I’m stressing about ultra-processed foods, when the real worry is that many people can’t afford a healthy diet

‘People rely on ultra-processed foods for convenience, cost and comfort. Avoiding them takes time and cash.’ Photograph: Russ Witherington/Alamy

I am increasingly uneasy about this UPF business. If you have been worrying about bigger things – the Kakhovka dam, the demise of summer polar ice by 2030 – you may not know that UPFs are ultra-processed foods, engineered to be as hard to resist as the TikTok algorithm: nutritionally empty, stuffed with texture and flavour enhancers. “It’s not nourishment,” Dr Chris Van Tulleken, whose book, Ultra-Processed People, explores their pervasiveness and impact, told the Guardian Science Weekly podcast.

I am in thrall to Big Hoops: my obsession with reconstituted crispy potato is one of my main personality traits. But otherwise, I’m not especially chill about what I eat; I love food but it’s not simple. It is a long, dreary hangover, I suppose, from my early 20s when I would avidly read women’s health magazines while on the train to see a lovely psychiatrist who was treating me for bulimia, bringing along a neat food diary, proudly tracking how many healthy fruit and vegetables I had eaten.