I have been trying to eat fewer ultra-processed foods with my family for five years, and it has been challenging.Many experts agree that ultra-processed foods (UPF) pose health risks, whether because of unhealthy ingredients, links to disease and environmental impacts, or replacing more nutritious foods. Thus, some consumers – including me – are interested in removing them from their daily diet.Getting here took time, effort and consistency, but we have had some success. Here are some strategies we used in our family.1. Eat more plantsPlant foods are some of the easiest, most plentiful substitutes for UPF. Most obvious are fruits and vegetables, but nuts, seeds, popcorn and roasted seaweed are other tasty, nutritious options.When it comes to introducing fruits and vegetables, the 6 to 12-month age is crucial, says Kary Rappaport, pediatric occupational therapist and the executive director of Solid Starts, an organization that supports parents with feeding their children: “It is an exceedingly important window of time, when most babies are most developmentally open to a wide variety of foods and flavors.”Introducing new foods to older children is similar: use small tastes, different preparations and a child’s natural curiosity, she says. Focus on describing the food, rather than whether the child likes it – for example, encourage them to lick or take a bite and notice qualities like sweetness or temperature. “It’s not a value judgment on the food,” she says.Additionally, timing matters. “We are all more motivated to try and like things when we’re a little bit hungry,” says Rappaport. Try “putting out a tray of raw veggies with hummus while you’re cooking dinner, during that window where kids are looking to snack”, she suggests. On the other hand, don’t try to force a hangry child to try new veggies.“Even when you don’t have great options that are fully non-UPF, incorporate vegetables and fruits and raw products as much as possible,” says Julia Wolfson, an associate professor in public health at Johns Hopkins University.2. Buy the best ingredients you can affordAt our local farmers’ market, there is a stall selling fantastic apples. When in season, they are consistently crisp, sweet and apple-y. This is true for much of the food at the market.“Whatever they have in your farmers’ market is what is seasonal, and what is seasonal is going to be better,” says chef Penny Stankiewicz. “If you go to a standard American grocery store and you buy a perfectly round, somewhat red tomato, it’s going to have absolutely no flavor in January. But in August, when it’s prime tomato season, you don’t have to even do anything to that tomato to make it amazing.”Produce is typically more expensive at a farmer’s market, and not everyone has access to one. But the flavor payoff can be huge. Otherwise, try the produce at different grocery stores; additionally, frozen and canned produce is usually preserved at its peak. After you source your produce, learn the best ways to store it so it lasts as long as possible.3. Openly discuss food, its effects and its originsPart of my motivation to minimize UPF was not wanting to support powerful corporations that exploited workers, mistreated animals and harmed ecosystems. The more I learned about food systems, the less I wanted to participate in them as a consumer.Teaching children where food comes from and how to prepare it builds appreciation and understanding. Rappaport also suggests discussing how foods make their bodies feel: for instance, “if I eat too many gummy worms or I only eat a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos on our car trip, I’m going to feel bad. It’s not gonna sit well in my belly.”Familiarize yourself and your family with the definition of UPF, so that you can identify one by looking at an ingredient list, says Wolfson.4. Learn to cookI already knew how to cook, but I studied the science of cooking as we embarked on this project. Now, my from-scratch meals taste better than before, sometimes more so than UPF alternatives.Often the barriers to cooking are systemic: insufficient time and energy to cook. People may also lack confidence in their kitchen skills. “We need to make it easier for people to cook healthy meals from scratch, and that means making those scratch ingredients more available and affordable, and building those skills from a young age so that people have the confidence and self-efficacy,” says Wolfson.Stankiewicz offers the following tips for newer home cooks: