Jul 11 2008
Food: the destiny of our nation
Figure illustrating food prices from Food Matters
The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they feed themselves.
(Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste)
This unlikely quote is one of three that open the new Cabinet Office report on food policy, Food Matters: Towards a strategy for the 21st century. Less surprising, is the dropping of a fourth quote that found its way into the earlier analytical report:
I’ll bet what motivated the British to colonize so much of the world is that they were just looking for a decent meal.
(attributed Martha Harrison)
Taking food seriously
Tim Lang stated in his keynote speech to the recent Growing Food for London conference that we’re now living in “the most dangerous … but potentially the most interesting time for food policy”. True enough, the British and other governments are now recognising that we can no longer take for granted a stable global supply of cheap food.
Just a glance at the report’s chart of the price changes in major foods since 2000 is enough to convince anyone these are extraordinary times for the global food system. And desperate times for those already spending a significant proportion of their income on food. In the UK, where just 9% of average household spending is on food, most of us are lucky enough to enjoy plenty of leeway before rising prices make us hungry.
More than just leftovers
As Felicity Lawrence notes in the Guardian, the cabinet office report is a serious document that was only trivialised by Gordon Brown’s launching it by talking about eating up our leftovers.
The report makes some striking acknowledgements of the problems with the food system:
- its dependence on increasingly scarce and expensive resources
- its enormous emissions of greenhouse gases
- the social inequalities in what and how we eat
- the health impact of our diets
Out of this list, the Number 10 spin doctors chose to highlight an issue, waste, and more particularly household leftovers, that while undeniably important was always the one most open to ridicule.
The Prime Minister’s lavish 18 course meal (or was it just 8, or as many as 19?) with his fellow world leaders only made his talk of leftovers appear even more ridiculous and patronising.
More to digest
There’s a lot more to consider in this report, and we can only hope that these critical issues are aired and debated once the 18 empty plates and leftovers are just a memory. Expect more from the Tracing Paper at least…
I don’t really disagree with anything you’re saying here. However, I do think that your second to last paragraph is something of a cheap shot at Gordon Brown.
There is no suggestion (that I’ve come across) that Brown sat down and planned the breadth and depth of the menu. He’s essentially a guest of the G8 summit and its hosts - the Japanese. And we all know how we’d feel if we’d prepared a meal and a guest arrived and announced that he or she wasn’t about to eat our food because it hadn’t been sourced sustainably/wasn’t organic/didn’t fit in with the latest fad diet/etc. As a guest you turn up and eat your food graciously.
Secondly, my personal experience has been that there is far less waste when dining from a well executed tasting menu. Yes - many courses sounds indulgent, but often the dishes are small, and I leave feeling a lot less full than if I’ve been presented with three courses of huge plates of stodgy food.
It would be more appropriate to take a pop at the organisers of these meals. But then, as hosts, the Japanese will, naturally, want to showcase the best they can offer. Perhaps it would have been interesting to see the world leaders spend a day at their discussions nourished by only that available to the poorest people in the world as a counterpoint.
Alex - yes, I admit it was a cheap shot. It’s just disappointing that the government allowed the publication of such an important report, and the discussion of the food crisis at the G8 summit, to become an opportunity for this sort of cheap shot. Looking at the media coverage, the leftovers issue and the G8 leaders’ menu clearly distracted attention from the other, very real issues. I like your suggestion. Imagine how powerful a message it would send if global leaders resisted the temptation to show off (as hosts) and indulge (as guests) and instead ate a meal typical of those eaten by most of the planet. Or if they sent a clear message by eating an exemplary meal of sustainable food.