The UPF swaps my family loved – and hated

By Claire Spreadbury

As a mum of two teenage daughters, I was shocked to read UPFs make up two-thirds of UK adolescent diets.

An increasing number of studies link ultra-processed foods (UPF) to poor health. They’re associated with risks of obesity, heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and depression.

While my partner and I try to make sure the kids eat a balanced diet that’s relatively healthy, we, like many others, do include UPFs in our weekly shop.

It’s hard not to. Everything from stock cubes to breakfast cereals are often ultra-processed. They’re also affordable and convenient: we just don’t have the time to make everything from scratch.

Giving up UPFs entirely is unrealistic for us, but I wanted to see if we could rely on them a bit less. So, I decided to spend a week swapping as many out as possible.

Breakfast

My teens regularly start their day with a huge bowl of cereal.

They think the non-UPF versions are “boring,” so I bought a non-UPF granola and topped it with fruit, Greek yoghurt and a squeeze of honey. It was a hit.

I also had a go at making my own. I was surprised at how easy it is. I peeled and cooked a couple of apples in water, blitzed them into a liquid and mixed with 200g oats, 100g nuts, 100g seeds and 70g toasted coconut.

I spread that out on a roasting tray and baked it on a low-medium heat for about 50 minutes, stirring a few times. It was spot-on.

The initial outlay was definitely more than buying pre-made, but the next batch will use lots of the leftover ingredients – and I’m pretty certain that will make it cheaper overall.

Packed lunches

Ham or cheese sarnies are seen as vital lunch box content for my kids.

To make things complicated, two out of four of us are gluten-intolerant, so finding sliced bread that’s not ultra-processed is difficult. So I had a go at homemade.

It was awful.

I don’t know where I went wrong, but it was more like crumbly pastry than bread – and it went mouldy quickly. It also used three-quarters of a bag of £6 flour, so was way more than a shop-bought version.

I’m inspired by people like Becky Excell and am sure it’s just a case of practicing, so I won’t give up on the idea. But for now, this option is a no-go.

Me and my youngest – a keen baker – also made a regular farmhouse loaf which was far more successful, but still a pretty involved process.

So, I started to compare labels of shop-bought bread. I found some with minimal ingredients and I’ll stick to that in future.

I wanted to ditch the ham and got around it by roasting and shredding chicken breasts, which got the thumbs up. I felt happier about this kind of meat – but my bank account did not.

I went for multipacks of chicken breast, which cost around £9 a kilo, but we got through them more quickly than a couple of packets of more affordable ham.

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• The easy ultra-processed food swaps Dr Chris Van Tulleken swears by

Quick and easy dinners

On a weekday, the kids feed themselves dinner, and five-minute packet noodles are a regular hit. Unsurprisingly, they’re full of UPFs, but with a bit more effort, you can make your own.

After our Sunday roast, we used the leftover chicken carcass and veg off-cuts to make stock, then froze that in portions. When the girls wanted their usual noodles, they added a block of it to boiling water, noodles and some frozen veg. They loved this just as much as the shop-bought version, and it was just as quick and easy.

Another quick mid-week meal is pasta. We swapped jarred sauces for passata, garlic, basil and dried herbs. It was around the same price and, actually, just as easy. I was kicking myself for not having swapped to this sooner.

I also made my own pesto using pine nuts, basil and olive oil. This was so simple and far tastier than shop-bought, but it was more expensive. Pine nuts are not cheap. That said, I froze some in ice cube trays to use over the next few months. So, what I made will go far.

Snack attacks

Whether it’s something to stave off after-school hunger pangs or chips and dips at the weekend, we are a family of snackers.

Nothing beats the crunch of a crisp, but some of our favourites contain huge ingredients lists and no actual potatoes.

A realistic swap is moving to plain, salted crisps, which have just three ingredients – potatoes, oil and salt.

One night I even made my own. I sliced potatoes on a mini mandolin, dried them off and doused them in olive oil before roasting in the oven. They were delicious even with no seasoning. I won’t have time to do this on the regular, though.

Weekend treats

Ice cream is a favourite treat on the weekend. Luckily, I have a small and very neglected ice cream machine that I could dust off. The results were very well received, despite being pretty simple to achieve.

Biscuits are another staple, and happily easy to make – there are lots of three-ingredient versions that would be reasonable to whip up on a Saturday.

If you freeze them raw, you can cook them quickly in the air fryer as and when you want some, meaning you can get freshly baked cookies on demand, which is a real win.

Energy balls also went down a treat – I blitzed dates and cashew nuts in the blender, shaped into balls then rolled in cocoa powder and stored in the fridge. We all loved them (so much so, they disappeared alarmingly quickly) and they’re ideal for an afternoon pick-me-up.

I wouldn’t say we eat lots of chocolate, but realistically, we can’t afford non-UPF versions (at least the ones I spotted). So, we decided it’s best to cut back and eat it as an occasional treat.

Which swaps will we stick with every week?

If I had a bigger budget and more time, I’d stick with more of the swaps. There wasn’t much push-back from the kids – the only real disaster we had (besides that ill-fated bread) was attempting to make chocolate spread (it just wasn’t sweet enough).

Not eating ultra-processed foods undoubtedly costs more (our shopping was nearly a third more expensive than usual) and without preservatives some of the homemade dishes didn’t last as long.

There are some easy changes though. It doesn’t have to be difficult, making one swap at a time is a good way to go, and it made me feel much happier about what I’m feeding my family.

Originally published September 2025

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