Focusing on ultra processed foods specifically calls out the obvious problem - we were significantly healthier before these foods were invented, and are less healthy after.
But what confounding variables have also increased during this time? Do we have endocrine disruptors in our drinking water or food packaging or in the foods themselves, from microplastics or whatever? Have we been fertilizing our fields with industrial waste containing toxic "forever chemicals"? Have we become more sedentary at home and at work? I mean, probably yes to all of these.
I do believe that nutrition is more than simple linear addition of the components in a food. But insights can still be derived from analyzing non-linear combinations (like studying the role of fiber or water or even air in foods for the perception of satiety or the speed that subject ingest food), or looking towards specific interactions between certain subsets of the population with specific nutrients. We can still derive information from the ingredients, even if we move past the idea that each ingredient acts on the body completely independently from the other ingredients in that food.
And look, I'm a skeptic of the NOVA system, but actually do appreciate its contribution in increasing awareness of those non-linear combinations. But I see it as, at most, a bridge to better science, not good science in itself.
I attribute most of my success to luck, but also in finding a career path in my 30's that actually rewarded my neurodivergence. I took 6 years to finish undergrad, after changing majors a few times. I started and aborted 3 different career fields before finding the one that works for me and actually gives me an opportunity to use different knowledge and interests across completely unrelated fields. Now that I'm a lawyer in civil litigation, I only need to have knowledge and experience in court procedure, but most of my work is spent on research techniques and translating the real world messiness of whatever random thing has gone wrong into proper analogies for legal arguments. My tendency towards new rabbit holes to explore actually works at learning a new industry or new company just enough to be able to represent someone in it, and then getting out and starting over to do another thing in another case.
To extend your analogy, it's like I'm in thick brush where running fast on a flat surface isn't the most useful skill. If I were forced to fend for myself in an open field, I'd be fucked, but I thrive where I am because I'm good at the things that matter in this particular environment.