British Food: The Bane of European Cuisine?

By Hannah Isom

Bad Food Britain is an excellently delivered, intelligent look at our attitude to food in the UK. Any self-confessed ‘foodie’ will find themselves subconsciously shaking their fists and crying “viva la revolution!” at various interludes throughout the sustained assault. It is aggressive and at times quite depressing, but also manages to be exhilarating and does inspire a desire to set up life in a shack in the countryside, growing organic vegetables and rearing and eating ones own cattle.

Joanna Blythman is Britain’s leading investigative food journalist and in Bad Food Britain, she explores an issue that is barely out of the news; the state of the nation’s eating habits.

The book begins with a list of statistics, many of which we have all heard before from the government or news coverage, but when digested in unison are quite shocking. For instance, in 2003 Britain ate more ready meals than the rest of Europe combined and the average amount of money spent on ingredients for a primary school meal was 35p, which is a quarter of the sum allocated to feeding army dog (lucky dog!).

Throughout the book she continues to investigate the various causes of our negative relationship with food, often drawing on comparisons with the rest of Europe and how they do it so much better than us. The finger of blame swings from the government, to out-pricing of independent stores by supermarkets, to lack of food education in schools and the profit-driven evil of food processing companies. The consequences of eating habits are also discussed in depth, both using shock figures about obesity and related diseases and more subtle issues such as the breakdown of family relationships and the lack of pride in our country and the high-quality local food it is capable of producing. The conclusion that seems to be drawn is that we are too stupid to understand how to eat healthily, and too lazy to cook raw ingredients anyway. The product of our bad attitude is that we resort to eating pre-prepared food laced with salt, sugar, fat and additives, much to the delight of food processing companies and fast food outlets.

At times the assault on the nation can come across as a little self righteous and preachy and fails to fully explore some of the deep-seeded social and economic divides that still separate large sectors of society. However I would still highly recommend that anyone with even a passing interest in food or British culture take the time to read Bad Food Britain.

The difficulty now seems to be getting individuals to take responsibility for their own bad habits. In an era where we have an almost limitless amount of information available to us, and the government is constantly labelled as imposing a “nanny state”, can we really blame anyone else for our own ignorance, or the spare tyre around our waist?

[Joanna Blythman, Bad Food Britain: How a Nation Ruined Its Appetite, Basic Books, Fourth Estate, 2006]