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Image by Rita and Mit from Pixabay

Food used to be simple once. You grew it, cooked it, shared it. You could smell real spices, taste actual vegetables, and trust what was on your plate. Now, food looks perfect, shiny, symmetrical, colourful, but the more perfect it looks, the less real it is. Everything’s packaged, preserved, flavoured, and marketed. We live in a time where biscuits have vitamins, juices claim to “boost immunity,” and chips proudly say “made with real vegetables.” It all sounds healthy until you flip the packet and realise there’s more chemistry than nutrition inside. Somehow, in trying to make food last longer, look better, and sell faster, we ended up eating things that our bodies don’t even recognise as food anymore.

When health became marketing

The biggest irony is how “health” became the new sales trick. Companies don’t even try to hide anymore, they just twist the language. “sugar-free” but filled with artificial sweeteners that confuse your metabolism. “low-fat” but high in sodium and preservatives. “multigrain” but mostly refined flour. It’s marketing genius, really; they sell us guilt-free food that’s just guilt in disguise. Even the so-called “diet snacks” are designed to be addictive. There are research teams behind every product, figuring out what flavour combination keeps your brain craving more. And it works, because most of us don’t read labels, and even if we do, half the ingredients sound like a science experiment.

The convenience trap

Somewhere, between busy jobs, late nights, and modern life, we traded time for convenience. Who has the energy to cook when you can order a full meal in ten minutes? But convenience always comes with a hidden cost. Every fast-food burger, every instant noodle cup, every ready-to-eat packet comes loaded with preservatives, refined oil, and flavour enhancers. It’s not just about calories, it’s about chemicals. Our food system isn’t built for health anymore; it’s built for speed, profit, and shelf life. The result? People eat every day but are still nutrient-deficient, always full but never truly nourished.

The slow poison nobody talks about

The most dangerous part is how slow it all happens. No one gets sick overnight. You eat it, you move on, you think you’re fine. And for a while, you are. But then fatigue becomes normal. Bloating becomes routine. Acne, anxiety, and hormone issues sneak in quietly. Your gut starts acting up, your energy fades, and you blame everything except food because it’s “just food,” right? Except it’s not. Pesticides, microplastics, additives, food dyes, trans fats, all of them build up inside you, layer by layer, year after year. And when you finally realise it, your body’s already tired of fighting back.

The system is rigged.

It’s easy to say “eat healthy,” but that’s a privilege now. Junk food is cheap, fast, and everywhere. Healthy food is expensive, rare, and time-consuming. The system isn’t broken; it’s designed this way. Mass production means low cost, and low cost often means low quality. Big corporations don’t care about your gut health; they care about profit margins. So they sell you sugar under twenty different names: dextrose, maltose, corn syrup and you never even notice. They convince you that processed food is “modern,” that traditional cooking is outdated, and that fast equals efficient. And we believed it.

What happened to real food

Ask your grandparents what they ate, and you’ll see the difference. Millets instead of packaged cereal, homemade butter instead of processed cheese, and jaggery instead of refined sugar. Food used to heal. Now it harms. The taste of “fresh” is gone because freshness doesn’t fit in factory schedules. Even the fruits we eat are injected to look ripe, the vegetables are sprayed to look green, and the milk we drink often travels more than we do. We have access to everything except the truth. We don’t eat food anymore; we eat products pretending to be food.

The rise of fake wellness

To make it worse, the wellness industry took advantage of our guilt. Detox teas, protein powders, and “gut cleanses” all sell the illusion of health while hiding the same toxic base. People spend thousands trying to fix the problems that started with what’s on their plates. And nobody tells you that your 3-day detox means nothing if your next meal is still processed. Social media only made it worse, influencers showing perfect smoothie bowls and green juices, selling the idea that health is aesthetic. But health was never supposed to be pretty. It was supposed to be simple, slow, and real.

The damage we don’t see

The new diseases tell the story better than any label ever could. Teenagers with fatty liver. Young women with PCOS. People in their twenties with cholesterol, thyroid, and blood pressure issues. Old age problems are hitting too soon. And everyone is calling it “stress.” Yes, stress plays a role, but so does what’s on your plate. When you feed your body chemicals every day, it stops knowing how to heal. Even the brain isn’t spared; gut imbalance affects mood, memory, and focus. Food is supposed to give life, but the kind we eat now quietly takes it away, piece by piece.

The mental side nobody notices

We don’t talk enough about how toxic food affects the mind. Junk food doesn’t just make you gain weight; it changes how you feel. Processed sugar and fats trigger dopamine, the same reward chemical linked to addiction. That’s why you crave chips when you’re sad or reach for ice cream after stress. It’s emotional manipulation built into food design. Your body wants nutrition; your brain wants comfort. And the food industry knows how to control both.

Why this matters more than ever

Because we’re not just losing health, we’re losing connection. Food used to bring people together; now it’s just a transaction. We eat alone, scroll while chewing, and forget to taste. Meals that once meant warmth and love are now rushed and mechanical. And when the food itself is empty, the feeling around it becomes empty too. The toxicity isn’t just in what’s cooked, it’s in how disconnected we’ve become from what we eat.

Changing it (even a little)

It doesn’t have to be a total revolution. Small changes matter. Reading labels. Eating fewer things that come in plastic. Cooking even one meal at home each day. Supporting local farmers. Drinking water that isn’t flavoured or colored. Slowing down while eating. These aren’t just “health tips”, they’re quiet acts of resistance against a system that profits from your exhaustion. When you start choosing real food, you start taking power back.

What I know now

The truth is, our food reflects our time fast, shallow, and overprocessed. But we don’t have to keep it that way. Every time you choose something real, you remind your body what food is supposed to be. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being aware. Because the more you learn, the harder it becomes to ignore. Maybe that’s how real change starts, not with a diet plan, but with a little honesty on your plate. Food was meant to nourish life, not drain it. And maybe, if we start listening again to our bodies, to our farmers, to our kitchens, we can make it real again.

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