This is why plain old cooking from scratch feels like activism now. In my 20s I used to attend protests. Now, I cook dinner using real ingredients most nights if the week and try very hard to shape my children's palates towards actual food, and not food-like substances (I wrote this piece in the Guardian about that attempt: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2026/apr/20/ultra-processed-foods-diet-healthy-eating).
Awesome article! I am doing this as well--a little bit at a time since 2013-- but didn't learn about the actual "UPF infestation" of our food systems until I joined ZOE. Just switching from adding grocery store orange juice with a whole orange in my smoothie made a huge difference in mood change and weight loss! I'm a "stay-at-home granny", so I have time to learn to fix real foods as well. I always used to think that salads were boring. Well, when you order them at a restaurant, they most likely are. Mine are not bland anymore. 3 types of small cut dark leafy greens, 3-4 general veggies like peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, a grain like barley (or a slice of homemade wholegrain sourdough bread!), one or two legumes, nuts, seeds and some fruit make my salad a filling meal. Sometimes I add roasted veggies, or a ferment as well - like Sauerkraut or lacto-fermented jalopenoes. It's a process change to do this; a lifestyle and a need from deep inside you. It takes time, willpower and the quest to be different. I feel like an "activist of the foodie kind" myself. I just get excited when my kefir comes out really solid or my prune coffee looks too cool when the milk foam combines with the chia seeds and settles on the prunes. :) I'm proud to be weird.
Chekhovian writing and sense the sardonic smile. I especially adore- "a world where a brick of silly putty in a gold wrapper...." this kind of commentary and observation on food is so exciting and energizing - love it!
General Mills paid $820M for the trust Annie's built by being the opposite of Kraft. Then they replaced butter with cornstarch and called it a 'delightful upgrade.' That's the whole pattern. Buy the loyalty. Cheapen the promise. Book the margin improvement this quarter. Watch the trust erosion show up two years later as a velocity decline nobody can trace back to the reformulation because by then the people who made the decision are in a different meeting, at a different company, doing the same thing to a different brand
Love the title! This is exactly what I’m seeing in hiring, and most companies don’t realize it yet. The system didn’t just optimize for cheaper ingredients, it optimized for a certain type of operator in this environment.
Big Food spent years promoting margin managers and cost optimizers. Now they’re trying to pivot back to quality, trust, and “real food” and realizing they don’t have enough people who actually know how to build it or a brand from scratch.
That talent exists, but it’s sitting in smaller brands, supply chains, and founder-led companies. And now everyone is going after the same profiles at the same time.
As a nurse, diabetes educator and former restaurant chef I try as hard as I can to fight the effects of hyperpalatable foods on my family and my patients. There are so many reasons why this is difficult, not the least of which is the fact that they're addictive. Thanks so much for this article and I'm glad I found your Substack.
Now all I can think about is the plastic mouth feel of McDonald's fries. And that leads me to Plugra butter. It is 82% butter fat and one of the best butters for baking cookies and pastries and pie crusts, etc. Flaky mouth feel not plastic
This is an amazing piece of writing. Thank you for sharing.
It is mind-blowing to me that we live in world with such great access to information, and yet butter is 'bad' for you. People yell 'CHOLESTROL' at you for mentioning it whilst they guzzle down their hydrogenated oils by the bucket load. The enshitification of cereal, fat, sugar, and basically every other pantry staple is met by raptuous applause by the palettes the industries destroyed, whilst the propaganda machine ensures anyone who cries wolf is eaten by the brain-washed villagers.
Hopefully, our salvation lies in articles like yours.
Mike, I loved this! As a regenerative, Real Organic Project Certified grain grower, we go to great pains to raise healthy whole food right here in New Jersey less than 60 miles from the largest city in the country. We then actually have to go out of our way to choose our customers so the healthy grains we work so hard to grow don’t get sifted, processed, blended and / or shelf-stabilized to death.
Most bakers want “consistent product” and most consumers have been raised on white flour. So ingrained in our culture now are the resulting horrific bastardizations of real food, that the few whole grain bakeries across the country are considered “revolutionary.” While they ARE extraordinary, they are hardly revolutionary.
Perhaps DEVOLUTION is what we really need most in our food system. Good, old-fashioned, honest whole foods!
It's hard to learn to discriminate between a cornstarched paste and a good buttery roux when people are trained from birth and habituated to eat "a brick of silly putty in a gold foil wrapper" and an "ultra-processed patty engineered to bleed." I've found most people can't really tell the difference.
In Jamaica Pepsi is made with cane sugar and real cola, it's my favorite. When I'm in the States and I do find one it tastes horrid. I also don't drink Coca-Cola here or anywhere, it also tastes horrid.
This is why plain old cooking from scratch feels like activism now. In my 20s I used to attend protests. Now, I cook dinner using real ingredients most nights if the week and try very hard to shape my children's palates towards actual food, and not food-like substances (I wrote this piece in the Guardian about that attempt: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2026/apr/20/ultra-processed-foods-diet-healthy-eating).
