For the past five years, I have been trying to cut down on the amount of ultra-processed foods my family consumes. There have been various strategies we used to manage this. One question comes up time and again: how much does this all cost? UPFs are often regarded as cheaper than preparing a from-scratch meal, and they’re a lot less time-consuming. Convenience is one of their selling points, after all.

A nutritionist and public health researcher at Deakin Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Dr Priscila Machado, describes UPFs as “branded, commercial formulations made from cheap ingredients extracted or derived from whole foods, combined with additives, and mostly containing little to no whole food”. She says looking at ingredient lists is a practical way to spot them: “If there are ingredients you don’t recognise or use at home, like protein isolates, emulsifiers, colour, flavours, and other additives, it’s probably ultra-processed.”

Consuming these sorts of ingredients occasionally or in small quantities isn’t a problem. Additionally, there is no strong evidence supporting ranking the healthfulness of different types of UPF. Machado says the bigger concern is the role of UPFs in overall dietary patterns. “The evidence shows that the proportion of UPFs in our diets is what matters most; in Australia, UK and US almost half or more of the total energy consumption comes from UPFs. The issue is that UPFs can gradually crowd out foods and meals made from scratch ingredients, often without people really noticing that shift.”

Machado stresses that individuals aren’t to blame for high levels of UPF consumption, instead it is a reflection of the food system, which is “dominated by powerful UPF corporations that use those cheap ingredients and intensive marketing to make these products highly available, convenient and profitable”, she says.

“We need to be careful not to put the responsibility back on individuals by telling people they should cook everything from scratch. People are making food choices within environments where UPFs are often cheaper, quicker and easier, particularly for families with limited time or money.”

With that in mind, I set out to find out exactly how much time and money it costs to make non-UPF versions of five common UPF foods: chicken nuggets, muesli bars, almond milk, potato chips and Mint Slices. This experiment was not to say, “Look how easy it is to make these foods from scratch” but to ask, “Well, how much does it cost to make these from scratch?”

I used proportional cost allocation when calculating the price of homemade food items, so if I used 25% of a $10 bottle of oil, I costed this at $2.50.

Chicken nuggets

I once made chicken nuggets from chicken mince. I followed a reputable recipe but no one in my family liked them. I have since had much better success making “nuggets” out of chicken thighs. To make them, I cut the thighs into nugget-sized pieces, then dip them in a mixture of egg, mayonnaise, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. They are then coated in bread crumbs (that have been sprayed with oil and baked briefly so they are golden brown), next I place the nuggets on a wire rack on a baking tray, spray them with oil, and bake until they are golden brown.

For this attempt to find out the cost of a non-UPF nugget, I used store-bought bread crumbs containing only flour, yeast and salt, and made my own mayonnaise, because I couldn’t find store-bought mayonnaise without emulsifiers.

In terms of time, the homemade mayo took about 20 minutes to make – I used a whisk and a bowl; it would have been quicker if I had used some kind of machine.

Our kitchen set-up is temporary at the moment as we’re in the process of moving, so cooking takes longer than usual. In my previous home, without making the mayonnaise, this recipe typically took about 45 to 50 minutes.

The non-UPF nuggets cost about double the UPF ones and are definitely more time-consuming but this is one UPF food I’m happy to make myself – it tastes significantly better. My eight-year-old’s verdict was two thumbs up and “this is better than restaurant nuggets”.

Homemade cost: $21.74 for 800g ($2.72 per 100g)
Packet cost: $5.50 for one 400g bag of frozen Ingham’s crumbed chicken breast nuggets ($1.38 per 100g)

Homemade cook time: 1 1/2 hours
Packet cook time: 18 minutes

Muesli bars

Muesli bars are one of the easiest snacks for kids and I often think of them as one of those tricky foods that don’t seem unhealthy. But a glance at the ingredient list of the ones I’d been buying (Uncle Tobys chewy choc chip) reveals they are most definitely an ultra-processed food, as are other bars in the same aisle.

The muesli bar recipe I followed involved melting butter and honey, adding vanilla extract, then mixing it through the rolled oats. Next I pressed the mixture firmly into a slice tray lined with baking paper and baked. When done, the bars were chilled completely in the fridge before slicing. They tasted good but definitely fell apart more than store-bought muesli bars. That may have been user error.

They are significantly cheaper than the ones I buy from the supermarket and weren’t particularly onerous to make – 10 minutes of prep, 20 minutes to bake, then chill time.

My kids liked them fine but prefer the ones with chocolate chips. I’ve made them before with chocolate chips but for the purposes of this article I left the chips out, because I couldn’t find any without emulsifiers. I would make these again but next time I’d add the chocolate chips.

Homemade cost: $3.25 for 14 muesli bars ($0.23 per unit)
Packet cost: $5.50 for a box of six Uncle Toby’s chewy choc chip muesli bars at Woolworths ($0.92 per unit)

Homemade cook time: 30 minutes, plus at least one hour chill time.
Packet cook time: Instant

Almond milk

Non-dairy milk is a growing market, driven by dietary restrictions, environmental concerns and innovation in the non-dairy milk industry. Almond milk is a common non-bovine milk and one that I have bought in the past. The ingredient lists of four widely available brands of almond milk I looked at included various gums, stabilisers and emulsifiers, and almonds made up just 2.5% to 7% of the ingredients.

