Kelly Parsons, University of Hertfordshire and David Barling, University of Hertfordshire
Reforming England’s food system could save the country £126 billion, according to a recent government-commissioned report. The National Food Strategy, led by British businessman Henry Dimbleby, proposes a raft of measures to shake up how food is produced and the kinds of diets most people eat.
The need for action is laid out in stark terms. Poor diets contribute to around 64,000 deaths every year in England, and the government spends £18 billion a year treating obesity-related conditions. How we grow food accounts for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions and is the leading cause of biodiversity destruction.
To meet these challenges, the report calls for “escaping the junk food cycle” to improve general health and reduce the strain on the NHS, reducing the gap in good diets between high- and low-income areas, using space more efficiently to grow food so that more land can return to nature, and creating a long-term shift in food culture.
The strategy is, in parts, highly ambitious, particularly in its framing of the challenge as a systemic issue, and in some of the more innovative measures it proposes.
These include the world’s first sugar and salt reformulation tax, aimed at forcing manufacturers to make the foods they sell healthier – by reformulating recipes to remove sugar and salt – and raising around £3 billion for the Treasury in the process. Companies would also have to report how healthy and sustainable their food sales are. Cannily, the strategy team persuaded some companies to come out in favour of the proposals, which suggests they’re serious about seeing their ideas implemented and attuned to the government’s nervousness around upsetting the food industry.
The Eatwell Guide, which shows what proportion of our diet should come from each food group, would be based not only on the healthiness of certain foods, but their environmental sustainability too. This reference diet would underpin government decisions, and help ensure food policies are consistent with what is good for people and the planet.
The strategy takes a commendably bold stance on the government’s approach to trade policy, making clear that not honouring a manifesto commitment to protect food standards could bankrupt Britain’s farming sector.
Missed opportunities
At the same time, the strategy is politically pragmatic, clearly crafted with an eye on what what is likely to be winnable within the current government. As such, some politically-contentious issues are sidestepped.
The strategy sets a goal of reducing meat consumption by 30% over ten years, but shies away from interventions to tackle this head on, with a meat tax discounted as “politically impossible”.
The report notably fails to address the poorly paid, precarious and often dangerous jobs of food workers, in agriculture and hospitality. The report details how the problems with food are systemic, but misses the chance to make the link between poor working conditions in the sector and food insecurity and health. The terrible irony of “critical workers” like farmers, fishers and catering staff that feed many of us is that they’re unable to afford to eat well themselves.
The scale of the challenge has led to calls for a new minister for hunger, a cabinet sub-committee on food, or an independent food body. The strategy opts instead for a Good Food Bill with statutory targets around diet-related health and reporting. It also favours expanding the remit of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to encompass health and sustainability and calls for improved monitoring and measurement of the food system and the policies linked to it.
If enacted, these proposals could benefit food policymaking, but they’d leave the difficult question of how different government departments can coordinate on the issue untouched. Expanding an existing body may be politically expedient, but does the non-ministerial FSA have the clout and capacity to drive reform in the many other departments with a hand in food policy?
An ambitious and innovate strategy in parts, and wise for its political astuteness. Whether it has achieved the right balance will become clearer in the next phase, when the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs delivers its response. The recommendations will need to survive the political jungle and overcome obstacles both bureaucratic and ideological.
Should they make it through in one piece, these policies could tackle some of the biggest challenges related to food. But more importantly, the strategy could disrupt the politics and ideas about what people should want from their food system, and give licence to additional policy interventions in trade, meat and jobs.
Kelly Parsons, Food Systems Policy & Governance Research Fellow, University of Hertfordshire and David Barling, Professor of Food Policy and Security, Director of the Centre for Agriculture, Food and Environmental Management, University of Hertfordshire
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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My guess is that vegans will attempt to declare that only their preferences are sustainable and healthy. Any attempt to dictate food policy will be overwhelmingly political.
Plant live matters !
Bacterial lives matter!
All of the proposals, if enacted, will be a continuation of racist white majority government.
Therefore we should just condemn & then ignore all proposals like the ones in the post.
Ugly racism, in all of it’s forms, should be condemned.
Don’t be a racist, eat what you want.
I love vegans.
Sheep and cows are vegans, so that I don’t have to be!
I love vegans too but I couldn’t manage a whole one.
God no – not at one sitting but that’s what the freezer is there for!
Personally, I find them tasteless and bland.
That’s due to lack of salt in the diet.
Hmmm … that too, eh? I was thinking in a different context 🙂
Salt, pepper, and smoke, all’s good.
Great
A new Minister for Hunger and yet another bloated government department stuffed with overpaid, corrupt officials.
We condemn ‘developing’ nations (no idea why we call them that as most of them haven’t developed much for the last 50 years despite all the cash the west throws at them) for having corrupt government officials hoovering up most of the cash before it reaches where it should reach, but I’m certain the west is no better.
Before the current Government’s austerity programme we didn’t need food banks as there wasn’t hunger in the UK.
The UK wasn’t a third world country before the current Government’s failed economic policies sent us backwards in absolute terms as well as relatively.
The problem is far more complex than M Courtney is claiming. It has nothing to do with “austerity” and if you need evidence of that just look at the relationship between obesity and income. Obesity is a much bigger problem in poorer areas.
