ULTRA-PROCESSED PEOPLE

[Urbandreamer]

Probably will now buy more so called ultra processed food as much of it seems quite nutritious, e.g. baked beans, fish fingers, pasta sauce jars, Weetabix etc.

Missing the point by a country mile. You obviously haven't read the book!

Yes much of it actually IS nutritious but nutritional content is not what it's all about. Its all the other stuff they put in it as well that's the problem.

I haven't read the book either.
Personally I like having potassium nitrate in my sausages, bacon, ham, and pork pies.

Sure nitrates are not good for us.
However I do prefer their side effects to the effects of botulism (sausage poisoning).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6043430/

By the way, did you follow the link yourself? It isn't about UPF's at all!
No it's about living on a diet restricted to the worst "foods" that you can find, picked from the processed group.

Guess what ANY poor diet is bad.

The staple in many populations was maze. In some it lead to Pellagra, in others not. What was the difference? Well in some they practiced a process called nixtamalization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization

The primary nutritional benefits of nixtamalization arise from the alkaline processing involved. These conditions convert corn's hemicellulose-bound niacin ("niacytin") to free niacin, making it available for absorption into the body, thus helping to prevent pellagra.

The diet was still poor, but now it didn't lead to the same health problems.
So what do we learn? In this case a processed diet (of what was available) is better than a low processed diet!

Maze was brought to Europe and America, but the process not.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6357846/

Corn, used here in the sense of "Indian corn" or maize, was brought to Europe from America, and over the period 1750-1850 became the typical peasant's staple in many of the areas bordering the Mediterranean. By the end of that period, it had also come to be recognized that pellagra had become a serious, chronic disease in these same countries,

The problem is NOT food processing, it's education!

[bungeejumper]

Yes much of it actually IS nutritious but nutritional content is not what it's all about. Its all the other stuff they put in it as well that's the problem.

Vegetables, fruit, fresh meat fresh fish, all available in the supermarket. And sheep hearts, liver, kidney, all dead cheap.

Well, fresh supermarket meat is loaded with water so as to make it seem cheap. Unfortunately my doc has banned offal from my diet, because it's loaded with cholesterol and purine. OK in smallish quantities, I suppose. But yeah, I admit that I'd be too squeamish for chopping up hearts and brains.

Fish? The so-called cod or haddock "fillets" that turn out to be the mushed-up remains of whatever they didn't think they could sell, emulsified and packed into fillet-shaped moulds with chemical stabilisers and god knows what, and sold as good nourishing food. I once bought some by mistake. (Miss-steak, geddit?) It had half-inch sections of cod-worms in it. Frozen, so dead, but not a great experience. I've been a bit more careful since then.

BJ

[UncleEbenezer]

So whats "baking powder"?

It's a household cleaning material. Can be quite effective if you've spilt something on the carpet, for instance. And some folks use it against a blockage in the drains.

[servodude]

So whats "baking powder"?

It's a household cleaning material. Can be quite effective if you've spilt something on the carpet, for instance. And some folks use it against a blockage in the drains.

Never cleaned with baking powder but I do buy bicarb by the kilo; cleaning, giving flat bread a slight rise (with some lemon juice or vinegar) and whatever it is that it forms with superglue was a game changer - nothing quite like it

[Urbandreamer]

So whats "baking powder"?

It's a household cleaning material. Can be quite effective if you've spilt something on the carpet, for instance. And some folks use it against a blockage in the drains.

I use soda for cleaning drains, That would be caustic soda not baking soda. The two are distinctly different. Don't bake with caustic soda or ammonia.

Though come to think about it, you might be ok with ammonia.
I understand that Hákarl has quite a high ammonia content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl

Other cleaning products that I cook with are vinegar and lemon.

Ps, I agree with servodude, it's bicarb that you mean. If you want fizzy cleaning stuff just use vinegar on the cloth that you use with the bicarb. Baking powder can work at a pinch, but bicarb is more flexible. Baking powder's only advantage is in flavor over bicarb and vinegar when making cakes.

[GrahamPlatt]

It's a household cleaning material. Can be quite effective if you've spilt something on the carpet, for instance. And some folks use it against a blockage in the drains.

