Hats off to the BBC for two excellent programmes on food last night, which compliment the Government's food strategy 2030 that was published this week. Jimmy Doherty's investigation into farming in Brazil tackled the issues of how you use science to help increase food production in a way that's sustainable and good for consumers, farmers and the environment. The sight of fleets of combine harvesters across endless prairies harvesting soybeans, followed immediately by a phalanx of seed drillers planting the next crop may not be everyone's idea of farming, but feeding a growing population will take innovation, and Doherty was able to move beyond the tired old argument that intensive farming is always bad. I will certainly be watching the next three episodes.
I also enjoyed Susan Jebb's trawl through the BBC archives to look at how our relationship with food has changed. The changing fashions, hairstyles and accents were as striking as our changing diets – a particular favourite was the two rather louche marketing men in 70's shirts and ties devising a processed egg and bacon meal in the shape of an egg – I must have missed that one when it hit the market! The arrogance with which they talked about housewives was almost as breathtaking as the amount they used to smoke back then. It was left to Professor Andre McLean, one of my former toxicology tutors, to sound a note of caution when he said that changes in dietary habits, particularly in consumption of saturated fats and sugars, were being introduced with no thought given to how this might impact on health. We are, of course, now seeing the results with the growing levels of obesity in the UK.
Does anyone want to take a guess at what food fashions or new food challenges might be in 2030?