This is a classic example of the politicisation of science. Never mind the facts just make an absurd claim and hope some of it will stick.
The same thing happens here in Africa – the poor eat badly (mainly starches) and as a result, tend to obesity. You only have to look at a picture of South African police officers to see the result!
In the U.S. it used to be that only certain decently healthy foods were available to be purchased with food stamps. That time is long past.
Twaddle – there’s always been hunger in the UK, and there have always been charities who have done their best to deal with the problem. Food banks have become a thing for the media and lefty-chatterati to harp on about as it gives them a chance to have a go at Conservative governments. Food banks (or their equivalents) have always been available in the UK for the severely impoverished. It’s not some new thing that came about because of a Conservative government.
The reason austerity measures had to be put in place was because the Conservatives inherited a bankrupt country from the previous Labour administration who had spaffed it all up the wall on loony socialist schemes. Socialism is just fine, until you run out of money.
And here are the facts. See link – hunger is a Conservative Party failure.
• UK foodbank users 2021 | Statista
It’s austerity that caused the problem. There are always Global Crises that cause poverty. It was a political decision to cut Government and so delay the recovery. As well of hitting the poorest worst.
The funny thing is that this failure is even a failure on Conservative terms. The UK had the slowest recovery of any major economy because it is the innovation of the majority (the poorest) that stimulate growth.
Do food banks not work? Or is your concern that those who don’t contribute to society should not have their dignity bruised by having to acknowledge the fact?
The data in your link is disingenuous:
There were always charities giving out food. “Food Banks” are just a recent method/buzz phrase for giving out food, hence the increase in numbers of food banks and subsequent increase in the number of people using them. It’s akin to saying that because there are more branches of McDonalds now in the UK than in the 1970s we now like burgers more than we used to do. Not true: we just went to Wimpy in the 70s.
In addition, the increase in poverty (and hence more reliance on charitable assistance with regards to food) is because the previous Labour administration shafted the economy, which always hits the poorest hardest.
I agree this current Conservative government is beyond useless, particularly with regards to the Covid fiasco, the CAGW obsession, and the malevolent “levelling up” agenda. However, they inherited an absolute economic mess from the previous Labour “there’s no money left” administration. Just as Margaret Thatcher’s government inherited a financial basket case handed to them by the Labour govt of the previous decade.
The left always detested Thatcher, which demonstrated she must have been doing a good job, as the left hate to see success. I wish Maggie was alive once more to lead us out of the recent carnage Boris has brought upon us.
The UK debt as a percentage of GDP is bumping 100%. France is right about there too, while Germany is much lower at 70%
The UK government is spending money hand over fist.
Free food? Yes, please! That way I can spend my money at the betting shop, on booze and fags, and that all important Sky subscription to go with my super wide TV – what’s not to like.
You left out the drug addicts.
I will no longer give to food banks because too many drug addicts use them
@M Courtney, has it occurred to you that the more foodbanks there are, the more people will use them? ie, you might have got the causality backwards?
As for “austerity”, it just means the government doesn’t deficit finance its spending (ie, doesn’t borrow).
Exactly how much of the costs of our present consumption is it OK to heap on the shoulders of future generations? And why?
And no, the borrowing is not for “investment” – the ratio of government debt to gdp is rising every year. If the spending were a genuine “investment”, you’d expect the debt to drop.
The poor innovate? Really? Why are they poor, then?
Until you run out of other people’s money
Yep!
Does the UK still have conservatives? Who are they and where are they hiding?
True conservative MPs are becoming a rare breed these days.
The same question applies for Australia. I’ve heard the word conservatives thrown around for a long time now, but I haven’t seen yet a politician that fits the description
Me too. Where are they all hiding … or have they all been cancelled?
Maybe Liz Truss? She still believes women are women at least. Kemi Badendoch also seems quite good at destroying the race grifters at least.
You seem to be saying there could be some hope. Good news 🙂
I wouldn’t say too much… Pritti Patel wants to ban wolf-whistling with the support of many other conservatives. Madness.
What an utterly frivolous and pointless use of a minister’s time. I didn’t think virtue signalling was a ministerial duty … but they sure do learn it very quickly. Isn’t there something of greater importance she could find to do.
How in hell do you enforce such a ban … and what would be the punishment? “Wah – wah- wah … he whistled at me wantonly!” or “He looked at me lewdly!” I thought women wanted the world to take them seriously.
Couple of big problems with your ‘UK government austerity created the need for foodbanks’. Firstly it isn’t just a problem for the UK, this has happened across Europe and the USA. Increased use of food banks or food aid charities has increased over the last few years in many more countries than the UK. Germany has seen an increase from zero to over a million food bank users in just a few years. Second – the increases in food bank uses match the poorer areas and increased use of renewable energy – it’s more about fuel poverty. Scotland has coincidentally the largest amount of renewables (Increased energy prices) and the highest number of food bank users in the UK. Those that try to use Tory austerity cuts as a political scapegoat for failed policies are simply ignorant political hacks – they did have an impact, but not as bad as some activists would have you believe (and no, the excess deaths of 2014/15 were not due to Tory austerity cuts either – the European Health studies clearly show a Europe-wide pattern of excess deaths linked to a bad flu season and other contributing factors).
The increase in food banks in the west matches the steady loss in productivity
Is there a connection between the lock downs and fiscal poverty?
