Birthday food and UPFs

 Seeing as husband wasn't forthcoming with what he wanted for birthday food, I made the decision for him, choosing a day's worth of food I know he really likes.  So we're having toasted cheese crumpets for breakfast, then fried egg and beans on toast for lunch - simple stuff but things he loves.  For dinner I'm doing him chicken pieces marinaded in barbecue sauce, with fried rice cooked with lots of added veggies - I won't have the chicken but will have bbq sauce and grated cheese on my rice.  I bought apple turnovers with fresh cream for afters, and a pack of Guinness zero alcohol as a treat.  I'm sure he'll be pleased with it all.

We watched the first of a new series of What Not to Eat a couple of nights ago, it's presented by Professor Tim Spector and a GP, it's all about ultra processed foods and what they do to our bodies.  It was quite horrifying actually, and a bit of a wake up call as quite a few UPFs have been finding their way back into my kitchen recently - mostly for convenience because of me falling out of love with cooking as I get older.  There was a family featured on the programme, a couple and their 4 young children, both parents were overweight, the wife more so than the husband.  They lived almost entirely on UPFs - white sliced toast or sugary cereals for breakfast, the wife had chocolate brownies for lunches, the husband had pot noodles, white bread cheese sandwiches, crisps and chocolate for lunch - every day.  The whole family had takeaways or fast food 5 times a week, they said they tried to cook proper meals twice a week but admitted that didn't always happen.  And the husband and wife each had two large bars of chocolate as a snack - 2 bars each - every single night.  Each of the children had a basket full of sweets, chocolate biscuits and crisps they could snack on when they got home from school each day.  I was absolutely gobsmacked at the sheer amount of total crap 'food' the whole family ate all the time - and it was completely normal for them.  Of course the two doctors got them onto healthy eating, cooking real food and getting the children to eat fruit instead of crap, and monitored them for 6 weeks, resulting in both parents losing nearly a stone in weight and lowering all their bad things like gut inflammation.  It was quite an eye opener and has spurred me on to stop buying UPF foods - we'll eat up what we've got but will try not to buy any more - well, within reason.  Even the Professor said that some processed foods are relatively ok - like tinned beans, e.g.  I do tend to rely on bought sauces - jars and packets, mayo and bbq sauce - which is daft really, as it's so easy (and cheaper) to make them and no nasties go in them.  So that's going to change.