What we eat doesn’t just fill our plates — it shapes our health, our mood, and the kind of food system we help to grow.
Wholefoods, winter veg, proper bread, beans and pulses, simple ingredients you can actually recognise. Food that’s rooted in the soil, in our community, and in the choices we make every day.
When convenience replaces food
We live in a world built for speed. Grab-and-go meals. Shelf-stable snacks. Bright packaging promising “healthy”, “high protein”, or “low fat”. But behind much of this convenience sits something very different from food as our grandparents would have known it: ultra-processed foods.
These aren’t simply foods that have been chopped, cooked or preserved. They’re products that have been fundamentally altered from their original state — engineered in factories using ingredients you wouldn’t find in your kitchen. Designed to look like food. Made to last. Built to be cheap. And carefully tuned to keep us coming back for more.
They’re often high in sugar, salt and industrial fats, stripped of natural goodness, then “fortified” to sound nutritious again. Not food rooted in the land — but products assembled for profit.
Simple ways to eat more real food
You don’t have to overhaul everything overnight. A stitch in time and all that. Here are a few small, steady ways to move towards food that loves you back:
1. Read the ingredient list
If it reads like a chemistry experiment, it probably is. Real food tends to have short, familiar ingredient lists.
2. Cook little and often
You don’t need complicated recipes. A pot of lentils. Roasted root veg. Proper bread and soup. Simple meals, made from scratch, go a long way.
3. Choose whole foods first
Fresh vegetables, wholegrains, beans, nuts, seeds. Food that looks like it came from the earth — because it did.
4. Be wary of “healthy” labels
Some products are ultra-processed even when they’re marketed as nutritious. If the goodness has been stripped out and added back in, something’s gone wrong along the way.
5. Make gradual swaps
One product at a time. Swap a ready meal for a jar of pulses and some seasonal veg. Replace a snack with fruit, nuts, or a slice of proper bread.
6. Plan gently
Having a few simple meals in mind makes it easier to resist the quick fixes that don’t really feed you.
None of this is about perfection. It’s about building habits that are kind to your body, your budget and the wider world.
Processed vs ultra-processed: what’s the difference?
Not all processing is bad. In fact, much of what we sell every day depends on simple, sensible processing.
Processed foods make whole foods easier to store or cook with.
Think: tinned tomatoes, dried beans, frozen peas, bread made from flour, water and yeast. These start as real food and stay close to it.
Ultra-processed foods, on the other hand, are something else entirely. They’re made from extracted substances, refined starches, added flavourings, emulsifiers and colourings — ingredients you wouldn’t recognise, let alone use at home. They’re shaped, flavoured and glued together to imitate food. “Edible food-like substances,” as some researchers put it.
And they’re designed very deliberately.
Ultra-processed foods are created to hit what food scientists call the “bliss point” — the precise combination of fat, sugar and salt that lights up the brain’s reward system while bypassing the body’s natural signals that say, “I’m full.”
They’re soft, easy to chew, quick to eat. Built to make us snack faster, eat more, and come back again. Research now shows they’re linked to overeating, disrupted appetite, and a growing list of long-term health risks.
In short: they don’t just feed us poorly. They change how we eat.
And when cheap, engineered food becomes the norm, it chips away at something bigger too — the true value of food, the people who grow it, and the traditions that once kept us nourished.
Choosing a different path
We’ve always believed there’s a better way.
Rooted in Goodness isn’t about fads, restrictions or “perfect” eating. It’s about reconnecting with food that’s simple, nourishing and real.
Food that starts with:
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Veg grown in season – abundance grows underground in winter.
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Grains, beans and pulses – affordable, filling, and naturally rich in fibre and protein.
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Proper bread – made the old-fashioned way.
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Ferments and wholefoods – that support gut health without gimmicks.
It’s the food you’ll find in our refill jars, our bakery, our produce crates. Ingredients you can name. Meals you can build from the ground up.
Because every good meal really does start with roots — in the soil, in our community, and in the choices we make.
there’s a better way to eat