Come on M Courtney, we know your political leaning but that is a ludicrous statement
M. Courtney, this was already done in Canada on 2019. Here’s a quote on the food guidelines that says it all.
“Vegetarians and vegans from Halifax to Whitehorse applauded their leaders’ dietary wisdom.”
‘leader’? The PM? The health minister? I lost the link. They also removed dairy as a food group! Children won’t know what a Mooo is.
If austerity has caused poor diet, then I assume lunatic policies like Lockdown, hosing Billions in every direction, will be just the ticket for (the normally rational) M. Courtney.
But I’m afraid I have zero point zero confidence in current politicians’ ability to make sensible recommendations (let alone regulations) on my diet, or indeed on anything else.
And with apologies to the two authors of this piece, I have similar reservations about anything Academia produces.
Our toxic western governments have collaborated in the two greatest and most destructive frauds ever perpetrated against humanity – the global warming (aka “climate change”) scam and the Covid-19 lockdown scam.
Then the elitists falsely linked the two frauds, stating that “to solve Covid, we must also solve climate change”, an utterly imbecilic falsehood, not even credible enough to be specious.
Their solution to these false crises is the Great Reset, where a few rich Princes rule us all,
looking down on all the poor slaves – the Marxist Chinese Communist Party model.
Let’s be blunt – these Marxist elitists are traitors, and should be tried and sentenced for high crimes against humanity. They have cost us trillions of dollars in squandered global resources, and destroyed millions of lives. They should never be trusted.
Now our governments want to control food policy – this will not end well.
Alan, there is another destructive government fraud you omitted. The food guide.
We’ve been told for 60 years that cholesterol causes heart disease, but it is evident that heart disease is caused by the inflammatory foods we were told to eat… seeds, polyunsaturated oils, sugar. The keto movement isn’t just about obesity.
Government control based on bad science.
I couldn’t agree more, David.
Allan,
Don’t forget they started with the low-fat diet hoax that led diabetes rates to skyrocket! The sugars and simple carbs that were added to replace healthy fats and oils have caused a huge increase in obesity and diabetes, and are probably linked to mental problems like the severe delusional states of liberalism!
My oh my, another cabinet ministry. What are the implications for the Ministry of Silly Walks budget? No doubt more shameful cuts!
Food policy? That’s a matter for central government? In a free country it’s a matter of individual choice. Cry for my ancestral homeland.
An interesting perspective on the lack of development, the continuation of poverty, and perhaps the real reason for control of food
The first step toward government dictating what we eat, and its only a matter of time before insects become the main course, because climate.
And so it begins.
As long as I can drink beer to wash them down because grasshopper antenna tend to tickle the throat. Carbonated beverages are to be allowed aren’t they?
No. Carbon dioxide in drinks is verboten. Only beer made from organic, vegan ingredients from radical feminist farm collectives will be allowed and even then it will have the alcohol removed to avoid harm to others. Orwell should have written about “Big Nanny” not “Big Brother”.
No, Orwell was 100% correct about Big Brother, he just got the enemy wrong.
Instead of an actual, physical EastAsia to “fight” against, we have something much more ephemeral: Climate Change.
You got that right. Rabid feminism was the first Marxist group to become normalized. It has opened the door to all the others. “Big Nanny” is spot on.
Not for the elite. They’ll still be dining on filet mignon and wagu beef whilst the plebs eat soylent green.
It is a government-commissioned report. Don’t you feel warm already knowing that the government really cares?
Did any government ever commission a report on how to streamline the government?
CG
Yes.
But the Civil Service, unhappily, lost it . . .
Odd, that.
Auto
Agree!
And Soylent Green I Right around the corner.
As I’ve said before the Welsh government are one of the leading lights in railroading environmental legislation, heres one were they are being challenged through the courts
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-57929321
If the farmers don’t succeed a lot of farms will go out of business,the policy is designed without taking into consideration the Welsh government’s own reports on water quality.
For a few years we have seen propaganda through advertising, eat rich in protein bugs, a sudden increase in advertising of meat free foods , and buy boxed food to feed a family for a week= essentially rationing the amount of so called healthy food a family needs,sold via the reasoning of convenience and health.
Any one who tries to stop me having a “full English” breakfast, especially when I’m on holiday will lose my vote! Anthea
Black pudding?
Yum, with fat pork sausages and eggs. I had that on a trip over in 2005. Do they still serve this? BTW I am lean and healthy
Yep
Curious obfuscation. I always thought that “legal matters” was the fundamental bedrock of government.
Yes I agree, but they have potentially acted illegally, thats why the court process has allowed a hearing ,again I think the Welsh government are taking orders from somewhere else.
Orders based on the ideology: ‘You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy’
I agree, another angle we have to consider, the Welsh government are a devolved administration, from the UK government, they only have certain powers ,unfortunately the environment is one of the devolved powers, their actually showing that when their given powers,responsibilities they ignore democracy, they ignore their own government departments and in this instance I suspect what they call evidence is minimal, hyped up and some examples nothing to do with farming.
This is what happens when you have a socialist government pampering for recognition on the world stage,willing to follow orders from unelected bodies around the world.
the boxed food while sort of crazy cost wise etc ISnt a bad idea to get people used to eating appropriate volumes of food
I have my mums old cookbooks and the amounts per serve are way less than present ones per head. and obesity back then really WAS a medical issue like thyroid or diabetes. even in the 60s to70s at school we usually only had a couple of fat kids per class , now its the opposite _find the thin ones!!
