Me too,
@jpscloud - I used to use the packeted Maggie flavourings, and felt very sad post diagnosis that I had to learn to season food myself (horrors!) due to the, as you say, ghastly ingredients list! And what long lists indeed!
I have made peace with the new cooking-heaps me. And have come to love my well functioning kitchen. (And how efficiently I can get other kitchens I am living and working in to function well for me.) I use lots of herbs and spices, and enjoy the flavours. But yeah - to come to cooking savoury food so late in life I need lots of help with cook books and online recipes, and herbs and spice consult charts.
How I deal with the high cost of food, is ' just' see it as my priority expense for as good health as I can get. In terms of buying the food that posters above refer to with sadness that there aren't enough governmental levels protections on its costs, protecting the producers and suppliers and certainly not the consumers - meat, poultry, fish and seafood, vegetables (and fruit). Dairy, and cooking oils like olive oil. Real food, in other words. (Flours for baking too of course. Almond flour for LCHF baking is not cheap. And I use konjac root products for substitute rice and pasta - my spiraliser remains in the drawer mostly I'm sorry to say!)
Yeah - the cost of food, and for what food, is a subject very close to our hearts if one has a disease where food - well - 'diet and exercise' - is literally stated as the number one treatment method.