I've eaten no sugar or ultra-processed food for nine months — now I've got one major problem

Cutting ultra-processed food from my diet is the best health move I have ever made — but I really wasn't expecting the results to be so striking

I've eaten no ultra-processed food at all in 2024. It has changed my body in ways I never expected, led to significant weight loss and got me eating foods every day that had never featured in my diet before but that I now can't live without.

Unlike many diets out there that promise quick weight loss, this new way of eating has been surprisingly easy to maintain. I think this is largely because you don't need to starve yourself, eat less, deprive yourself of certain foods or cut out an entire food group (like carbs) from your meals altogether.

On the contrary, if anything I probably eat a pretty high-fat diet now, though almost all those fats are healthy ones from foods like nuts, avocados and Greek yoghurt. Replacing ultra-processed foods lacking in nutrients with nutrient-dense whole foods also means I'm rarely hungry between meals so don't find myself craving crisps or biscuits with a cup of tea as a snack.

I've lost more than a stone in weight, joined a nutrition programme, am learning about new foods, recipes and taste combinations all the time and, despite being in my mid-forties, find exercise easier than I ever have. It has been a remarkable change, though it has led to one problematic side effect (more on that below).

What is ultra-processed food?

This simple definition of ultra-processed food (UPF) comes from Dr Chris Van Tulleken, an infectious diseases doctor at University College London and author of the best-selling book Ultra-Processed People: "If it's wrapped in plastic and it contains at least one ingredient that you don't typically find in a domestic kitchen, then it's ultra-processed food."

In practice, this means some of the most common ultra-processed foods (or UPFs) that we eat are:

• supermarket bread
• breakfast cereals and granola
• flavoured yoghurt
• chocolate, biscuits and crisps
• energy bars
• fizzy drinks
• microwave ready meals

There are many more, of course. In fact, supermarket shelves are completely rammed with ultra-processed foods, to the point where avoiding them seems impossible (it's actually not that hard at all — and it definitely doesn't involve eating nothing but fresh fruit and vegetables for the rest of your life).

How can I possibly cut all these foods from my diet?

Firstly, you don't have to cut them from your diet completely. Even though I try to keep my UPF intake to zero, sensible advice would be to try to keep the proportion of UPF you eat below 20% of your overall diet. The main ways I achieved this were:

• swapping granola and flavoured yoghurt for nuts and Greek yoghurt at breakfast time
• cutting out supermarket bread altogether — if I occasionally want bread, I will splurge on a sourdough loaf from an independent bakery once every few weeks
• lunch and dinner: cooking more legumes (beans, chickpeas and lentils) either as a main or side part of a meal — I almost never ate them before
• ditching chocolate bars and crisps as snacks or as parts of a meal
• using more olive oil
• eating more vegetables
• making homemade versions of things like fish fingers, curries and sauces (it's really not as hard as it sounds).

Even though it's only been nine months, I really couldn’t imagine living without legumes, nuts and the Greek yoghurt today.

Why is ultra-processed food bad?

Ultra-processed foods are highly altered, contain many chemical additives and are made using both industrial processes and industrial processes. They are made this way so that they last longer, make more profits for the companies that make them, and encourage us to eat more of them because of how tasty they are. They are also typically high in added salt, sugar and fat.

We probably don't even have a full picture of how it is harming us. But scientists have found links between UPFs and a range of health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, gastrointestinal diseases and depression. In a large review of observational studies published in 2024, they reported that consuming UPFs was associated with 32 health problems. Some scientists do also point out that observational studies have limitations — for example, they say that even if there's little doubt that there is a correlation between these foods and chronic diseases, it doesn’t necessarily mean that UPFs directly cause poor health (though many are in little doubt about this causative link).

Eating this way sounds expensive

It really isn't. Yes, some things are expensive, like extra virgin olive oil, which has soared in price, and so are nuts and posh bread. But so many other staples aren't. Tins of beans (like butter beans, cannellini beans, pinto beans or black beans) cost around 50p in a supermarket. Lots of veg is very cheap, like cabbage (50p) carrots (35p for a 500g bag), as well as fruit and veg that is tinned or frozen. And plants are also high in protein and fibre so they fill you up, meaning you need to eat less (or less often).

My typical breakfast, lunch and dinner in 2024

Breakfast: nuts (usually hazelnuts, cashews, almonds or walnuts) with Greek yoghurt and fruit

Lunch: If working in the office, a salad going heavy on lentils, veg and hummus. If at home, homemade guacamole or homemade hummus made from chickpeas or butter beans (recipe below), salad or an omelette with onions and peppers.

