We Quit Ultra-Processed Foods for 30 Days… Here’s What It Did to Our Energy Levels, Hunger, and Mental Health

Ultra-processed foods have been demonized for years due to their supposed effect on our health, mental well-being and waistlines.

It’s led to a rise in influencers who claim that cutting out UPFs and eating clean foods can treat everything from depression to poor sleep and brain fog.

Although research has linked UPFs to obesity and other health problems, some experts argue that the science is flawed because it fails to distinguish between products like soda and protein shakes, despite vast nutritional differences.

Now, two online creators who ditched UPFs for 30 days have revealed their experiences with DailyMail.com — and they don’t recommend you try it at home.

Both said the experiments made them miserable, anxious and hungry – although there were some health benefits, including calming one man’s irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Forty-six-year-old Gavin Wren, a food policy expert from London, gave up all UPFs (products with more than five ingredients), which meant cutting out some of his favorites like Oreos, bran flakes, oat milk, and protein shakes. and peanut butter.

His new diet consisted mainly of fish, chickpeas, dahl, eggs, vegetables and other whole grain foods (which generally contain only one or two ingredients).

He said the stress of scanning the back of every package in supermarkets, spending more on food and “feeling anxious” at social events in case he couldn’t find anything to eat led him to completely reconsider the experiment .

Mr Wren said: ‘I became increasingly anxious when eating away from home, at social events and, well, when buying food.

‘I became quite obsessive about checking the ingredients on the boxes and that’s obviously not really healthy.

“It’s great to eat well and be healthy, but if every social interaction becomes a little scary because I don’t know what someone is going to serve me, then that’s not a good thing.”

His advice after the experiment is to continue eating UPFs, but in moderation.

He added, “If you’re surviving on Diet Coke and Doritos alone, please switch.

‘But no ultra-processed food, ultimately that is an extreme diet that I don’t think is healthy in today’s society.’

Meanwhile, Jon Kuhn – a 38-year-old father of two from Indiana – found UPFs left him just as angry as he was when he quit smoking for the first few weeks.

He attributes this to his sugar addiction.

Before the experiment, Mr Kuhn told DailyMail.com that he was quite unhealthy.

A typical breakfast consisted of sugary cereals, such as Reese’s Puffs, and he ordered fast food several times a week.

However, he decided to stop this, hoping to lose weight and increase his energy levels – while providing a role model for his children.

According to researchers at the University of Michigan, a high-sugar diet can be addictive because the body can become more tolerant over time, causing a person to overeat to get the same “sugar rush.”

Several experts have suggested that sugar withdrawal can cause symptoms such as irritability, anxiety and mood swings.

In the first weeks of the experiment, he said it was “difficult” and that he was constantly irritated and uncomfortable, bothered by any sound or smell.

“It’s toward the end of the first day and I’m getting ready to cook dinner, and I’m so angry,” he said.

“But Alexis (my wife), bless her, she pointed out that you’re probably just detoxing from sugar, and I thought it had only been a few hours, but uh… yeah. I’m so angry.’

But by the end, he discovered that the experiment had alleviated his IBS, and he now included many more whole foods in his diet.

He told DailyMail.com: ‘For a long time I thought it was just my genetic makeup that led to me getting irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) all the time.

‘I ate a lot of fast food, a lot of junk. I even tricked Ranch into thinking it was healthy because it was a “dairy product.”

“But cleaning up my diet has really improved my health in many ways, although there is still room for some ultra-processed foods.”

UPFs can cause IBS by disrupting the microbial community in the intestines, leading to inflammation that causes the disease. He said he had returned to eating vegan alternative UPFs, such as vegan meat.

During the 30-day period, Mr. Wren made the mistake several times, especially on weekends, saying it was impossible to avoid UPFs and have a social life.

His first deviation was a few days into the experiment, when he was asked if he wanted chili sauce with his lunch and said yes, before realizing it was a processed food.

There was also an impact on weekends. The first time, he went on an 18-bar pub crawl with friends, where he stopped asking for ingredient lists at venues because he was “having fun.”

On the second day, he attended a car show with his brother, where the only food available was hamburgers and sausages.

And on the third, he went to watch a race with his girlfriend, who then suggested they get ice cream.

He said at the time: ‘I don’t want to live in a world where I literally can’t eat ice cream.

“If you literally have a social life of any kind, it’s almost impossible to avoid ultra-processed foods.”

During the experiment, he said his energy levels and mood felt much more stable and consistent throughout the day.

But he was grateful to be able to eat some UPFs again, saying they “made life easier in a city like London.”

“It meant I could just pick up food from wherever I was without having to painstakingly check the ingredients,” he told DailyMail.com. “And it just made life more relaxing when I started eating them again.”

‘Ironically, the zero-processed food diet didn’t really lead to any long-term changes in my diet. It reinforced for me how important it was to be able to eat whole foods and UPFs.

“But when I tried to live on UPFs, it felt different. Admittedly, I went straight into a McDonalds and smashed a tube of Pringles – and I felt terrible after eating like that for three or four days.”

Some claim that eating UPFs improves mood, but Mr Wren said he noticed no changes in that regard.