In The Matrix, there's a moment where the choice is laid bare: the blue pill or the red pill.
Take the blue pill, and you wake up the next morning and carry on as before.
Take the red pill, and you see the world for what it really is — and there's no going back.
That's exactly how I now feel about what I've learned around nutrition and the food industry.
You can read this, nod along, and return to life as normal. Or you can take the other pill — and wake up to the uncomfortable reality that a multi-billion-dollar industry now dominates what we eat, driven not by health, but by efficiency, shelf life, repeat consumption, and profit.
Once you see that system clearly, it's hard to ignore the pattern: food that strips out complexity and fibre, replaces it with refined ingredients and additives, and quietly undermines metabolic and microbial health. The downstream consequences — inflammation, metabolic disease, gut dysfunction — are then managed with supplements and medicines that often treat symptoms rather than address root causes.
This isn't because people are malicious. It's because industries optimise for what they are designed to do.
When we handed over the kitchen
Before the Second World War, most families lived locally, worked locally, and ate locally. Meals were built from ingredients, not products. Food came from local shops, nearby farms, or the garden itself. It was seasonal by default. It didn't travel far, didn't last long, and didn't need a label explaining what it was.
Then the world changed. After the war, populations grew rapidly. Women quite rightly sought opportunities beyond the home. Households became cash rich and time poor. At the same moment, food began to industrialise. What began as a solution to real problems gradually evolved into a global, multi-billion-dollar food industry.
And somewhere along the way, without ever really noticing, we handed over the responsibility of feeding ourselves — and our children — to that industry.
Ingredients became formulations. Meals became products. Fibre declined. Diversity narrowed. Additives appeared. What once nourished an ecosystem inside us was slowly transformed into something optimised for cost, shelf life, and repeat consumption.
The system revealed
One person who resonated with me early on was Rambling Henry, an ex-farmer turned ultra-processed food critic. One of his observations cut through the noise:
"People say big food and big pharma are connected. It's not a conspiracy — it's a system. It starts with Bayer. They don't make crisps, but they own Monsanto — the company behind genetically modified seeds and weed killers used on corn, soy, and wheat. Those crops go into ultra-processed foods: snack bars, buns, breakfast cereals. Bayer makes money at the root of the food chain. And when that food harms your health, they make money again. From seed, to sickness, to solution — often under the same corporate umbrella. Less conspiracy. More clarity."
In the 1980s, major tobacco companies — experts in addiction and behavioural marketing — moved aggressively into food. Philip Morris bought General Foods, then Kraft Foods, becoming the largest food producer in North America. The same playbook that had hooked the world on cigarettes was now being applied to food: engineering products for craveability, repeat consumption, and margin.
The time bomb was set ticking.
My wake-up moment
When I was a child, there were seasonal foods. You didn't get strawberries or salad in November. When you walk into a supermarket today, the first aisle is a wall of brightly coloured fruit and vegetables — beans from Chile, peppers from Spain, blueberries from North America.
For food to travel that far and still look perfect, it has to be treated. Sprayed. Preserved. Protected.
We've become a strange species — spraying food with chemicals to stop things eating it, then eating it ourselves.
It wasn't until I was forced to stop and think — following my diagnosis with Stage 4 NHL — that I really paid attention. Otherwise, it's easy to continue to live inside the matrix, happily eating seed-oil-soaked fast food, trusting that someone else has thought it through.
What I do now
1. No processed food (aim for 80:20)
Achieving 100% is extremely difficult. Aim for 80:20 — fresh cooked foods to processed —
and allow yourself those meals out, the snack at a cinema. Even at 80:20 you will be
infinitely healthier, and your microbiome will be delivering all the vitamins and minerals
that you need.
2. 30 different types of foods per week
Prof Tim Spector of Zoe fame pushes this agenda to give a broad spectrum to your microbiome.
It sounds difficult but 30 includes nuts, seeds, and spices. How often did I think I was being
healthy having salmon with boiled potatoes and tenderstem broccoli with every meal?
Now that same meal is salmon with 6 different steamed veg and 4 roasted root vegetables —
same portion size, completely different diversity. There's 11 of 30 in a single meal.
Suddenly 30 becomes easy.
3. Get back in the kitchen
Start cooking again. Prioritise it in your day. It doesn't have to be all-consuming.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall just did a cookbook based on Tim Spector's 30-a-week
microbiome target — How to Eat 30 Plants a Week. A great place to start.
4. Fermented food
Our grandparents knew how — we forgot. Fermented food is widely available in supermarkets
now and organic options are excellent. Use it as an accompaniment to at least two meals a day.
Think: kefir, Greek yoghurt (not the flavoured rubbish), kombucha, sauerkraut, beetroot, pickles.
I make my own — any veg, diced, with 3% of its weight as salt. Mix, jar it, add water to cover
so nothing is exposed to air, and leave it. I did red pepper, chilli, and garlic for 10 days,
then blended it. Best sauce you've ever tasted.
5. Golden rules:
- If it's in a packet, read the ingredients. More than 5 ingredients — put it back on the shelf.
- Apps like Yuka let you scan barcodes and get a health score instantly.
- No seed oils — ever. These are industrial lubricants rebadged as food. The process to get them to the shelf makes them among the most damaging things you can eat. They are everywhere — read labels.
- Buy organic and wash everything. Put blueberries in a bowl with lukewarm water and a heaped teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Soak for 10 minutes, rinse. Check the water left behind. You will never not wash fruit again.
- Only ever cook with butter, coconut oil, or ghee. Use extra virgin olive oil for dressings only — not for cooking.
6. Permanent/forever chemicals
Throw away Teflon-coated pans and plastic chopping boards. Change to fluoride-free mineral
toothpaste. The list goes on, but food is the biggest lever — focus there first.
The choice that remains
None of this is about perfection. And it's certainly not about fear.
You are not just feeding yourself. You are feeding trillions of organisms that live with you, work for you, and quietly keep you alive. When you nourish them, they nourish you in return — regulating immunity, reducing inflammation, supporting metabolism, and protecting you in ways medicine can only attempt to replicate later.
The microbiome is not a supplement to health. It is health.
The food industry doesn't see that system. It can't. It sees margins, shelf life, and scale. So the responsibility sits with us — not to fight the system, but to see it clearly and decide how much of it we want to participate in.
You are what you eat — but more importantly, you are what you feed.