As the modern world shows us it’s not, in fact, necessary to be religious in order to be a Puritan. So they’re trying again, everyone in the country must live on raw turnip to appease the liberal and modern thinkers:

Britain faces a “tidal wave” of heart disease due to a dependence on ultra-processed food which is causing harm similar to smoking, research shows.

Two landmark studies have revealed that ultra-processed food significantly increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. Even “healthy” processed options, such as protein bars, breakfast cereals, low-fat yoghurts and supermarket sliced bread were linked to worse heart health.

Gosh, well, yes. We’re certainly willing to examine such claims. They go on:

More than half of the typical British daily diet is made up of ultra-processed food, more than any other country in Europe. The products, made using a series of industrial processes, include breakfast cereals, ready meals, frozen pizzas, sweets and biscuits.

So, if the British eat more of these UPFs and UPF causes these medical horrors then the British must suffer more from such medical horrors. Certainly, if the effect is large enough that we need to do anything - move back to the raw turnips say - then this would be readily apparent in the population health statistics.

Hmm. Deaths by heart attack we’re middling across Europe. Stroke incidence we appear to be low (with our internal ranking going Oxford, South London, Scotland, the last being the lowest. Which isn’t what we’d expect if it’s a diet high in UPFs as a cause).

Britain has the lowest rates of high blood pressure in Europe, with around one in eight women and one in five men with high blood pressure, compared to more than a third of men in several central and eastern European countries.

Oh.

Now we all do know that correlation is not causation. But if you ain’t even got correlation then you ain’t got nuttin’. Recall, the claim is UPF causes these diseases, the British eat more UPF therefore these diseases should be worse here. They’re not. Collapse of the theory then.

Oh well, luckily the major purveyor of this idea still has a back up career as a purveyor of fish finger sandwiches at his fast food chain. And the rest of us don’t have to subsist on raw turnips.