These past five Covid-buffeted months have shone a spotlight as never before on the choices we as a nation make about and around food. We are quite confused when it comes to eating. The government’s two recent messages on the subject are in conflict with each other: it’s our civic duty to ‘eat out to help out’, we’re told, but also we need to lose weight to protect the NHS. These muddled messages were evidenced by the somewhat mad poster advertising ‘eat out to help out’: after listing the practical terms of the scheme, the optimistic last line reads ‘Look out for better health choices’. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to dine out, I’m going to get something tasty and tempting. I can have all the tuna salad I want at home.
But the key word on that advertisement is ‘choices’. Above all, these months have served as a reminder of what an often overlooked luxury choice is when it comes to food, and how it regularly comes down to the issue of resources: it requires pounds sterling to dine out, just as losing pounds of weight often necessitates the same. My worry about the government’s attempt to make us a nation of healthy eaters is that it puts further financial pressure on those who are already pushed towards cheap sugar-laden and fat-sodden products. It removes choice from people who already have very little.
At the start of the pandemic, in those frenzied few weeks of stocking up, stockpiling and supermarket shortages, it was salutary to witness what supplies people flocked to. It certainly wasn’t avocado or sushi, overpriced sandwiches or fancy-schmancy takeaway coffees. No, it was the common-or-garden staples of everyday life that everyone was suddenly so fretful about: eggs, pasta, bread, vegetables, tinned tomatoes and, yes, loo rolls.
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