Never cleaned with baking powder but I do buy bicarb by the kilo; cleaning, giving flat bread a slight rise (with some lemon juice or vinegar) and whatever it is that it forms with superglue was a game changer - nothing quite like it

Bicarb & superglue. I’d never heard of it, so did a bit of looking: https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=eP3xJIJ-TbU

Down the wormhole from a food thread. But then, it’s all chemistry!

[CliffEdge]

Yes much of it actually IS nutritious but nutritional content is not what it's all about. Its all the other stuff they put in it as well that's the problem.

Vegetables, fruit, fresh meat fresh fish, all available in the supermarket. And sheep hearts, liver, kidney, all dead cheap.

Well, fresh supermarket meat is loaded with water so as to make it seem cheap. Unfortunately my doc has banned offal from my diet, because it's loaded with cholesterol and purine. OK in smallish quantities, I suppose. But yeah, I admit that I'd be too squeamish for chopping up hearts and brains.

Fish? The so-called cod or haddock "fillets" that turn out to be the mushed-up remains of whatever they didn't think they could sell, emulsified and packed into fillet-shaped moulds with chemical stabilisers and god knows what, and sold as good nourishing food. I once bought some by mistake. (Miss-steak, geddit?) It had half-inch sections of cod-worms in it. Frozen, so dead, but not a great experience. I've been a bit more careful since then.

BJ

Nah the fish fillets are flakey and obviously not reconstituted deck scrapings. Tinned salmon is good as well, not sure if it's a UPF though.
This is all the usual twaddle we're subjected to nowadays. No I won't be buying this stupid book. I'll stick to Which?, which isn't perfect but the closest we've got in these God forsaken times.

You buy the twaddle, fine, I'll buy the UPFs, obviously not the obvious rubbish. You don't have to be a genius to tell that Coco Pops bad, Weetabix good, for example.

[Lootman]

I admit that I'd be too squeamish for chopping up hearts and brains.

Hearts are very tough. You would need a sharp knife, and they can take an hour's cooking to be anything like tender.

Brains, on the other hand, have almost no texture. They taste OK but feel icky on the palate. Tilt your plate by 1 degree and they fly off the edge.

Tripe and trotters for me.

[88V8]

I admit that I'd be too squeamish for chopping up hearts and brains.

Hearts are very tough. You would need a sharp knife, and they can take an hour's cooking to be anything like tender.
Tripe and trotters for me.

My Gran used to like trotters. Mam always bought one when she came to visit.

Some years ago I did a favour for a (car) club member, and he gave me.... an ox heart. A lot of good eating in an ox heart, but it would indeed have taken forever to cook if it were not for the pressure cooker.

V8

[stevensfo]

It's a household cleaning material. Can be quite effective if you've spilt something on the carpet, for instance. And some folks use it against a blockage in the drains.

I use soda for cleaning drains, That would be caustic soda not baking soda. The two are distinctly different. Don't bake with caustic soda or ammonia.

Though come to think about it, you might be ok with ammonia.
I understand that Hákarl has quite a high ammonia content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl

Other cleaning products that I cook with are vinegar and lemon.

Ps, I agree with servodude, it's bicarb that you mean. If you want fizzy cleaning stuff just use vinegar on the cloth that you use with the bicarb. Baking powder can work at a pinch, but bicarb is more flexible. Baking powder's only advantage is in flavor over bicarb and vinegar when making cakes.

If you want fizzy cleaning stuff just use vinegar on the cloth that you use with the bicarb.

I use that sometimes for unblocking washbasins and sinks. I pour plenty of bicarb powder down the plughole, then some cheap white vinegar heated in the microwave. Lots of fizzing and bubbling. Usually works very well.


Steve

[kempiejon]

I buy ingredients, so not much factory food. I bought some tinned fish yesterday, prompted by this thread I scrutinised the labels.
Tuna in spring water - Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) (Fish) (70%), Spring Water.

Sardines in brine - Sardines, Water, Salt.

Pilchards in tomato sauce - Atlantic Pilchards (Sardina pilchardus) (Fish) (65%),
Tomato Sauce (34%) (Water, Tomato Concentrate, Corn Starch, Stabiliser: Guar Gum, Salt), Salt

Shredded crab meat in brine.
Crab Meat (Crustacean), Water, Sugar, Salt, Flavour Enhancers (Glycine and its Sodium Salt, Disodium Guanylate and Disodium Inosinate), Stabilisers (Polyphosphates and Diphosphates), Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid), Preservative (Sodium Metabisulphite)
Although extra care has been taken to remove shell, some may remain.