I find I eat about half of what is considered an average serve and due to age illness etc still managed to gain 10kg over 3 or more yrs;-((
I don’t agree Oz and heres why, its yet another business sold on convenience, I don’t believe anyone does not know or have a inklings of whats healthy or not, its a choice,a choice I believe these companies would rather you made on the back of convenience.
Its too easy one might say with the mind site of ordering food to order a greasey unhealthy meal ,thats the mind set ,the mind set these companies would rather like you to have.
Then there’s the lack of choice, sure the menus might be varied but that’s not the same as going to a grocery, supermarket, butchers ,chosing your own ingredients , I would prefer to choose the quality, the amount of food I eat at a sitting not have it dictated to me.
I don’t want to see the above outlets to loose yet more customers to convenience shopping , I don’t want to pay over the odds in the name of convenience,
As a matter of choice sure people should have convenience shopping if they wish, the supermarkets already cater for this and some local grocery shops, the big difference is ,they don’t dictate how much food I should or should not eat.
then there’s the social cost ,for some a trip round the shops is the only contact they have with people , a chance to chat to others in their local area, I would not want to see anything that discourages human to human contact, so thats my point we can already cater for the ill,infirm ,the busy people, these new kids on the block are in my mind doctoral,following a agenda , I personally find them rather patronizing.
Portion sizes have grown along with the size of the humans eating them – and I do not mean being overweight.
My 14 year old son is taller than me and weighs as much as I did when I hit 40. He is thin, muscular, very active and does high-intensity sport 6 times a week. He eats more than I do as a result. All the kids (17-20 years olds) at my Muay Thai and Karate classes are taller and bigger than myself and all will eat more than the old standard portion in any old cookbook.
Modern medicine and healthy food are creating bigger people requiring bigger portion sizes. The trouble is, as soon as these kids stop exercising the weight starts to pile on as people are not good at scaling back what they eat to match their energy burn.
A South African colleague said to me once his wife was always saying “your body is a bank, if you keep making deposits and spend nothing you build up savings”, trouble was he liked his food! The solution is not controlled portion sizes (my son would start eating his arm!) but educating people to match the amount they eat to the amount of activity they do – real activity though, not the self-deluding type.
“by reformulating recipes to remove sugar and salt” – Check Low salt diets and diabetes.
I think and hope, they talk more about the hidden salt and sugar components in fast food.
And other things contained in fast food.
I saw an article the other day where a woman had a glass display case and on each shelf she had an example of a fast food, a pizza and a McDonald’s hamburger, for example, and she had many examples from all sorts of fast food places, and all the displays looked like she had just gone out and bought them that day, but she said all of them were months to over a year old.
What chemical would keep these fast foods looking fresh for months?
I saw another display once where another woman had a McDonald’s Happy Meal displayed underneath a glass cover with the top bun moved aside so you could see the contents of the burger, and there was an order of French fries there, too, and all of them looked like they had just been purchased, but she said the display was almost two years old. The bun, the meat, the lettuce, the pickel and the french fries all looked fresh. How do they do that? What are they putting in our food?
I don’t know what she’s doing differently, but a 3-day old McDonald’s hamburger in this house looks extremely unappetizing.
They made them from plastic?
Like the food displays in Japanese restaurants.
Salt is essential for everyone and not a concern for healthy people.
Only those with a genetic predisposition to high blood pressure really need to monitor their salt intake.
weight loss has far greater impact on blood pressure than salt ever will.
In NZ the table salt is iodised to help prevent goitre in the population
That has been true in the U.S.since the early part of the 20th century. These days less so because the woke health nuts see iodine as poisonous.
How to make poor people even poorer
The health fascists are in the ascendancy and you will do as you’re told… They know what is best…
Which lunatic came up with the idea of fruit and vegetables prescribed by a doctor?
All doubt about whether vegetarian/vegan-isms are political animals is out there now. Of course, as with all political constructs there are the innocent Brooklyn Bridge purchasers.
This is Ehrlich’s prediction panning out.
It has actually been ongoing since well before Ehrlich realised
It was well advanced through the Middle and Dark Ages, when life expectancy fell off a cliff – from the Biblical “Three Score plus Ten” to whatever it was then, circa mid-forties?
“Oh” you say, “it was because of disease, pestilence and overwork, optionally to include Crap Naturally Varying Weather”
Yes it was.
No need for anymore, you’ve heard it all from me before.
Apart from this nugget from the Eatwell Guide:
“Base meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates”
PS When I talk about ‘sugar’, I mean Glucose = what has got to be The Most Perfect Poison there could ever be.
Tasteless, Addictive, Slow-acting and it completely destroys minds as well as bodies.
As recommended and increasingly enforced by science and government
We Are In So Much Trouble Here
To be fair, the brain does run on glucose, showing that it doesn’t completely destroy minds.
There is no need for glucose in the diet. There are no dietary essential carbohydrates , unlike protein and fat.
Tell that to the three billion people who consume rice every day and have consumed rice for the past few thousand years.
It’s probably time you let them know, don’t you think?
