The Cost of Convenience

From airport sugar aisles to artificial empathy, here’s a stark reminder that protecting our health still requires human judgement, real connection and conscious choices.

Known for their annual Environmental Working Group “Clean Fifteen” and “Dirty Dozen” food guides, the group have now released a new guide highlighting food chemicals to avoid.

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Some of those to avoid…

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A fair few of them appeared to be contained in this sugar-filled display that greeted us recently at Carcassonne Airport. A food desert if ever there was one. Processed convenience dressed up as choice: brightly packaged, aggressively marketed and almost impossible to avoid in modern travel environments.

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More suspected AI-ery surfaced this week. One Substack account, boasting thousands of subscribers, appeared to belong to a “Dr Adrian Laurence” supposedly practising in New Zealand. Yet we could find no evidence of such a clinician existing in practice. So naturally, we asked “him”.

Silence thus far.

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Denise will be speaking tomorrow on AI and healthcare. We use AI ourselves, as do many medical practitioners. Used carefully, it can be helpful. But it is not capable of empathy. And ‘When words become biology’ the title of Denise’s talk, empathy matters enormously.

A machine can generate information. It cannot sit with suffering. It cannot intuit fear behind a brave face. It cannot truly understand the emotional landscape that accompanies illness, uncertainty or healing.

That human connection remains irreplaceable.

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You also can’t not invest in your health. One way or another, the bill eventually arrives.

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Denise has been investing wisely recently, taking care of herself in the beautiful English countryside. How glorious is this bluebell-edged scene? A reminder that some of the most powerful health interventions remain gloriously free: time in nature, stillness, movement and beauty.

The Spanish countryside offered more of the same. An early morning swim ticked multiple boxes in one go: sunlight, movement, stillness, gratitude, silence (apart from the birdsong) and time outdoors.

Simple things. Foundational things. The kind modern life constantly tries to distract us from.

Back home, much the same applies. And yes, you may have noticed there was a digital detox last week. A very necessary pause. We are now firmly back “on the horse” after a well-earned rest.

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One person who rarely seems to pause is Martin Lewis OBE. A genuine powerhouse when it comes to holding institutions to account, particularly in financial matters.

We have similar work to do in healthcare.

Here he is receiving a BAFTA in recognition of that public service work. Exactly the kind of accountability, scrutiny and fearless questioning that is so badly needed in the health domain too.

Because whether it is ultra-processed food, synthetic chemicals, algorithm-generated “experts” or institutional failures, discernment matters more than ever.