25/01/2026
I should be winding down for bed, so naturally, I wrote a poem about Ultra Processed Foods...
An Ode to Ultra-Processed Everything
Once upon a trolley aisle,
we trusted food to just be food.
Bread was bread.
Soup was soup.
Dinner didnât need a mood.
Now it whispers 'science fiction'
from the back of every pack:
emulsifiers, flavourings,
E-numbers stacked on stack.
MSG and corn syrup,
fructose dressed as friend,
ingredients you canât pronounce
and wouldnât choose to bend
into your body, daily,
if honesty were kingâ
but here we are, decoding labels
like itâs a second language,
where do we begin?
The food industry smiles softly,
talks of value, taste, delight,
while engineers design the bliss point
to keep us hooked by night.
Mouthfeel tuned to perfection,
salt, fat, sugarâjust enough,
not to nourish or sustain us,
but to make âone moreâ feel tough.
They donât want you fed and steady,
calm, connected, free.
They want cravings, clicks, and chaos,
not a well-regulated you and me.
So we squint at tiny writing,
every shop, every week,
checking for the sneaky changes
in a ânew and improvedâ tweak.
Same front, brighter colours,
same lies, fresh disguiseâ
because addiction sells far better
than health that quietly thrives.
And tell me this, in all sincerity,
with satellites in space above:
Why is pure, real, honest food
treated like a relic from the past?
Why must apples dodge pesticides,
why must carrots come with fear,
why is âcleanâ a marketing term
instead of standard, baseline, clear?
Maybe the real revolution
is simple, slow, and smallâ
reading labels, cooking plainly,
refusing to be fooled at all.
Choosing food that knows its name.
Choosing less, but choosing real.
Because bodies deserve truth,
not a chemically engineered feel.
And maybe, just maybe,
the most radical thing we do
is feed ourselves with care and clarity
in a system that profits when we donât.