Come on Klem,
There is no dietary need to intake alcohol but billions do it every day, and have for thousands of years! (Not an actual factual statement because there have not been BILLIONS of people for thousands of years. Hell, the world didn’t hit ONE billion until just over 200 years ago, and 3 billion till just about 60 years ago)
So respond to his post that stated FACT, not just some nonsensical “Tell that to”.
Without protein intake, you will die. Without the rice you are referencing, you will be fine.
Yawn..Tell it to the 3 billion, Drake.
Big difference between consuming and essential. Check the definitions.
There are very specific cells in the brain that operate on glucose and your liver is more than capable of manufacturing that glucose.
More and more research is showing that Alzheimer’s is actually due to a the brain’s inability to no longer utilize glucose for energy. These brains cells are starving even though they’re awash in glucose.
Amy Berger has done some amazing work on the topic – here’s a presentation she did a couple years ago that explains what’s going on.
Totally wrong, Tinny! The brain needs fat in good measure.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20329590/
“Abstract
The human brain is nearly 60 percent fat. We’ve learned in recent years that fatty acids are among the most crucial molecules that determine your brain’s integrity and ability to perform. Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are required for maintenance of optimal health but they can not synthesized by the body and must be obtained from dietary sources. Clinical observation studies has related imbalance dietary intake of fatty acids to impaired brain performance and diseases.”
Neuronal tissues maintain lipid “pools” for their messaging function.
This should be a public health alert because I suspect, even the large proportion of smart folk who congregate at WUWT. do not know this! They wont mention it in schools or gov food rules.
Do vegans have a pill for that? If not they are becoming stupider every
Peta, your history is off. In early Europe, sugar was rare and highly priced. The most common sweetener was honey. Sugar was not widely available until it began to be imported in quantity from the colonial plantations in the 17th century. By the later 18th century, plantation (cane) sugar was so in demand that a disruption in imports contributed to the unrest that led to the French revolution.
Actually Peta is correct – the problem is the definition of “sugar”. Every simple carbohydrate you eat is turned into glucose by your body. So the potatoes she mentions are starch, but once you ingest them they’re sugar.
Correct, but she also says glucose completely destroys minds.
In which case, we’d all be dead.
Glucose is the fuel the body runs on. It is also produce from protein if carbohydrates are not available.
Fructose, on the other hand, is 1/2 of sugar, once that sugar reaches the stomach. Fructose has its uses in the muscles, mainly during heavy physical activity, but by a completely different biochemical path than glucose. Excess fructose, i.e. any not used quickly, is process by the liver into fat and stored around the central body organs. Then it is hard to use without extended physical activity, when no more fructose is incoming, or during extended fasting.
It storage leads to the same liver deterioration as heavy alcohol consumption.
I’m afraid you’re wrong: sugar was not grown in Europe in the Middle Ages as the climate wasn’t right for growing sugar cane. It was imported from the Middle East and was a luxury good that only the richest, such as royalty, could afford. It wasn’t until the 1500s when sugar was grown in the Americas that it slowly became more widely used in the common person’s diet.
A quick history of sugar
You’re also wrong about potatoes being in European diets in the Middle Ages. Potatoes weren’t brought back from the Americas until the 1500s.
Peta is speaking of grains, and later, potatoes, which are metabolized into sugar in the human body, just as alcohol is.
Peta posts often regarding the hazards of the modern diet. Just look at the “Food Pyramid” that I grew up on in the early 60s (although Wiki says it was introduced in 1992, what a crock!) The base is grains, something wholly unneeded by the human body. But grains are cheep and a small farmed area can “feed” many.
Alcohol isn’t metabolised into sugar, though. The liver metabolises excess alcohol into fatty acids.
Just like it does with fructose.
The sugar beet started it’s career in end 18th begin 19th century thanks Napoleons import block from the colonies for a certain time.. But later, the prices for sugar canes were much lower and the production of sugar beet decreased,, but not so in France.
The new increase started, as agriculture got more and more mechanised
It is sustainably green to eat what cows eat rather than cows.
It is sustainably green to eat what bugs eat rather than bugs.
“Soylent Green is people!”
The film of that name is set in 2022. Tick tick tick Tik Tok
“It is sustainably green to eat what cows eat rather than cows.
It is sustainably green to eat what bugs eat rather than bugs.”
Not so. By the same token you could claim that it was “sustainably green” to eat what plants eat rather than plants. Unfortunately it is not true – it ignores the “value added” concentration and alteration of the food passing through other organisms.
If all you eat is what cows eat, grass and grains, you will die, soon. If you eat cows, you should live to some ripe old age, all things considered.
Except Soylent Green predicted a world in which 40 million people lived in New York City (in our reality it is about a quarter of that), food was incredibly scarce (in our reality about three-quarters of the population is overweight and nearly half are obese due to an abundance of food), and protests were dealt with by bringing in the scoops (alas, in our reality, they are allowed to fester indefinitely until police stations are burned down, courthouses are besieged, and autonomous zones are established).
40 million people lived in NYC because the government had forced them all into the city to free up land for farming. The film (and the book) were made while the agricultural revolution was still in process, and were based on predictions that the US would run out of farm land by the turn of the century.
The idea of moving everyone into cities to “save the planet” is still core to a lot of the weird green ideas being pushed.
Well said.
