarket White or Maris Piper potato can be made to shine if prepared and cooked correctly. Par boil, but not over or under cook, allow to properly dry before going into the fat, fat very hot before they go in, make sure roast potatoes are re-based every 15 minutes and a final five minute blast at 200-220c to get them really crispy on the outside. 

I rarely cook chips at home, oven chips are not the same and I do not feel the need to buy a fryer. I used to work in catering and so many people think triple cooked chips is about being snobby, but anyone who actually eats them realises that it get the best results by a mile.

Nelliegrace

This is such a topical thread.
I have my copy of Ultra Processed People by Dr Chris van Tulleken.
I have been watching some of his programmes and interviews. He is one of the few, like Professor Tim Spector and Dr Michael Moseley, daring to speak out. 

He puts the blame for our poor diet, and obesity, and related illness, firmly on the food industry who have changed our food to factory produced Highly Processed stuff, just because it makes them more money. 

Most of our food is now Highly Processed, our daily bread, our breakfast cereals, dinners and puddings at home and out, cakes and snacks, and most of our drinks. People are obese and ill, and it really is not their fault.

Our children and young people have the highest intake of Highly Processed stuff, they know nothing else, they are addicted to it. 

We are told that it is safe, just as the tobacco industry said that cigarettes and vapes were safe.

The people who are supposed to regulate food safety should be independent. Research into food safety should be independent. Yet food industry money influences them.

Like vultures, the drug companies are circling the sick for their share of the pickings.

pumpkin89

Nelliegrace said:

People are obese and ill, and it really is not their fault.

The truth is that fault lies with both industry and individuals.

It is still the case that the majority of the population is not obese and ill, so it is certainly possible to maintain a healthy weight and be free from illness in our food environment that is far from ideal.  On the other hand, why do we as a society tolerate said food environment?  Industry has been allowed to go too far and we should demand better.

Nelliegrace said:

We are told that it is safe, just as the tobacco industry said that cigarettes and vapes were safe.

We understand the reasons why people take up smoking/drugs and we have legislated to help tip the balance - we should do likewise with food - but we still expect people to take individual responsibility for quitting, and we should also expect obese people to take responsibility for their diets.  

Highly processed foods are safe in small amounts, but there is truth in the old adage, the dose makes the poison.  In my view the most harmful thing is not the composition of Ultra Processed Foods per se, but the acceptance of them as equal to / substitutable for Real Foods.  The blame for this can largely be laid at the door of big food companies' advertising, and it's going to be difficult to undo that for the generations who have grown up surrounded by it.  Nevertheless, nobody truly, in their heart of hearts, believes a diet of frozen pizza and fast food is good for them - so why do they continue to choose that?

-taff

pumpkin89 said:

Nevertheless, nobody truly, in their heart of hearts, believes a diet of frozen pizza and fast food is good for them - so why do they continue to choose that?

Because a family dynamic means they never learned to cook and have no one to ask to teach them and never learned in school like some of us did, because it's cheaper [yes, it can be], because they're physically unable to cook [arthritis, fatigue, back pain, stroke, can't stand, etc],they don't have the equipment or the money for power...You name it, there are loads of reasons beyond the simplistic answer usually used by people who have never had to worry about any of this stuff on their perfect pedestals, well, they're just fat and lazy aren't they...

Nelliegrace

@pumpkin89 Where is the evidence that HPF is safe in small amounts? Is it evidence sponsored by the food industry? Does it take into account all the different chemical additives mixed together and what they do to us?

People eat HPF because it is delicious, it is designed that way, with the right feel in the mouth, the crunch melting to softness, the sweetness, saltiness, amount of fat in perfect proportions, the lovely fizziness of pop. It is quick, seems cheap, is often on offer, is advertised as healthy, whole grain, part of your 5 a day, added vitamins, low fat, sugar free, all “good,” and children will eat it without any fuss. 

They go on eating it in large portions, and having snacks, because they are still hungry, lacking nutrients and craving sugar. Children in poor areas eat the highest percentage of HPF, and they are shorter and fatter than average, malnourished and overfed at the same time. 

Cola is the perfect example of HPF, portion sizes are huge because it is so full of chemical sweeteners that the more you drink, the thirstier you feel, and it is addictive. 

Of course people buy UPF. What else is there? Who reads or understands the tiny print on the back of the packet?

trailingspouse

Nelliegrace said:

People eat HPF because it is delicious, it is designed that way, with the right feel in the mouth, the crunch melting to softness, the sweetness, saltiness, amount of fat in perfect proportions, the lovely fizziness of pop. It is quick, seems cheap, is often on offer, is advertised as healthy, whole grain, part of your 5 a day, added vitamins, low fat, sugar free, all “good,” and children will eat it without any fuss. 

I totally agree. The only change I would make to what you've said is '... it is engineered that way...'.

In the food industry they talk about something called a 'bliss point' - that perfect combination of fats, sugars and salt that gives you a dopamine 'hit' (yes, just like taking drugs). And they actively seek to manufacture food that hits that point.

Reading 'Ultra-Processed People' by Chris van Tulleken was a game changer for me, even though I already reckoned I had a healthy diet and I thought I knew what Ultra-Processed food was. In my original post I asked if eating healthy was cheaper than eating unhealthy - I no longer care. I'll be eating healthy food regardless of the monetary cost, because the alternative is too high a price to pay in terms of physical and mental health, to say nothing of the impact on the environment.

YoungBlueEyes

I would agree that UPF is far more prevalent now and has become the norm for a lot of people. However it has never been easier to educate ourselves in virtually any topic, even if that does come from facefook or utube or similar. 

The information’s out there, all you gotta do is let it in - like thingy said in those Jesse Stone films. 

willow_loulou

I’ve recently started to change my diet, I’m one of those that needs to make small changes rather than just cold turkey stop. 

The issue I’m having is trying to make better choices for things like bread and fish fingers. I look at the ingredients and I’m baffled. Obviously plain fish would be better but that is double the price for 2 people. So yes in that respect it’s definitely more expensive. 

I feel like I’m so conditioned into convenience because I’m disabled and often too tired to stand to prepare anything, having an easy option of a meal is better than reaching for a big bag of crisps

I do batch cook when I’m able by at least making double but that’s not always affordable either. 

At least with the current heat I am able to have more seasonal  salad meals which is easier to prepare in advance - especially Greek salad and things like celery. I can sit at the table and just chop and chuck it in a  bowl. 

Also - do we consider tinned food in this? For example I can make a huge slow cooker pea and ham soup with tinned ham and frozen peas, onion and stock. The ham has got much more expensive but still cheaper than equivalent weight fresh. 

Is ham itself too processed? 

This is how my kind works - it’s exhausting lol 

pumpkin89

Nelliegrace said:

@pumpkin89 Where is the evidence that HPF is safe in small amounts? Is it evidence sponsored by the food industry? Does it take into account all the different chemical additives mixed together and what they do to us?

The evidence is that billions of people have eaten it and (very rare tragedies relating to allergens aside) nobody has ever dropped dead instantly.  Overconsumption (probably over a long period of time) is what leads to illness.