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G<\/span>rocery shopping looks different these days. On Saturday mornings, instead of the local supermarket, I\u2019m at the farmers\u2019 market, loading up on fish, meat, apples, cheese and berries \u2013 enough for a family of four.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not a cheap excursion; our weekly grocery spend is now higher than it was when we decided to try to cut ultra-processed foods (UPFs) from our diet five years ago.<\/p>\n In 2021, I learned about how UPFs are formulated, engineered and marketed. I dived into books such as Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss, which revealed the processes and strategies behind these highly palatable products. I discovered how companies sculpt flavors that please our taste buds, and how such highly engineered foods can have potentially adverse consequences on long-term health.<\/p>\n The most profound thing I learned wasn\u2019t technical. In Salt Sugar Fat, Moss writes that a former Frito-Lay food scientist \u201coverhauled his own diet to avoid the very foods he once worked so hard to perfect\u201d.<\/p>\n There is a growing body of research about the impacts of UPFs on health. The Lancet, a leading medical journal, published a series of papers in 2025 about their effects on health. These meta-analyses revealed that diets with a high proportion of caloric intake from UPFs were associated with chronic-disease risk and increased energy intake.<\/p>\n Additionally, their production and consumption is linked to the displacement of traditional food cultures and practices, environmental degradation, and the concentration of commercial and political power by large food corporations.<\/p>\n It all started to feel like a great big con.<\/p>\n After learning about UPFs, I made it my mission to eat fewer of them. At the time, like many families, we relied on a lot of canned items and ate pre-prepared supermarket foods. We cooked many meals, but they were basic.<\/p>\n We decided to cook more from scratch. I began by making chicken stock. Then I learned to make yoghurt. We started making ice-cream with a hand-me-down machine.<\/p>\n We discovered that organic, pasture-raised animal products and produce from the local farmers\u2019 markets tasted better than the ingredients we had been buying. This style of shopping meant we cooked and baked a lot more. Soon, I replaced the kids\u2019 frozen chicken tenders and nuggets with from-scratch versions. I now make salad dressings and pasta sauces, cakes, cookies and slices.<\/p>\n This process is now in its sixth year. We haven\u2019t bought frozen pizza or liquid chicken stock since then. Our last purchases of frozen chicken tenders, fish sticks and supermarket ice-cream were in 2023.<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t a cheap decision to make; our food costs went up overall.<\/p>\n I started tracking my family\u2019s food expenditure in 2019. I didn\u2019t intend to chart UPFs expenditure specifically, but the spreadsheet does show patterns in our consumption over time. For instance:<\/p>\n In 2021, we spent $158.63 on cereal; in 2025, the total was $34.34.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Our yoghurt costs went from $260.29 in 2021 to $24.27 in 2025.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n We no longer buy protein bars, which cost us $261.04 in 2021.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Our peak expenditure on frozen chicken tenders was in 2020, when we spent $159.76. For the past two years we haven\u2019t bought any.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n On the other hand, costs went up in several other categories. We spent more on fruits, vegetables and ingredients like flour, sugar, milk, eggs and meat:<\/p>\n Butter more than quadrupled between 2021 and 2025, to $234.22.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The total in the sugar column went from $9.47 to $83.10 (I did a lot<\/em> more baking last year).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The biggest leap was for fruit and vegetables: $2,578.32 in 2021 became $5,706.36 last year.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n In 2021, we started buying meat that was humanely raised by farmers and ranchers using regenerative agriculture practices. We spent a lot in this category, almost $2,500 on raw beef and chicken (the previous year, we spent about $1,500). The following year, 2022, we dropped our meat expenditure down to about $1,000 by eating a lot less of it, and more dried beans.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n It\u2019s hard to say how much the switch from UPFs affected costs overall, although it certainly had an effect. In 2019, we spent $6,213.95 on food groceries. Last year, six years into this process, we spent $15,531.60, the highest amount in seven years of tracking.