Uhrlich was wrong but the movie was based on the belief he had a clue which, to this day, he does not.
Yep, like every other prediction made by the Malthusians.
But as griff helpfully pointed out, it’s because we heeded the warnings of the scientists.
In 1973, world population was 3.9 billion. We were told that it was urgent to reduce population. Now it’s only 7.9 billion.
We were being warned that the fossil fuels we were burning were causing an early return of an ice age. It was urgent that we stop burning fossil fuels.
In 1973 we emitted 17 Gt/yr CO2. In 2019 it was only 33.4 Gt/yr.
So don’t say the Malthusians were wrong. We avoided the problems they predicted by cutting population and eliminating fossil fuel use. Isn’t it obvious?
Over to you, griff, for further teaching…
Malthusians and eugenics, still going strong after all these years.
An interesting take — it isn’t just people
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-obesity-era?utm_source=pocket-newtab
,,,eat what bugs eat ….
A billion flies can’t be wrong : eat sh1t!
No !
Fact check: TRUE
Cannily, the Convers[at]ion team left a lot out of their article….
Sugar and salt should be taxed and vegetables prescribed by the NHS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57838103
GPs could prescribe fruit and vegetables under National Food Strategy proposals
https://www.gponline.com/gps-prescribe-fruit-vegetables-national-food-strategy-proposals/article/1722269
What planet are the academics on?
Being poor is expensive. Poor households pay more for energy, credit and insurance. They face far higher rates of inflation. Their shopping bills already take up a high proportion of their income – how would increasing them by between £180 and £250 help?
At the last election, Johnson promised to improve the lives of the least privileged. When he talked about ‘levelling up’, nobody thought he meant adding 87p to the price of a box of Frosties. Successive governments have relentlessly targeted the poor with sin taxes – raising the price of alcohol, tobacco and treats – while also lecturing them on how big their meals should be, and how they should enjoy their lives. This is wrong. Adults do not need nanny to tell them what to do, what to buy or what to eat.
We are a society gripped by moral panics.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/19/let-us-eat-cake/
And it could well be much worse than we thought.
I’m guessing the average Brit does not want Big Brother Government in their pantry and kitchen. If these politicians want to legislate something why not go for the Mediterranean Diet, which still appears to be the most healthy diet? OK, I’m somewhat biased because it includes a glass of red wine.
And the necessary Pastis before meal 😀
Based on the Brits I’ve known, they do want Big Brother government in their pantry and kitchen. They want it cradle to grave.
if only it was based on what they actually ate….
Henry Dimbleby says we should not eat processed for but advocates artificial meat, isn’t that processed food? Dimbleby also has a highly questionable BMI rating. Also is a major purveyor of salty, fatty and sugary products. Henry Dimbleby is right about one thing – spiked (spiked-online.com) Stop eating meat? Cut meat consumption by 40%. Data tells the truth and numbers do not lie. Total methane emissions from all sources including wetlands and fossil fuels are about 614,000,000 tons/year. Residual atmospheric methane is 0.00018%. 1.4 billion cows emit 86 million tons of methane annually which is 14% of total emissions. Therefore 14% of – residual CH4 – 0.00018% is 0.0000238% that is 2.38 trillionths of atmospheric CH4. Atmospheric methane needs to be at least 100 times more prolific to have even the slightest influence on climate. Insofar as UK cows are concerned which are 0.69% of the global total at 0.0000000229908% of 0.00018%. Methane The Irrelevant GHG. Methane The Irrelevant GHG. (CH4) has narrow absorption bands at 3.3 microns and 7.5 microns (the red lines). CH4 is 20 times more effective an absorber than CO2 – in those bands. However, CH4 is only 0.00018% (1.8 parts per billion) of the atmosphere. Moreover, both of its bands occur at wavelengths where H2O is already absorbing substantially. Hence, any radiation that CH4 might absorb has already been absorbed by H2O. The ratio of the percentages of water to methane is such that the effects of CH4 are completely masked by H2O. The amount of CH4 must increase 100-fold to make it comparable to H2O. Because of that, methane is irrelevant as a greenhouse gas. The high per-molecule absorption cross section of CH4 makes no difference at all in our real atmosphere. Identifying what people should and should not eat related to beliefs about emissions is bonkers.
Cows, like all animals, are carbon neutral, almost by definition. If they didn’t eat the grass, it would rot and emit the exact same gases.
Some animals are less than carbon neutral.
A lot of cattle consume feed grown with nitrogen fertilizers produced from the Haber process using natural gas, and there are other inputs of fossil fuels used at various points in animal husbandry. Perhaps beaver are carbon negative.
To update Animal Farm, all animals are carbon neutral but some animals are more carbon neutral than others.
Yep, or grow longer, dry and burn.
In fact many fires in Northern California grass fields ( where the cows are “ grass fed and finished”) would burn much hotter, and likely spread into tree country and Forrest country, if cows were not there to keep those fires much smaller.
Dim le y ….. 2b or not 2b..
😉
When salt is outlawed, only outlaws will have salt.
(Same for bacon!)
There will come a time when one could be arrested for a salt and bakery.
Ouch…groan
🙂
He is joking now, yet heavy government involvement in food production AND consumption is a likely tragic story.
“ Only the government can create a sand shortage in a desert.” Milton Freeman.
