How to avoid ultra processed food

Avoiding ultra-processed foods means prioritising whole foods, cooking from scratch, and choosing products with just a few natural ingredients. This article covers practical approaches to reduce exposure to UPFs.

This article is from the Nutrition section of our Library.

About This Series

This is Article 4 of a 4-part series exploring ultra-processed foods: what they are, how they came into existence, how they affect your health, and how to stop eating them.

Previous articles covered what ultra-processed foods are and why they became widespread. This article examines what research reveals about their health effects.

As UPF consumption increased globally, researchers began investigating potential health concerns associated with them. Over the past decade, evidence has accumulated from around the world.

The findings have been consistent enough to attract attention from public health organisations and start debates about regulations and dietary guidelines.

Reducing UPF intake doesn't require perfection or complete elimination. Small, sustainable changes often matter more than dramatic overhauls that prove impossible to maintain.

The goal shouldn’t be about creating a new source of stress or guilt around eating, but rather finding realistic ways to shift toward eating less UPFs where practical.

Time, budget, cooking skills, access to certain stores or markets, and the type of household you’re in all influence what's possible. What works for one person may not work for another.

What this last article aims to give you is options, not diktats. Choose what fits your life and personal circumstances.

Understanding Your Starting Point

Before changing anything, audit your current eating habits. What UPFs appear regularly in your diet? When do you reach for them? What needs do they meet — convenience, comfort, time savings, affordability?

Understanding these habits helps identify the most effective changes. You may not be looking for an overhaul at first; rather, look for quick, easy, sustainable fixes that are manageable.

Healthier alternatives to common ultra processed foods

Breakfast

Most modern breakfast staples are UPFs: sugar-sweetened cereals, pastries, breakfast bars, instant oatmeal, and packaged processed breads.

Simple swaps include plain steel-cut oats with fruit and nuts, eggs or nut butters on whole-grain toast, and plain yoghurt with fresh or frozen fruits. These are all quick, healthy options for busy mornings.

Batch-preparing breakfasts on weekends can help weekday mornings. Make a large batch of plain oatmeal, portion it, and reheat as needed. Make overnight oats the night before and eat them cold the next day. Hard-boil a dozen eggs. Prep fruit so it's grab-and-go ready.

Lunch and Dinner

Ready meals, frozen pizza, instant noodles, and heavily processed meat products are the mainstays of lunches and dinners. Replacing all of these may be overwhelming, so start with one or two meals a week.

A few simple meals, cooked regularly, can reduce decision fatigue (and cooking time). A basic template might be: protein + vegetable + starch. Grilled chicken, roast vegetables, and rice. Baked fish, steamed broccoli, and potatoes. Beans, greens, and bread.

None of these requires advanced cooking skills. Most take 20 to 30 minutes from start to finish. Research suggests that even modest cooking skill improvements are linked to better diets.

Batch cooking is a great life hack. Make large portions and freeze half. Cook double the rice, and refrigerate the leftover for later in the week. Roast a whole chicken; use leftovers for subsequent meals. Re-create the convenience UPFs.

Snacks

Packaged snacks represent a major UPF category: chips, cookies, crackers, chocolate, candy, and cakes. They’re probably the number one source of excess calories for most people. So find satisfying alternatives.

Minimally processed snack options include fresh fruit, nuts, plain yoghurt, hard cheese, boiled eggs, vegetables with hummus, or popcorn you pop yourself. These require slightly more effort than opening a package, but not that much more.

Preparation makes the difference. Wash and cut vegetables when you get home from shopping. Portion nuts into small containers. Keep fruit visible and accessible. When minimally processed options are convenient and visible, you'll probably choose them more often.

Beverages

Soft drinks, energy drinks, flavoured coffees with multiple additives, and sweetened fruit drinks all contribute to people’s UPF intake. They also add sugar and “empty calories” without providing satiety or little nutrient value.

Water remains the simplest alternative. If plain water feels boring, try infusing it with fruit, cucumber, or herbs. Unsweetened tea and coffee are also fine. Sparkling water offers the fizz without additives.