I tried to make my own almond milk with just raw almonds and water. I soaked one cup of almonds overnight, then drained and rinsed them. I added them to a blender with two cups of water and blended on high for two minutes. I poured it out into a nut milk bag over a fine mesh strainer (cheesecloth will also work if you don’t have a nut milk bag), and squeezed. I had successfully milked almonds!

I used one cup of raw almonds which yielded about two cups (500ml) of milk. My non-UPF version cost about double store-bought varieties and took longer than simply unscrewing a cap. While the active cooking time was only a few minutes, there was also soaking time and clean-up.

I don’t really love store-bought almond milk, so I was surprised when the almond milk I made tasted creamy and full, with a lovely depth of flavour. It turns out I do like almond milk – when it’s made with more almonds.

Homemade cost: $2.90 for 500ml ($5.80 per litre)
Packet cost: Between $1.85 and $3.40 per litre

Homemade cook time: At least two hours of soaking, five minutes of active prep, plus clean-up
Packet cook time: Instant

Potato chips

It is possible to buy crisps that are not ultra-processed, when the ingredient list simply reads “potatoes, oil, salt”. But if you want a flavour other than plain salt, such as barbecue or salt and vinegar, you run into ingredients that are markers of UPF including colourings and flavourings. I wanted to see if it was possible to recreate those chip flavours at home.

I thinly sliced two potatoes, soaked them in water to remove the starch, then patted them dry and placed them on a baking tray in a single layer. I sprayed them with oil and sprinkled on some seasoning mixture before baking. I tried to make a barbecue flavour using smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, brown sugar, and salt. For salt and vinegar chips, I used vinegar powder and salt.

Financially, the non-UPF version cost a fraction of packet chips. But they took about three hours to make. This was because I used a small oven that could only hold two trays at a time, and when two potatoes have been sliced thinly and need to be baked in one layer, that is a lot of trays. It might also have been quicker to use an air fryer.

The seasonings I made tasted great and I liked them more than store-bought barbecue flavoured chips. They were surprisingly crunchy, and actually tasted, looked and felt like potato chips. My husband and children also said they were better than chips from the shop. They were best eaten straight out of the oven – by the next day, the chips had lost their crunch. Though if I had stored them in a proper, airtight container that may have helped.

Given how long it took to bake these, I think I will keep buying packet potato chips.

Homemade cost: $5.70 for 670g ($0.85 per 100g)
Packet cost: $6 for a 165g bag of Red Rock Deli sea salt and balsamic vinegar chips ($3.64 per 100g)

Homemade cook time: Three hours
Packet cook time: Instant

Mint slices

I first made mint slices while living in the US. I wanted to eat a Mint Slice but couldn’t buy them. I found a recipe for a homemade version and followed it with great success. The challenge for this article was finding a chocolate for the coating that was not a UPF – almost all commercial chocolate has some kind of emulsifier. After much searching, I discovered that Lindt 70% dark chocolate has no emulsifiers (ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla). Mint Slices were a go.

I made 19 biscuits and each was about 1.5 times the size of a Mint Slice made by Arnott’s..

We did a side-by-side taste test with homemade and packaged biscuits. The kids, my husband and I agreed: mine were more chocolatey and less minty than store-bought. Mine were also more melty. We also thought my Australian version tasted different to those I’d made before. In the US, I’d used peppermint oil (as opposed to essence), and 60% dark baking chocolate with emulsifiers. Those were mintier, the chocolate flavour wasn’t as strong, and they were also less melty, so closer to the Mint Slices from a packet. This makes sense – using ultra-processed ingredients get you closer to the taste of ultra-processed food.

Homemade cost: $26.10 for 19 biscuits ($1.37 per unit)
Packet cost: $5.50 for 200g packet with 13 biscuits ($0.42 per unit)

Homemade cook time: Two hours
Packet cook time: Instant

The verdict

At the end of this process, I’ve learned it is cheaper to buy the ingredients for muesli bars and potato chips. Chicken nuggets, almond milk and mint slices all cost about twice the UPF price – but you do end up consuming more actual chicken, almonds and chocolate. It was no surprise that, in terms of time, it takes a lot longer to cook or bake from scratch than to open a packet.

There are some items that – for me – are worth making from scratch. My goal is UPF reduction, not elimination. Machado says: “At an individual level, it also doesn’t have to be all or nothing. People don’t need to make their own bread or mayonnaise to improve their diet. The aim is to progressively shift the overall dietary pattern towards more minimally processed foods and meals prepared from scratch … in ways that are realistic for their time and budget.”

In the spirit of the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: make the nuggets, buy the chips.

• A detailed breakdown of the ingredient quantities and costs for this experiment can be found on Jen Sherman’s Substack