During commiseration drinks last night the conversation took a turn away from our lads’ lack of defence strategy to food. Interesting; but not unexpected since the Man From Birdseye was at the table. I was asked if I was a food facist. The short answer is no….but the longer one takes some explaining.

We are what we eat; so the saying goes. Like all cliches it is based on the truth. For five years I worked full-time as a current affairs reporter on Tonight With Trevor McDonald where I had the invaluable opportunity of observing and analysing our diverse and, sometimes surprising,  relationship with food. After conducting hundreds of interviews I came to realise that food is one of the most remarkable barometers of who we really are….whether it is the 31 stone woman who travelled to Duke University in the US for life-saving treatment or the father who developed real chicken nuggets for his autistic daughter.

Where once food was for sustenance it is used for entertainment, emotional nourishment or even to make a point about our standing in the social strata. Athletes are fanatical about developing the perfect nutritional equation and models are ultra disciplined about their diets.

But what is really important is that most of us  maintain a balance about all of those reasons for liking - or even loving - what we eat.

In other words junk food is fine so long as you remember it is empty calories, organic food is great but some of it is a waste of money, fair trade bananas are a good buy if you want to fund a hospital in West Africa, takeaways are fine in moderation and, as I said to Captain Birdseye,  my life has a single mother of three children has been truly enhanced by frozen peas.

What we need to understand as the money to fund a Nanny State falls away,  is that food is central to our well-being. We now live in an era where pressure on the NHS will have to be reduced. Treating obesity is a huge drain on our resources: everything from unnecessary knee replacements to diabetes can often been prevented before treatment is required.

I once sat through an operation called a total body lift. It was carried out in Kansas because we do not have the expertise to perform such invasive surgery here. It was not cosmetic - it was carried out on a woman who had lost seventeen stone in weight and had extensive problems with excess skin. It took ten hours and my breath away.

I am not a food facist but I do care passionately about what we eat…..and about a common sense approach.

Monday, 28 June 2010 at 12:04