Ultra-Processed Food: How I Exorcised UPF From My Diet

Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) are made using processes or ingredients you wouldn’t find in a domestic kitchen. Designed to be cheap, moreish, and convenient, they’ve been linked to multiple health problems—heart disease, obesity, cancer, depression, and anxiety. Big food companies systematically replace nutritious components with substitutes (“edible, but not food”, according to Tim Spector at Zoe), using greenwashing and deceptive marketing to target consumers, especially those on tight budgets. Governments have been slow to regulate, while the industry profits in the meantime. Meanwhile, evidence suggests UPF harms the microbiome, like only watering the weeds in a garden, increasing chronic inflammation and disease risk.

In 2014, I was eating a lot of ready meals—lasagnes, macaroni and cheese, pasta bake—plus a weekly Domino’s, a Friday treat with my housemate. In my early twenties, busy and uninterested, it didn’t cross my mind that my diet was less than optimal. I’d love to say there was a watershed moment, but change came gradually, in minor increments—the kind that builds sustainable, lasting habits. Now, I’ve condensed those small adjustments into a list of things you can do to reduce UPF in your own life. Starting with:

Tackling Takeaways

The thing is, takeaways just aren’t that good a lot of the time. You don’t know what’s in them, you can’t see into the kitchens, and in time-poor environments where labour is the biggest cost, cutting prep time often matters more than food quality. Even if a pre-made product is more expensive than raw ingredients, it’s still cheaper than paying someone to cook from scratch.

My environment played a huge role in changing my habits. The nearest delivery was always 45+ minutes away, and when it arrived, it wasn’t great. I ordered when I was starving, wanting a quick fix, but it never lived up to the wait. I was also lucky this phase predated Uber Eats, Just Eat, and Deliveroo, so options were scarce. Instead, I started “shopping my fridge”—packet rice, tinned beans, and leftovers, often uninspiring but functional. Over time, I got strategic: doubling recipes, stocking up on simple staples, and building a meal rotation from store cupboard ingredients. But the ready meals? They were still a huge feature.

Rethink Ready Meals

Creating meals that survive freezing, defrosting, and reheating across different appliances is a challenge food scientists have tackled for decades. Ready meals often contain additives like MSG for flavour, emulsifiers and thickeners for texture, antioxidants to prevent spoilage, and artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which has been linked to metabolic disorders. These additives help frozen food retain colour, texture, and shelf life—but there are ways to prep and cook that avoid them while keeping the convenience of ready meals.

Now, I make my own. I follow a set of rules: only freeze meals I’ll actually want later (because most become less appetising over time), and often freeze just components—curry to pair with packet rice, pasta sauce, or whole jacket potatoes. Some meals are assembled straight from the freezer, like fish (or tofu) wrapped with tomatoes, chickpeas, artichokes, and capers. Even overnight oats can be frozen and microwaved, with fresh toppings added after. Beyond the freezer, my store cupboard staples make quick meals: tinned tomatoes for pasta sauce, frozen spinach blitzed into pesto, and rice paper for salad-drawer summer rolls.

Swaps for Snacks

Your gut bacteria adapt to what you feed them—if your microbiome thrives on UPF and high-salt, high-sugar snacks, those bugs outnumber the rest and send signals to your brain for more of the same. That’s why it’s so hard to change habits overnight; your mind is willing, but your gut is built on your past diet. The key is slow, steady changes that cultivate bacteria that crave whole foods, while starving the ones that thrive on UPF.

If you’re a snacker (I’ll level—I’m not), this is the hardest change. Snack foods are often the most ultra-processed, making you more exposed to UPF and more likely to crave it. Take Pringles: they have an ingredient list as long as your arm and are designed to be addictive. But swap them for crisps made from whole potatoes, and over time, your gut won’t crave Pringles in the same way. I’ve always eaten the most basic, own-brand tortilla chips—just maize, oil, and salt. Compare that to Doritos. Go on, I dare you.

Invest in Equipment

The last battleground of the UPF war is the condiment aisle. Simple swaps help—making your own vinaigrette, for example, requires nothing more than a jam jar. Equipment doesn’t have to be expensive either; my most-used kitchen tool is a pestle and mortar, and after making fresh pesto, I can never go back to the jarred stuff.

If you can afford it, the right equipment makes cutting out UPF easier. Mayonnaise, for example, is just oil emulsified with eggs (or soy), yet store-bought versions are packed with additives for shelf stability. My number one gadget is an immersion blender with a food processor attachment—£100 well spent (you can get them cheaper), as I use it daily. Slow cookers and pressure cookers make time-consuming recipes effortless, and an air fryer delivers crispness a microwave can’t (though I love microwaves and won’t hear a word against them). Sliced bread, with its suspicious two-week shelf life, is another story. No one has time to bake daily, but a bread maker helps. The same goes for ice cream makers. Before buying new, check secondhand—these gadgets often go unused, and they’re only as valuable as their owner’s dedication.

Final Thoughts

For me, cutting out UPF wasn’t about perfection—it was so gradual, I barely realised I was doing it. Small, sustainable changes that added up over time. I didn’t wake up one day and overhaul my diet overnight, and you don’t have to either. Whether it’s swapping one ready meal a week for a homemade version, investing in a kitchen tool that makes cooking easier, or simply becoming more aware of what’s in your food, every step counts.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t just to avoid ultra-processed food—it’s to reclaim real food, made from real ingredients, that nourishes both body and mind. Start where you can, experiment, and don’t stress about being perfect. Your gut (and future self) will thank you.