Fiona Mountford

Covid has exposed our confusion about food

When the chips are down, choice is a luxury

Getty Images 
issue 29 August 2020

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.

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