On Saturday mornings, instead of the local supermarket, I am at our local San Diego farmers' market, loading up on fish, meat, apples, cheese and berries – enough for a family of four. But this excursion is not cheap; our weekly grocery spend is now higher than it was when we decided to try to cut ultra-processed foods (UPFs) from our diet five years ago.
In 2021, I learned about how UPFs are formulated, engineered and marketed. I dived into books such as Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss, which revealed the processes and strategies behind these highly palatable products. I discovered how companies sculpt flavours that please our taste buds, and how such highly engineered foods can have potentially adverse consequences on long-term health.
After learning about UPFs, I made it my mission to eat fewer of them. We decided to cook more from scratch, starting with chicken stock and yoghurt. We now make salad dressings, pasta sauces, cakes, cookies and ice-cream. This process is now in its sixth year; we have not bought frozen pizza or liquid chicken stock since then.
This was not a cheap decision. Our food costs went up overall. In 2019, we spent $6,213.95 on food groceries; last year we spent $15,531.60. Spending on fruit and vegetables more than doubled from $2,578.32 in 2021 to $5,706.36 last year. Butter quadrupled to $234.22. However, we now spend far less on cereal, yoghurt and protein bars.
It is hard to say how much the switch from UPFs affected costs overall, although it certainly did. Inflation has a part to play, as food prices are up about 30% since 2019. Separately, we increasingly opted for better-quality ingredients, which are more expensive. But the taste and health benefits have been profound; the most profound thing I learned was that a former Frito-Lay food scientist overhauled his own diet to avoid the very foods he once worked so hard to perfect.