Only the government can create a sand shortage in a desert
Only the government can run a brothel into bankruptcy in Nevada (true story)
Salt is generally replaced by citric acid. Citric acid is produced by fermentation of corn milling waste with Aspergillus niger. The citric acid is loaded with mold allergens; the primary cause for that increase in child asthma they are always on about.
And contrary to the propaganda, most salt is in food to prevent bad bacteria. If the salt is too low it must be replaced by enough acid to prevent bacteria. But again, the citric acid is loaded with mold allergens, so, the war on salt actually makes public health worse!
The Romans used to make salt on the coast in northern Portugal. I am perfectly prepared to do that should any do-gooders decide to take it away from me.
· 1,879,000 UK Dairy cows emit 206,690 tonnes of methane
· 7,731,000 UK Beef cattle emit 386,550 tonnes of methane
· 593,240 tonnes in total
· Fewer cows than Mali, Madagascar, Uzbekistan, New Zealand, Niger, Uruguay and Canada, damn cheek.
· UK global percentage at 1.4 billion is 0.69%
· UK global percentage at 1 billion is 0.96%
· 20% reduction would be 0.77% or 0.56% Insignificant
· Since 1974 UK cow population fallen by 36%, 5.6 million cattle
o Nearly twice as much as Deben’s 20%
· 1.4 billion cows emit 86 million tonnes of methane
· 1 billion cows emit 61.4 million tons of methane
· Atmospheric methane is 0.00018%
· Atmospheric Co2 is 0.04%
· Atmospheric N2O is 0.00003%
· Atmospheric Nitrogen is 78% Dry.
· Atmospheric Oxygen is 21%
· Water vapour – clouds – 4% the strongest greenhouse gas.
· Rice paddies emit between 100 million and 500 million tons of methane
Like all government policy, this will result in more expensive products and no change in what the actual target idea was.
The food processing industry will make sure of that.
“National food strategy”?
No more fish’n’chips???
Do the English eat anything else?
Porridge 😀
Porridge
Scotland is not the nation, it is a basket case though.
Marmite.
I hope that some day I can get back to England to sample real fish and chips. Are newspapers still used for serving?
Nope ,plain white grease proof paper,or a polystyrene tray or both.
“Are newspapers still used for serving?”
No, because the inks in ‘newspapers’ are believed to be toxic. As is the way of all things, especially related to ‘government’, the actual risk is minimal, but that will never stop ‘government’.
I would want to be sure which newspaper. Some ARE toxic.
Toxic tales from a toxic Male.
Disputing, when I was about 10 or12 (70 yrs ago), I chewed petroleum tar that I found in globs below the spigots of emptied tank cars along a rail siding. I collected the globs so there would be no competition and, I broke up the globs into about 1″ pieces which I sold to friends and classmates a penny ea.
It was a block buster product that became cool to be chewing with a few enterprepreneurial kids buying 10pcs or more. You chewed it and spit out less palatable flavors until in about 10 minutes you had a good chewing gum.
We also had fun playing with mercury, silvering pennies and other good fun. Our scrapes and cuts were dressed mercurichrome (sp?) and sore throats were gargled with iodine and water.
One day, I found a 3 inch ‘puck’ of lead in the ditch with a piece of broken leather harness attached (milk, bread and ice for the ice box fridge were delivered horse-drawn vans). I melted in in a large jam pail in the furnace and fun all winter pouring it into various shapes, remelting and messing around with it. Yup, I don’t recommend anyone copying this type of curiosity. It is bad for your health. But not as bad as they say it is.!!! Oh, and I must have eaten a half an acre of potatoes, french fried and wrapped in the daily news!
Elemental mercury and lead aren’t that poisonous. I suspect you were more at risk from burns from the molten lead than from poisoning. It’s the compunds that are dangerous.
Sausage and chips, egg and chips,pie and chips, and if your poor, gravy and chips. I take issue with your use of the word chips, chips havent been cooked in the UK properly for decades,
Chips in the UK are anemic, half cooked,or reused chips from the previous day= soggy,limp and burnt round the edges , still American tourists still eat them😋
So thats another industry gone down the pan, still we do have some very good Indian takeaways.
It depends where you you buy them. I have just come back from an excellent cafe serving chips which are the equal of anywhere.
The exception makes the rule, chips are crap in the UK thats official.
In Glasgow many years ago I liked their Haggis and chips.
Try poutine from Canada….
Come to Portugal if you want good chips. Not everywhere, of course, but most restaurants make them from scratch, not frozen, and they are crispy and delicious. It is rare to be served soggy, limp chips here.
Curry – we eat tons of it here in the UK.
Mmmmm…..
Well, if we want to ban junk food, and unnatural diets, lets ban industrially refined seed oils which are unstable at cooking temperatures, and replace them with wholesome natural and stable animal fats. Ban the unnatural vegan and vegetarian diets, and encourage regular wholesome natural meat based meals. I know that is not the agenda, but grazing livestock really does not require a lot of fuel input to plough, plant and harvest.
I wish I could give this comment more “likes”.
we know from the study of regeneratively farmed beef the whole process of raising cattle on grass moved around paddocks to minimise time in the one spot increases carbon in the soil (study done at White Oak Pastures).
These methods in the short term do no cause production loss from fields and in the longer term increase herd sizes for the same sized property overall.