<\/p>\n <\/span>We reduced spending on UPFs, but spent more on ingredients like flour, sugar, milk, eggs and meat<\/span> Photograph: everydayplus\/Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n Speaking generally, inflation has a part to play. Food inflation in the US in 2025 was 2-3%, and food prices are up about 30% since 2019. Separately, we increasingly opted for better-quality ingredients, which are more expensive.<\/p>\n In 2021, the year we began buying better and organic ingredients, our family also grew by one person; we spent $10,140.87. By 2025, we had changed our food consumption so much that a 1:1 comparison is impossible. We bought less UPFs, but we also ate out very rarely.<\/p>\n I also spent a lot more time, labor and energy on sourcing ingredients and cooking. The hardest part of trying not to consume UPFs is how much time it takes. Cooking a meal from scratch can take hours. As a stay-at-home parent, I have more time than a working parent might have. Not everyone has those resources or access to good quality whole foods.<\/p>\n \u201cThe research shows a general correlation between high UPF consumption and poor health,\u201d says Bettina Elias Siegel, a former lawyer, food policy advocate and the author of Kid Food. \u201cAt the same time, we have to remember that UPFs are affordable, accessible and time-saving, which makes them a necessity for many families.\u201d<\/p>\n The structure of food systems and modern life have contributed significantly to high UPF consumption. \u201cThere\u2019s compelling research that UPFs are not great for Americans\u2019 nutrition and health,\u201d says Priya Fielding-Singh, a sociologist and the author of How the Other Half Eats. \u201cAt the same time, our entire food environment encourages \u2013 and in many ways defaults to \u2013 their consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n Fielding-Singh, whose work focuses on food access and equity, highlights the impact of the pandemic on job stress, household incomes and grocery inflation. \u201cFamilies \u2013 especially lower-income families \u2013 have always struggled to afford healthy food,\u201d she says. \u201cBut now you\u2019re layering rising prices for healthier, more nutritious products on top of that. At the same time, you\u2019re seeing cuts and restrictions to Snap benefits and eligibility. And more broadly, life in America has simply become more expensive over the past five years.\u201d<\/p>\n We haven\u2019t completely eliminated UPFs, nor do I think we ever will.<\/p>\n Take children\u2019s food: our daughter is eight and our son is six, and we\u2019re deep in birthday parties, play dates, school events and children\u2019s menus. We are not purists about this, and we deal with each situation differently. At birthday parties, they can have one of each thing \u2013 for instance, one juice box and one slice of cake. At Halloween, they choose their favorites from the entire haul and we give the rest away.<\/p>\n I also bake a lot, and the children will often choose to eat what I\u2019ve made rather than, say, a chocolate bar from their Halloween stash.<\/p>\n Chris van Tulleken, a doctor, researcher and the author of Ultra-Processed People, tells me he now eats very little UPFs. \u201cI will eat it to be normal and polite,\u201d he says. \u201cIf it is put in front of me, I will sometimes have it, but I wouldn\u2019t go and buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n In our family, we take a similar approach. But the one meal I can\u2019t seem to replace is boxed macaroni and cheese. I\u2019ve made stove-top and baked versions, and the kids reluctantly picked at it. When it comes to mac and cheese, it seems there is only one acceptable kind.<\/p>\n Dalia Perelman, a research dietitian at Stanford University, says that the goal is \u201cnot to avoid all UPFs all the time, but to lower the dose \u2013 to reduce the number of meals or number of foods within a meal that are UPFs\u201d, she says. So, instead of a hotdog, chips and soda, try a hotdog with corn on the cob and sparkling water, or subbing in a grilled chicken sandwich.<\/p>\n The process isn\u2019t easy; it takes time, effort and consistency. We certainly didn\u2019t hold ourselves to any standard of perfection. But if you want to try, here are some suggestions based on my experience.<\/p>\n Changing your palate so that UPFs are no longer appealing is half the battle. It then stops being something you need to resist. I now find most store-bought desserts too sweet, and many prepared foods don\u2019t have the same depth of flavor or satisfying textures of the foods I cook and bake. This happened gradually and subconsciously, as my taste buds adjusted to dishes that weren\u2019t as sweet or salty.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n To this point, children\u2019s \u2013 and adults\u2019 \u2013 palates can be malleable and more sophisticated than you think. My children now prefer our homemade chicken nuggets to frozen ones.