It’s hard not to enjoy Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s article in today’s Guardian. I’m lovin’ it is a wonderful fit of schadenfreude A delightful and excitable text tinged with bitter delight at the news that McDonald’s has announced the closure 25 ‘restaurants’ here in the UK.
Fearnley-Whittingstall is a likeable fellow, even if he does have a visceral loathing of the modern grocery industry, in which I work. We all wish we could scream “stop the world, I’m getting off,†and like Fearnley-Whittingstall, ditch our jobs, cars, and responsibilities, and live like Moomins on the canals of England.
Reality check. Someone has to run the country, power our industry, and put food on the table of Britain’s 60m people. And all of us reverting to Fearnley-Whittingstall’s crusty plan would result in economic meltdown, mass famine, and a global shortage of lentils. But this does not mean we – the great and glorious bourgeoisie – shouldn’t aspire to eat healthier, more ethically, and more responsibly.
F-W, as I will refer to the double-barreled leaf-licker from here on in, is also right to point out that UK child obesity levels are still rising, meaning more and more of our little porker’s will be suffering from illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease in the future. Our creaking, MRSI infected, health service will never hope to cope with this prospect. Our tubby offspring, raised on a diet of McNuggets and Turkey Twizzlers, will be rolling down the corridors of our hospitals, costing us a bloody fortune. If the nation wants to secure the future of a ‘free’ NHS, we better start eschewing the pre-packaged, salt-loaded, muck that we currently gorge out on.
F-W is hopeful that trends are beginning to demonstrate a change in the nations dietary choices:-
These days, in the clusters of fast-food outlets in our major cities, we are starting to find, dotted among the big names in burgers, chicken and pizza, some genuine alternatives: the big-name coffee shops, of course, but also juice bars, sushi restaurants, fruit and nut stands, bagel bars, pasty parlours, soup and salad takeaways - and even the occasional organic burger joint. Of course, not all these new ventures are paragons of culinary virtue. Many leave a lot to be desired - some in their trading ethics, others for poor nutrition, or simply a lack of good taste. But it’s none the less true that, taking the fast-food sector as a whole, the possibility of an encounter with what we might call “real food” is definitely on the up.
I hope F-W is right, I’m rather hoping to survive bird-flu, and I’ll need our partially functioning NHS to have even half a chance of doing so.
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On the Hi-Fi: In Between Dreams, by Jack Johnson
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