Archive link to bypass paywall and avoid giving The Economist your clicks: https://archive.ph/Xy9E7

I like how whenever you see that an article comes from The Economist, you can be sure there will be some reactionary brainworms. I have yet to read an article from them that doesn’t have some. And this one is no different:

too often Mr van Tulleken’s case for clean food is accompanied by anti-capitalist preening: for instance, he nonsensically calls corporate-tax minimisation “part of ultra-processing”.

I just love the phrase “anti-capitalist preening”. According to The Economist, looking at the structural reasons why we have so much extremely processed food is “preening”, a word with heavy connotations of vanity and shallowness. The Economist may as well have used “virtue signaling”. That’s the vibe they’re trying to get across to their audience, but of course, that phrase has been ruined by the far right, so they have to use “preening” instead.

And, hilariously, the last sentence in this article is

There is nothing wrong with the odd fast-food trip, but anyone who can afford to eat less [ultra processed food] probably should.

So whichever faceless contributor to The Economist wrote this garbage admits here that highly processed food is indeed an economic problem! Many people simply can’t afford not to eat it! So perhaps van Tulleken is actually right to put some of the blame on structural issues (capitalism) after all.