Two years ago, after learning about how eating lots of ultra-processed food is linked to a range of chronic health problems, Rob Hobson, a registered nutritionist, decided to cut them out of his diet.
UPFs don’t have a set definition, but they generally undergo industrial processing and contain ingredients that you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen. They are highly-marketed, shelf-stable, and designed to contain an irresistible combination of sugar, salt, and fat. As well as obvious foods like frozen pizza, items such as packaged bread can fall into this category.
In his first three months of quitting UPFs, Hobson cooked from scratch as much as possible by leaning on meal prepping, and avoiding foods containing additives, including staples like ketchup or grocery store whole wheat bread.
“I was like a vigilante,” he previously told Business Insider, but that approach quickly became too time-consuming to be sustainable.
In 2024, Hobson told Business Insider that he’d changed tack to incorporate what he considered to be healthier UPFs, like store-bought pasta sauce, into his meals, to save time while eating a balanced diet.
“I still believe the first port of call is cooking everything as much as you can from scratch. But I’m not going to give myself a hard time about buying tomato sauce, I’ll just buy the best one I possibly can,” he said.
Today, he has a similar approach to UPFs: he eats whole, unprocessed foods most of the time, but has wine or chocolate when he craves it and eats “healthier” UPFs when it makes sense.
Hobson has made two additional helpful tweaks to his meal planning and preparation to better fit his busy schedule.
Considering convenience instead of avoiding all UPFs
Since UPFs started making headlines a few years ago, the conversation around them and their impact on health has evolved, Hobson said.
“We’re starting to understand that some of them are really not as bad for you because they have other added health benefits,” he said.
Fortified breakfast cereals, for example, contain vitamins, while flavored yogurts can be a good source of calcium and protein.
Hobson’s dietary focus is now more about prioritizing convenience and nutrition than solely avoiding UPFs.
“With nutrition, it’s just making sure everything is on hand so that you have everything ready to go,” he said. “I’m really busy at the moment. So for me, it’s finding the easiest way to do it.”
Refridgerating instead of freezing meals
Hobson would batch cook and freeze meals when he first avoided UPFs. Then the extra step of defrosting food became tedious.
The food “was just sitting in the freezer. I couldn’t really be bothered to defrost it,” he said.
Now, he still batch cooks, but makes dishes that will last in the fridge for a few days, such as turkey chili, which he eats in a variety of ways throughout the week.
He might have it with rice one day, then on a baked potato or in a wrap the next.
“It saves me loads of time, and it’s just so nice when there’s stuff in the fridge that’s ready to just heat up in a pan,” he said.
Using a pressure cooker
Hobson reduced the time he spent cooking this year by buying a pressure cooker, an airtight device that quickly cooks food using steam.
He uses it to make the same kind of one-pot meals, such as stews and curries, he’s favored for years, without needing to supervise the food.
“It’s much easier for me to batch cook with very little effort,” he said.
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