I think I'll plan my crab pasta and crab laksa and switch to fresh,

[johnstevens77]

Just a few thoughts from this thread.

Lamb’s brains, absolutely delicious. I used to have them about once a month in Saudi from a freshly slaughtered lamb from our own slaughter house. Serve pan fried with a wedge of lemon, plain boiled broccoli and boiled potatoes. Impossible to find in UK.

Calves’ brains need washing in vinegared water first before slicing and frying. Last time was at my sister-in-law’s in France a couple of years ago. Never seen them in UK but widely available in French supermarkets and butchers. (At least in The Jura).

Tripe ā la mode de Caen is pretty good but haven’t had that for years, the only place where I could find tripe is in Exeter, 10 miles away.
Trotters and hearts are also difficult to find, even in the nearest butchers and certainly not in our local Waitrose.

I was looking for frozen puff pastry in Waitrose yesterday, what I call puff pastry i.e., all butter, not margarine puff pastry, yuck. Eventually found it chilled next to the butter! (We have some very nice left-over beef bourguignonne that I shall turn into a pie). No, I do not make puff pastry any more and compared to margarine puff pasty the added ingredients in the all butter variety are almost non-existent and seem very benign.

As Mike says, we don’t mind potassium nitrate in our bacon but we do prefer sausages from a butcher (when we make an effort to visit one, no butcher in Sidmouth).

Most dried beans cost about £2 .50 a kg or so, we have just about every variety available in our store cupboard along with many varieties of lentils and barley. 110grs dried beans is enough for one portion. I have barley soaking for a vegetable casserole later this week, last week we had pinto beans and butter beans. The butter beans cooked with a little cheap cooking bacon, (under £2 per kg), tomatoes and fresh vegetables, the pinto beans with ratatouille made with egg plant, courgette and peppers from a £1.50 Lidl veg box.

I have followed a high fibre and protein diet for the last 64 years, never had a weight problem since then. A lot of the protein is from vegetables and cheese plus oily fish like frozen and canned sardines and mackerel as well as the occasional piece of meat or chicken.

Then there is ice cream, it contains eggs, cream, milk and sugar plus added natural ingredients, right? We have our own salted caramel ice cream and wild blackberry sorbet in the freezer just now. Going to make tahina ice cream next. Have you read the ingredients in ready-made ice cream? Mind boggling.

john

[kempiejon]

Serve pan fried with a wedge of lemon, plain boiled broccoli and boiled potatoes. Impossible to find in UK.

All in my local Morrisons.

Tripe ā la mode de Caen is pretty good but haven’t had that for years, the only place where I could find tripe is in Exeter, 10 miles away.
Trotters and hearts are also difficult to find, even in the nearest butchers and certainly not in our local Waitrose.

All available in my local Morrisons, trotters are obviously pig, so are the hearts and only sold pre packed in chunks I think they used to do whole lamb hearts but I have not noticed them, years ago I used to buy whole hearts for a stuffed heart recipe my nan shared with me, not made it for about 10 years. I have never found a tripe dish that particularly excites me so looked up de Caen.

In its original form this dish consisted of all four chambers of a beef cattle's stomach, part of the large intestine (this was outlawed in France in 1996),[1] plus the hooves and bones, cut up and placed on a bed of carrots, onions, leeks, garlic, cloves, peppercorns, a bouquet garni, a bottle of cider and a glass of calvados in a tripière (a special earthenware pot for cooking tripe).[2] Some sources include a large quantity of blanched beef fat.[3] This was covered and hermetically sealed with dough and simmered in the oven for fifteen hours. The hoofs, bones and bouquet garni are removed before serving with a sprinkling of some more cider.

I have seen ox feet for sale in the Caribbean.

[johnstevens77]

[quote=I have seen ox feet for sale in the Caribbean.[/quote].
Me too and also rats and giant snails on sale in Cotonou. Others hereabouts have seen monkeys, snakes et al on sale in the Far East.

More seriously, I last visited a Morrisons years ago, pretty good too but no stores near us.

john