Awesome article! I am doing this as well--a little bit at a time since 2013-- but didn't learn about the actual "UPF infestation" of our food systems until I joined ZOE. Just switching from adding grocery store orange juice with a whole orange in my smoothie made a huge difference in mood change and weight loss! I'm a "stay-at-home granny", so I have time to learn to fix real foods as well. I always used to think that salads were boring. Well, when you order them at a restaurant, they most likely are. Mine are not bland anymore. 3 types of small cut dark leafy greens, 3-4 general veggies like peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, a grain like barley (or a slice of homemade wholegrain sourdough bread!), one or two legumes, nuts, seeds and some fruit make my salad a filling meal. Sometimes I add roasted veggies, or a ferment as well - like Sauerkraut or lacto-fermented jalopenoes. It's a process change to do this; a lifestyle and a need from deep inside you. It takes time, willpower and the quest to be different. I feel like an "activist of the foodie kind" myself. I just get excited when my kefir comes out really solid or my prune coffee looks too cool when the milk foam combines with the chia seeds and settles on the prunes. :) I'm proud to be weird.
Jen, this link doesn't work. I would love to read your piece, any chance you can post it some other way?
AND...it saves a lot of money!
Chekhovian writing and sense the sardonic smile. I especially adore- "a world where a brick of silly putty in a gold wrapper...." this kind of commentary and observation on food is so exciting and energizing - love it!
Spot on, and the reason I've spent my entire career in the natural foods industry trying to effect change.
May I complement you not just on the important message but on the beautiful writing which is a model of clarity in explanation!
thank you!
Fantastic piece, Mike!! Especially your point about bars - crazy that people would rather opt for a highly formulated product vs real foods
General Mills paid $820M for the trust Annie's built by being the opposite of Kraft. Then they replaced butter with cornstarch and called it a 'delightful upgrade.' That's the whole pattern. Buy the loyalty. Cheapen the promise. Book the margin improvement this quarter. Watch the trust erosion show up two years later as a velocity decline nobody can trace back to the reformulation because by then the people who made the decision are in a different meeting, at a different company, doing the same thing to a different brand
Love the title! This is exactly what I’m seeing in hiring, and most companies don’t realize it yet. The system didn’t just optimize for cheaper ingredients, it optimized for a certain type of operator in this environment.
Big Food spent years promoting margin managers and cost optimizers. Now they’re trying to pivot back to quality, trust, and “real food” and realizing they don’t have enough people who actually know how to build it or a brand from scratch.
That talent exists, but it’s sitting in smaller brands, supply chains, and founder-led companies. And now everyone is going after the same profiles at the same time.
Brilliant comment!! I had the misfortune to work under such a person. It was soul crushing.
Loved this essay. Featured it on Breadtopia: https://breadtopia.com/bake-real-bread/
As a nurse, diabetes educator and former restaurant chef I try as hard as I can to fight the effects of hyperpalatable foods on my family and my patients. There are so many reasons why this is difficult, not the least of which is the fact that they're addictive. Thanks so much for this article and I'm glad I found your Substack.
Now all I can think about is the plastic mouth feel of McDonald's fries. And that leads me to Plugra butter. It is 82% butter fat and one of the best butters for baking cookies and pastries and pie crusts, etc. Flaky mouth feel not plastic
This is an amazing piece of writing. Thank you for sharing.
It is mind-blowing to me that we live in world with such great access to information, and yet butter is 'bad' for you. People yell 'CHOLESTROL' at you for mentioning it whilst they guzzle down their hydrogenated oils by the bucket load. The enshitification of cereal, fat, sugar, and basically every other pantry staple is met by raptuous applause by the palettes the industries destroyed, whilst the propaganda machine ensures anyone who cries wolf is eaten by the brain-washed villagers.
Hopefully, our salvation lies in articles like yours.
Mike, I loved this! As a regenerative, Real Organic Project Certified grain grower, we go to great pains to raise healthy whole food right here in New Jersey less than 60 miles from the largest city in the country. We then actually have to go out of our way to choose our customers so the healthy grains we work so hard to grow don’t get sifted, processed, blended and / or shelf-stabilized to death.
Most bakers want “consistent product” and most consumers have been raised on white flour. So ingrained in our culture now are the resulting horrific bastardizations of real food, that the few whole grain bakeries across the country are considered “revolutionary.” While they ARE extraordinary, they are hardly revolutionary.
Perhaps DEVOLUTION is what we really need most in our food system. Good, old-fashioned, honest whole foods!
It's hard to learn to discriminate between a cornstarched paste and a good buttery roux when people are trained from birth and habituated to eat "a brick of silly putty in a gold foil wrapper" and an "ultra-processed patty engineered to bleed." I've found most people can't really tell the difference.
Thanks for an informative article! Also, the title is perfect.
What’s wrong with corn starch?
In Jamaica Pepsi is made with cane sugar and real cola, it's my favorite. When I'm in the States and I do find one it tastes horrid. I also don't drink Coca-Cola here or anywhere, it also tastes horrid.