Does Anyone Know What They Are Eating?

They took something out of your food. Then they slipped something else in. Nobody was asked. Nobody voted. And almost nothing on the packet will tell you it happened. This is not a diet book, and it is not a book about willpower or shame. It is an audit - a shopper's audit - of the modern food supply, conducted aisle by aisle with the label in one hand and the evidence in the other. More than half of every calorie a British adult eats now comes from ultra-processed food.
Nearer two-thirds for a teenager. Hardly anyone chose that. It simply became what was on the shelf. So this book walks the whole shop: .The orange juice that spent the best part of a year in a de-oxygenated tank, having its flavour added back from a packet..The "fresh" fish that was frozen, thawed and glazed - and the law that still lets the counter call it fresh..The children's sleep gummy that contained none of the labelled ingredient, and another that contained three and a half times it..The honey that came in through Britain and was flagged as suspect in the EU's own testing: ten samples out of.The honey that came in through Britain and was flagged as suspect in the EU's own testing: ten samples out of ten..The "lamb" doner that DNA testing put below ten per cent sheep - and why the crime was the label, not the meat..The loaf that needs four ingredients and arrives with a dozen, and the enzymes inside it that European law has been promising to list since 2008.
Then it follows the food out of the shop entirely - into the nursery, the school canteen, the hospital tray and the care home, where the person eating has the least power in the room to refuse. Along the way it finds something stranger than a conspiracy. Four companies you have never heard of who between them decide much of what the planet tastes. A levy that reformulated an entire industry overnight without anyone buying less.
An advertising ban that came into force in January 2026 and quietly exempted the meal deal. A chemical that has been illegal in Belfast and perfectly legal in Liverpool since July 2026 - same United Kingdom, same supermarket shelf. There are no villains here. Only incentives, and a system built to be difficult to see. Almost everything in this book is entirely legal, documented and on the public record, which is precisely the problem. But there is a bill.
And it lands hardest on the people least able to refuse it. So: does anyone know what they are eating? Most of us, right now, honestly - no. The system was built so that we wouldn't. This book is the evidence, and the answer. Fifty-seven chapters, with a glossary and twenty-two thousand words of notes. Every claim traced to a named study, regulator, court or investigation, so you can check the lot.
British rules throughout, with the four nations kept straight - because most of what governs your shopping is devolved, and almost nobody says so. By the author of BIG SANDWICH.