Who do these self-appointed ‘experts’ think they are to believe they know better what to eat than my own parents who lived and live well into their 90s?
Why don’t they stay home and do something useful?
Why?
It’s a class thing. Recently the middle and upper middle classes discovered football – another front opened up for ‘diversity’ and identity politics
The Euros were a case in point:
Behind the headline displays of unity, these elitists fear and loathe normal fans, with their naughty songs and beery antics. They look upon the crowds congregating to celebrate the Euros, not just as Covid super-spreaders, but as the carriers of every viral political and cultural prejudice. – Spiked Online
The failure on penalties didn’t help, 2 scored and three missed. It’s the first time I have seen someone miss a penalty and then been lauded as a hero.
Oh boy, from the way they were talking Brexit was going to be the economic ruination of England. What a bunch of whiners and weasels.
You think they want you to live that long? Perhaps government recommended diets are meant to induce dependence on pharmaceuticals.
I will be happy if they just stop trying to tell me what to eat and not eat!
Is there anything more infuriatingly stupid than the “Eat This, Not That” books and website?
Decades ago when the “good for you, bad for you” mania first started (yeah.I’m that old) I adopted my first life motto (I now have three): “I’d rather enjoy a short life than be miserable in a long one.” Guess what, I’ve enjoyed eight decades, so you don’t have to make that choice. I’ve personally (not “scientifically”) concluded that enjoying life is the KEY to a long life, not what you eat or don’t eat.
BTW, “enjoying life” for me means just that, not enjoying artificial “feel good” things like drugs and alcohol.
in the studies done by Keys and various other groups like the 7th Day Adventists. Despite large adjustments to the data and false narratives (like the Okinawans and Icarian people ate mostly plants, the former ate lots and lots of pork and the later had so much animal foods including dairy with most meals that plants foods could be nothing more ever than a side dish). The one thing we do find fairly consistent is that community is important. Social gatherings, walking, not keeping to strict schedules etc.
Low stress, low impact exercise and lots of socialising.
Some years ago the BBC reported on a solicitors clerk who walked 3 miles up and down hill from his office to the court twice a day. The young woman could now keep up with him. He at the time was 93 and his diet consisted of a bowl of porridge in the morning a sandwich for lunch and another bowl of porridge at night. I can eat all of the right stuff and all of the supposedly wrong stuff but every time I have a blood test it comes back normal. Five a day is not supported by any research or science it was cherry picked from marketing generated by the Californian food growers association. Most of everyones ailments are genetic not environment, unless of course you worked with blue asbestos smoke 60 fags a day and drown you sorrows with booze.
Widely derided Ancel Keys if you read all of his research arrived at the conclusion that those who had access to dairy and meat on average lived longer than those who did not. Life is a lottery but you dont get to choose the pack of cards you are dealt.
I don’t know what England’s agriculture policies are, but in the good old USA we could probably cut way down on obesity by not subsidizing corn, because a lot of it ends up feeding the hogs, in ethanol and in HFCS.
Owen,
It’s not the corn! Corn has a higher protein content than most other grains! It’s the sugar and simple carbs that do the most damage!
Who told you that pork was fattening?
they would just feed the ‘hogs’ soy meal from Brazil then( after of course they take everything humans want from the soy). Pigs, even in a traditionally raised sense, are fed waste material and turn it into nutritious meat and fat (and organs) for us humans.
Yes, stopping subsidising plant crops like that is a good idea but also realise they would just change the source of food for the animals not remove pig farms for example.
These experts don’t takem account of the stubbornness of their target audience. Recently, a celebrity chef’s initiative to introduce healthy food into UK schools resulted in parents queueing at school boundary fencing, passing junk food to their kids.
No end of proposals to make certain no person can be responsible for themselves, but everyone is responsible in some vague manner for everyone else. Certain people are are to be made legally responsible for everyone else in some limited way. It’s a prescription for unstable, unreliable, miserable societies.
Land in the UK has been managed by humans for hundreds of years. The British countryside is in essence artificial. “Returning it to nature” is a ridiculous idea. The Conservative party hasn’t been conservative for 20 years and certainly not with regard to the environment. They are very happy to increase the population as fast as possible and concrete over vast swathes of land.
A better idea would be reforestation if you want to make parts what they were thousands of years ago. Plant native species and manage the woodland and you can get a crop after a few decades too.
How about someone in the UK trying this?
https://www.appharvest.com/
regeneratively farmed land increases returns after only a short period of time (say a couple of years).
The “obesity” crisis started when low fat diet was the way to go, low fat made food insipid and so sugar was used to enhance flavour. I remember when I had a Ski yoghurt for the first time in the late 1960’s, it tasted so bitter, certainly not as sweet as those you can buy nowadays. I had sugar in tea and coffee, from which I went cold turkey in the mid 70’s.
The “obesity” crisis started when low fat diet was the way to go
Funny how that worked out. And yet it’s still pushed as the way to go.
As some of us said a year ago, COVID was just a dry run for the total control of your life in the name of “public health”. Anything that can’t plausibly be regulated in the name of “climate change” will be regulated in the name of “public health”.
The goal is total government control of every thought, word, and deed.
Resistance is futile.
Wheat,Barley,Hops, Yeast, sugar. I can do that 😉