Dinner: Fish or chicken with legumes or brown rice, or a bean chilli, or pasta with a healthy homemade sauce like chickpeas and broccoli.

My favourite new recipes

Healthy homemade granola: a delicious, and sweet, granola that's made with lots of different nuts, as well as cinnamon, tahini and maple syrup. See the recipe here.

Vegan chilli: This is made with lots of different kinds of beans. See the recipe here. You can also stir through some roasted sweet potato to bulk it out more and get more meals from it.

Fish with cannellini beans and courgettes: I make a much-simplified version of this recipe. Basically, it's courgette, lemon, onion and the beans, then fry or roast some fish and stick it on top or on the side. Add fresh mint to the beans at the end to make it even nicer.

Pasta bolognese with a difference: This recipe cuts out the minced beef and replaces it with cauliflower, mushrooms and walnuts so you still get a really rich and comforting sauce, and one that is crammed with nutrients. If you can't imagine a bolognese sauce without meat, you could just use less minced meat and use lentils or mushrooms instead to bulk it out instead.

Chickpea or butter bean hummus: Hummus is so easy. Just chuck a few ingredients in a blender. Example recipe here. I find swapping butter beans in for chickpeas makes it softer.

Homemade pesto: As with hummus above, throw some ingredients in a blender and you're done in seconds. Recipe here.

Cutting out chocolate sounds impossible

At the start of my new way of eating, it was hard to resist chocolate. However, there are some easy ways you can still get your chocolate fix while not eating the ultra-processed versions all over our supermarket shelves. Here are two simple options:

• replace your usual chocolate with a high quality dark chocolate. If it is not too processed and has a high cocoa percentage (aim for at least 75%) it will still be largely plant-based, have a low amount of added sugar and contain the nutrients and fibres of fruit and vegetables. I never used to like dark chocolate but now I think it's delicious.
• try making your own homemade and healthy versions. You can make a "healthy Nutella" with hazelnuts, cocoa powder, maple syrup and milk.

What about feeding fussy children?

This is very hard. It can be incredibly difficult to feed fussy young eaters, as most parents know. But even trying to switch some healthier foods in for less healthy ones can help. Try making homemade fish fingers using fresh fish and fresh breadcrumbs (from non-UPF bread), and try Greek yoghurt with honey instead of UPF-packed flavoured kids' yoghurt. Just take the small wins where you can.

What have I learned so far and what are my key tips?

I can't believe how cutting out UPF has changed my body. It has been a real surprise. I have recently relaxed my approach to sugar, because I think it is less of a problem than UPF. I still eat very little of it in comparison to what I ate before, but a large part of that is because added sugar and UPF often go hand in hand (eg in a chocolate bar or in cereal). And I made delicious healthy cookies recently, which had sugar in the recipe but no UPF ingredients — see the recipe here.

Here are some more tips:

• cut out pre-made sauces and make them from scratch instead (you can make mayo with four ingredients, and the same goes for pesto and hummus, which are delicious and go great with carrots, celery or fresh sourdough bread)
• stock up on tins of beans and chickpeas
• nuts are filling, healthy and taste delicious raw — they taste even nicer cooked
• read the book Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken. After reading this, I am motivated as much by resisting manipulation by multi-national food corporations as I am by my own health
• listen to the Zoe podcast — it makes food and nutrition so much easier to understand. I ended up joining the Zoe programme to learn even more about how what I eat affects my body — you can read about that here, but it is expensive and you can learn so much from the free podcast alone.
• eat the rainbow: this just means mixing and matching plant foods with different colours. Food variety is important, and different colours mean different compounds and good chemicals which help your health
• you don't need to make meat the centrepiece of every meal. I have not given up meat, but there has been a gradual shift away from big meaty centrepieces towards a greater variety of filling and satisfying vegetables dishes (like roasted aubergine with crispy chickpeas)
• fat is fine: nuts, avocado, olive oil, yoghurt are all full of healthy fats. It's the unhealthy fats and sugar in UPFs and meat that you need to try to limit
• if you can’t imagine life without bread, think about ditching the mass-produced supermarket bread and grab some freshly-made sourdough bread from a local bakery. It will likely have far fewer chemicals in it
• you don't have to completely cut out anything at all — even moderate improvements will have corresponding benefits
• don't be paranoid about what you eat. The overarching, simple message from science and nutrition experts is to focus on eating more whole foods and plants, while eating fewer foods which contain a lot of industrial chemical ingredients you've never heard of and would never have in your kitchen.

What is the major problem this has caused me?

I have lost a lot of weight so a lot of my clothes, including nearly every pair of trousers I own, no longer fit. This means shopping and spending money, two of my least-favourite things.