Bad Food Britain: Why we’re addicted to rubbish

The statistics are shocking. In a nutshell, Britain eats about 50% of all the junk eaten in Europe. The average Briton, for example, swallows 7.2 kilogrammes of savoury snacks (crisp-type products) a year, while the typical Italian manages just one kilogramme. British children now consume 25 times more confectionery and 30 times more soft drinks than they did in 1950. Our taste for over-packaged, added-value, factory food bearing an uncanny resemblance to airline meals has also spiralled out of control. By 2003, we ate more ready meals than the rest of Europe put together.

That’s an excerpt from an article in Scotland’s Sunday Herald revealing some shocking statistics about the way we eat in the UK.  The article then goes on to explain how we in the UK are viewed as far as our culinary attitudes go.  It’s a great read and I had no idea these issues were such a problem!  You never know when your own breath smells but everyone else does and it comes as a shock when someone tells you!

Given that we are seen to be a nation of people with such, "bad food" habits, what could be the future?  As the article explains…

These days, Britain likes to think that its food has undergone a makeover. Long gone, or so we are told, are the bad old days of greasy pies, chip butties and grey beef with gravy granules. Even Turkey Twizzlers have been kicked into touch. Britain, we hear, has undergone a long overdue culinary renaissance. Now it’s all farmers’ markets, new-wave artisan products, groundbreaking, state-of-the-art supermarkets, world-class restaurants and innovative gastropubs. Britain is one of the foodiest countries on the planet these days. Isn’t it ?  Actually, no. It comes as no surprise that other nationalities still don’t buy our new foodie image. Whether or not we choose to face up to it, Britain – and that includes Scotland – has always had a major credibility problem in convincing the rest of the world of its culinary credentials, and that perception has not substantially shifted. Viewed from outwith its borders, Britain continues to be seen as an odd and wayward country, the cultural exception in Europe, only upstaged by the US in its ability to shock outsiders with its eating habits.

I see raw food as being a major part of moving us forward as a nation, in terms of our eating habits are concerned and also putting us on the ‘culinary map’.  I live in ‘the real world’ and I know that not everyone is going to start eating 100% raw food, which isn’t what you want to hear when you first get into the raw scene.  You want to believe it when some say that people in business and politics are going to start eating raw and making conscious decisions because they don’t feel right doing anything else with their new-found spirituality!  Undoubtedly that would be an incredible thing but what I’m talking about is giving more people more of a chance to experience the newest and yet oldest food technology – gourmet raw food.
In a recent  article for Lifescape Magazine Chad Sarno was asked if he saw raw food cafes taking off in the UK.  He made the point that raw restaurants will succeed if they are done properly, but perhaps more far-reaching is that he sees ‘Raw’ options being available in cafes and shops, in much the same way that we see ‘Vegetarian’ labeled options now.  To me, that is a very exciting prospect, and if we can just get the House of Commons’ cafe to stock my raw pizza, maybe we can change the country and the world!!! :-)

Since writing this, I’ve seen a similar article here.