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Be consistent in building your family\u2019s food culture. Cook regularly and eat together.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Talk to your children about food. Discuss ingredients, nutrition and where food comes from. For example, to help my kids understand the bacteria in their gut microbiomes, we talk about their \u201cgood tummy bugs\u201d and how they like different plant foods.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Read ingredient labels. If you want to reduce UPFs in your diet, you need to know where they are (hint: everywhere).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Graphic with three lines of text that say, in bold, \u2018Well Actually\u2019, then \u2018Read more on living a good life in a complex world,\u2019 then a pinkish-lavender pill-shaped button with white letters that say \u2018More from this section\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n I started reducing UPFs partly for health reasons. But the more I learned about them, the more this seemed to be an issue about justice. It\u2019s not fair that many people cannot afford to eat well, or have the time to cook a good meal, or eat fresh fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.<\/p>\n Whole foods should be accessible and affordable. Accurate information about food should be available. Food producers should be compensated fairly. \u201cIf you care about human health or antimicrobial resistance, risk of pandemic disease, plastic pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, climate change, gas emissions, land use change \u2013 all of it is linked through UPF, and it is all an issue of justice and rights,\u201d says van Tulleken.<\/p>\n Yet individual actions are still important, van Tulleken says: \u201cThe grassroots movement comes out of so many things \u2026 people taking books, podcasts and documentaries and science papers and running with it. Parents at school start agitating for change and voting. And this is what happened with cigarettes \u2013 the scientists did the work \u2026 then gradually everyone got what they wanted, which is cigarettes not being sold to their five-year-olds.\u201d<\/p>\n In the US, recently released dietary guidelines emphasize protein (plenty of the protein-heavy products that have proliferated recently are, notably, UPFs), eating \u201creal food\u201d and reducing the consumption of processed foods. Experts have expressed concern about many of the guidelines, and some I spoke with questioned whether the necessary structural changes and support would also be implemented.<\/p>\n \u201cThe updated dietary guidelines\u2019 recommendation to keep kids away from sugar until age 11 is, in many ways, an admirable and ambitious public-health goal. But it\u2019s also almost impossible in practice, because sugar is secretly hiding in so many foods,\u201d says Fielding-Singh.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also need the structural and policy changes that would actually make them feasible. Otherwise, we\u2019re just layering additional guilt on to people who are trying to navigate a food system that makes those guidelines incredibly hard to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n One benefit I\u2019ve found from my new way of eating is eating without guilt. I used to know<\/em> that I should eat more leafy greens and reduce UPF consumption. But so much of what we\u2019re told we ought to do seemed too hard or impossible. This change happened one food item at a time, and as I\u2019ve learned more about food and gained more skills in the kitchen, our new way of eating has become more natural.<\/p>\n As the kids get older, I hope their palates continue to expand and they continue to experience food with pleasure and joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Grocery shopping looks different these days. On Saturday mornings, instead of the local supermarket, I\u2019m at the farmers\u2019 market, loading up on fish, meat, apples, cheese and berries \u2013 enough for a family of four. But it\u2019s not a cheap excursion; our weekly grocery spend is now higher than it was when we decided to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[9687,2906,7680,613,1816,7681,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-48581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-eat","9":"tag-family","10":"tag-foods","11":"tag-heres","12":"tag-learned","13":"tag-ultraprocessed","14":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The mission: reduce UPFs in my family\u2019s diet<\/h2>\n
The costs of reducing UPFs \u2013 financial and otherwise<\/h2>\n
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The day-to-day realities of eliminating UPFs<\/h2>\n
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The bigger picture<\/h2>\n