Ellie Jackson spends hours each week baking fresh bread, cakes, brownies and muffins for her family, preparing home-cooked meals from scratch – all in an effort to remove ultra-processed foods (UPF) from their diet.
While Ellie believes this will improve their health, it has not improved her bank account.
Switching to premium, fresh, and organic produce, with no UPFs, has increased her grocery bills by 25 per cent, from £80 to £100 per week.
There’s also been a hefty outlay in kitchen appliances – £120 for a bread maker, £150 for an air fryer, £280 for two pressure cookers, £50 for an electric stand mixer, £50 for a food processor, and £15 for a vegetable dicer, among other things.
Ellie, 44, spent the past year overhauling how she and her family shops, eats and cooks after being left horrified about the negative effects of UPFs.
This includes contributing to obesity, cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and more, according to the British Nutrition Foundation.
“What’s happened to our food is one of the biggest disasters in our lifetime. It doesn’t taste good. It doesn’t fill us up – the children were always hungry. We’ve also got a high cancer risk in my family, so I’ve been worried about that, along with the general anxiety of trying to do the best for your kids,” says Cornwall-based Ellie, whose four children are aged between seven and 14.
“I feel like I’m winning at being a mum when I give them a home cooked dinner that’s made from scratch, that’s healthy and nutritious, rather than a load of chips and nuggets. I feel proud of myself.”
Not only has the switch made a dent in Ellie’s finances, but also her time.
She now spends whole days and afternoons spent on food preparation, to the point where she’s had to step down from her part-time role as a teaching assistant which means her individual income has taken a hit of about 20 per cent.
Ellie has just enough time when the kids are at school to focus on her work as a children’s author, specialising in writing books protecting endangered animals.
“My husband is a firefighter and is often away working, so managing four kids often felt like a struggle. When they got home from school, I would chuck biscuits and cheap snack foods at them because I hadn’t prepared anything.
“Being able to step back from that part-time job has taken the pressure off us as a family. But I know that’s a luxury that few people have.”
Despite the extra effort and cost, Ellie joins the 12.8 million Britons who now avoid UPF – an increase of three million between October last year and February this year, according to The Grocer. That collective effort could eventually cut NHS costs by around £22bn per year, government research reveals.
UPF tends to be cheaper than fresher and less processed alternatives because it’s bulked out with additives and preservatives that don’t cost much to produce.
“You would hope that supermarkets and suppliers will now take it even more upon themselves to lower the cost of food, especially when higher quality foods are also associated with more premium brands and packaging that isn’t to do with the food itself,” says Thalia Pellegrini, a nutritionist who specialises in helping mothers increase their energy levels and balance their hormones.
“More people are looking for less processed foods, and are becoming more informed and educated about the importance of good nutrition. I’m sure it’ll take some time, but I hope we will see food suppliers and producers recognising the importance of filling that gap in the market.”
In response to comment requests from i, the John Lewis Partnership, parent company of Waitrose, said it’s “working hard to offer more affordable options of non and low UPF items”.
It said that products in its Essential range, such as mayonnaise, tomato and mozzarella tortelloni, and tomato and basil sauce, “avoid the use of additives, flavourings and colours, and have whole food ingredients”. It shares over 100 recipes a month on its website that use non and low-UPF ingredients.
Tesco said it would “always aim to make sure fruit and vegetables are as affordable and accessible to our customers as possible”, and that Clubcard prices and its Aldi Price Match, where over two thirds of products are healthy, “offer great value on healthy options”. Morrison’s, Asda, Aldi, Lidl, M&S and The Co-op didn’t respond.
Over time, Ellie has worked out how to keep costs down, bulk buying flour and porridge oats from specialist stores – which saves money on buying pre-packaged convenience snacks, and supermarket breakfast cereals.
For example, she cooked three hams in her pressure cookers, meaning she had three kilograms of meat to use for lunches and dinners. She says a homemade cake now lasts longer than the supermarket cakes she used to buy as it’s more filling.
So are the packed lunches she makes from her homemade bread and sandwich fillers, like egg and tuna mayonnaise, rather than the pre-made versions she used to buy.
The family now also has smaller portions as they are eating better quality food. For example, they will eat two butcher’s sausages in a meal each, compared with the four supermarket ones they previously would have had.
Ellie also saves money by ditching the yoghurt multipacks she used to get, by portioning out a large tub of natural yoghurt into reusable pots and topping them up with fruit and honey.
Other cost-effective alternatives Pellegrini recommends include swapping squash or soft drink for a combination of orange juice and sparkling water, as well as making hummus and baked beans at home. Homemade flapjacks also require just three ingredients – granola, butter and honey.
But Thalia stresses that cutting out UPF shouldn’t become another “stick to beat working parents with”. An 80/20 rule – aiming for 80 per cent non-UPF and allowing for 20 per cent UPF in your diet – is more realistic, for both financial and time reasons.
“It’s really about the balance. Is there ice cream in my house? Absolutely. Baked beans – some of which would be processed, some of which would be ultra-processed – are a source of fibre and protein, and I’d rather someone have beans on toast than nothing,” says Thalia.
“Spending more on better quality food is not a luxury for many people, so UPF shouldn’t become another thing for us to feel guilty about.”