For occasional sweet drinks, studies indicate that even partially replacing sugary beverages with water improves various health markers. You don't need perfect adherence. Reducing frequency matters.

How to avoid ultra processed foods

Build a Default Shopping List

Create a standard grocery list prioritising minimally processed basics first: vegetables, fruits, proteins, whole grains, dairy, eggs, legumes, nuts, and simple cooking ingredients. Shop primarily from this list, adding extras intentionally rather than impulsively.

Eat Healthy Convenience Foods

Not all convenient foods are UPFs. Pre-washed salad greens, frozen vegetables, canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned fish, rotisserie chicken, pre-cut vegetables, and frozen fruit offer convenience without the extensive processing.

These items cost more than raw ingredients, but less than ready meals (when you correct for nutrient content). They reduce preparation time significantly. Using them strategically makes cooking from basic ingredients more manageable on busy days.

Master a Few Simple Recipes

You don't need extensive cooking skills. Five to ten simple recipes you can make confidently cover most situations.

Focus on flexible formulas rather than precise recipes: stir-fries with varying vegetables and proteins, simple pasta dishes with different vegetables, basic grain bowls, sheet pan meals.

Plan Flexibly

Rigid meal plans often fail when life inevitably disrupts them. Instead, plan loosely. Shop for ingredients that enable multiple quick meal options. Keep backup ingredients for when plans change. Accept that some days require more convenience than others.

Research on dietary adherence consistently finds that flexible approaches outperform rigid rules over time. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

Prep in Small Batches

Full-day meal prep marathons work for some people, but aren’t suitable for others. Consider smaller, more frequent prep sessions.

Spend 15 minutes washing and cutting vegetables. Take 20 minutes to cook a large batch of rice or quinoa. These small investments create convenience throughout the week.

Read Labels Selectively

You don't need to scrutinise every food label, but checking packaged items occasionally builds awareness. Long ingredient lists with unfamiliar terms usually sign UPFs. Simple ingredient lists with recognisable foods suggest less processing.

This becomes quicker with practice, so be patient to start with. You'll come to learn which brands or products to avoid and which offer relatively minimally processed alternatives.

Embrace Moderation

Reducing UPF intake doesn't mean never eating these foods. Occasional consumption can fit within a healthy diet. The concern centres on these products dominating intake, not appearing occasionally.

Some situations naturally involve UPFs: social occasions, travel, celebrations, or times of unusual stress. These occasions don't negate other efforts. Consistency beats perfection.

If UPFs currently provide 60% of your calories, reducing that to 40% represents a meaningful improvement. Dropping further to 20% offers additional benefits. But zero isn't the necessary goal; trying to pursue it might create unnecessary stress and derail efforts.

Conclusions from the Series

We’ve looked at UPFs from multiple angles: their definition and identification, the forces driving their consumption, their health effects, and practical approaches to reducing intake.

Several themes have emerged across these articles. First, UPFs became popular through the genuine advantages they offer, not just through poor choices or corporate manipulation. They solved real problems around convenience, financial cost, and availability.

However, second, they have led to other ‘costs’ specifically to health. The consistency of the research outcomes across populations and several health conditions warrants taking their impact on your health seriously.

Third, reducing UPF intake requires more than willpower or knowledge. It requires addressing practical barriers, building sustainable habits, and recognising that perfect adherence isn't necessary or realistic for most people, not in the current environment anyway.

The aim of this series is to provide clear information without fearmongering, acknowledge the complexity of the problem without creating confusion, and offer practical guidance without judgment.

Food decisions occur within constraints, and there is no “one-size-fits-all”. What matters is making incremental improvements that fit your circumstances and feel sustainable over time.

UPFs will likely remain part of the food system for some time to come. The question isn't whether they exist, but how much space they occupy in your diet.

By understanding what they are, some practical strategies to reduce them, most people can shift the balance in directions that support wellbeing while realising the real-world constraints.