Frankenstein Food Chain

I think we have food all wrong. Food should be unadulterated as far as possible, plastic free and with minimal miles to get the food to market as possible. Of course this would be a significant change from where we are now, but I think its an essential change. This isn’t to say that I would restrict choice, but I would implement a tax regime that supports the approach we want.

So imagine this.

Food Tax Regime

Our food supply chain should be based around the principle that the following are penalised in a tax regime:

- Use of chemicals.

- Low Animal welfare.

- Processing steps.

- Miles travelled to market.

- Use of packaging.

- Access restrictions to land by the public.

So an apple growing naurally on a tree, picked and taken for sale at a local market would attract minimal amount of tax.

But an avocado, grown in Israel, packaged in plastic and flown into the UK would attract more.

A potato grown in a farm in the UK and sold to a local chip shop would attract some tax because the chopping and frying of that potato is a process.

However, turning that potato into a paste, adding various preservatives and colouring, squirting it into a chip shaped mold and sent around the world as a French Fry for a fast food chain would attract a lot more tax.

Food sold lose in small green grocers would have a low tax applied.

Food sold in plastic in large supermarkets would have a higher tax applied.

The purpose of this regime would be to achieve a number of things:

- Reduction of chemicals in the food chain.

- Achieving the higest standard of animal welfare possible.

- Reduction of food processing including the adding of salt and sugar into meals.

- Reduction in food air miles.

- Reduction in plastics.

- Increased access to land and rivers by the public.

Cheap fresh food, expensive fast food

The aim of this would be to achieve this outcome for the consumer:

A family of 2 adults and 2 childen having to survive on benefits, i.e. living in financial poverty by UK standards, would be able to buy a large shopping trolley of locally grown vegetables, some fruit and meat for a low cost, say £20 for a weeks worth of food for the whole family. Certainly enough food to feed the family for a week and to feed them a healthy diet low in sugar and salt.

However, the same family could choose to take the family for a meal out at McDonalds. However, due to the tax regime, this single meal would cost say, £50.

Health benefits and cost savings

But more importantly than the cost of a basket of food, the aim of this would be to reduce obesity and increase the health of the population, and particularly the poor.

There would be costs to subsidising food, but in reality, how much cost is there in just asking farmers to use less costly chemicals, or less antibiotics? How much cost is there is asking them to process food less, use less packaging, transport it less? Most of these things reduce costs just in themselves. There would be a greater cost in terms of more food perishing or a greater death rate within herds, but given that the aim is higher animal welfare, this would only be from natural death, and medicine to keep animal welfare high would still be allowed. Only antibiotiocs or medicine for the sake of it, or for the sake of an increase in profit would be financially peanlised.

It is my belief that after this has been done for a generation, this would pay for itself in the reduction of the cost from obesity and food related illness. The medical conditions from diet, including mental health would be significantly reduced. In my view, once a generation has lived with this change, the costs would easily be recouped.

Some other aspects need to change in order to support this.

Buying food should be a pleasure and a skill

British society has changed so that its so expensive households have to have 2 adults working in order to pay the bills. A visit to any European market shows that European culure does not have this issue to the same extent. There, you find lots of local food markets selling fresh, local fruit and veg, but also fish and meat. The people shopping are taking a lot more time over their shop that British people. Obviously most of these people shopping are women, and many are of an older generation. I suspect that this is because European society have more multi generational households than the British and therefore have an older woman who can shop and cook the meals at home. Plus they can take time over their shop.

I don’t have the answer for this in the UK other than to say that our relentless march towards valuing people who earn lots and are economically active is wrong and needs to pull back. We should value people who are not working and who are home makers. The economic benefit to the nation of keeping people fit and healthy is enormous. If we always have to value money, we should value that.

British people have lost the skill to shop. I see people in supermarkets picking up packs of plastic packaged food. No thought is needed because all the food looks the same. And it tasts the same too, its tasteless. In French supermarkets I see men picking up individual peaches, feeling and smelling them before they purchase them. The food is important. Their skill in picking good food is important to them and their society. This skill needs to be brought back into British children and our future shoppers.

Cookery lessons

Separate to this, cookery skills have been lost. When I was at school cookery lessons were still a thing, but they have gradually lost their importance. Food and nutrition skills should be brought back into schools and it shold be compulsory for children to learn about the food chain and the good and bad things we have done to animals in the name of food production.

Small Kitchens

Housebuilders are also shrinking kitches, and this is fine because Deliveroo can pick up the slack and you don’t need a big kitchen for cooking in. Just a place to put your plate while you wait for your delivery and perhaps a microwave to reheat your pizza. These factors conspire together to stop people cooking and to stop families coming together to eat. I remember a friend moving into a new house and keeping her shoes in the oven because it was space that wasn’t being used for anything else. Housebuilders should be stopped from shrinking kitchens anymore and legislation brought in which forces them to make kitchens useable for cooks so that we reduce and discouage the Deliveroo generation.

Animal husbandry

At the point an animal is being slaughtered, there is very little you can do to mitigate what is about to happen. Ultimately, at that moment, you are killing an animal. We are animals and we think its unaceptable to kill each other and equally killing animals is little different. However, we are meat eaters and have always killed animals for our food. That said, besides this point in the food chain, we can do alot more to ensure our animals live the best life possible. For example, if the conditions on a farm allow 365 days of grazing for a herd, then that should be what happens. If a cow has a calf, that animal should not be taken away from it. You wouldnt take a child away from its parent, the same should apply to animals raised for food. Don’t deliberately abort calves to ensure milk production. This may increase the cost of milk, but the tax regime should ensure that this cost is removed as it meets the principle of achieving the highest standards in animal welfare.

Local foodmarkets

The UK has marched towards private shopping centres. Spaces for large chains rather than local people and local farmers. As the local highstreet has been decimated by Amazon and Covid we have an opportunity to redeisgn and reuse these spaces. Taking Broadmead Bristol as an example, there is a patch of Broadmead which is the tired post-war shopping centre where very few shops anyone wants to rent. There are poundshops, vape shops, perhaps an arcade or gambling shop. Nothing exciting, and no police in sight, perhaps a deliberate step by the landlord so that developers can use it as an excuse to sell the land and buildings for even more money.

However, if the ground floor of these shops were torn out and left open fronted you’d be left with well ventilated, semi outdoor spaces, so post Covid safer, where local stalls, local markets can set up and sell their produce. Semi cover the space inbetween the shops so that people are protected from the British weather, allow food and drink stalls to operate in the space so that locally grown, locally produced food, can be cooked by local people and sold with virtually no tax imposed on it. This would be the cheapest way in which someone would be able to eat out and would also be the healthiest. McDonalds could still operate, it would just so happen to be one of the most expensive ways to eat out, and less healty, but people could make their choices.

Allotments

Taking this further, legislation should grant Councils power to create allotments and allocate them to people. This land should not be being lost to developers for profits. Again the skill of growing food and keeping animals has been lost and it would take a generation to restore it, but effort should be put into this and local people should be able to grow and even sell their own food in local markets. As ownership of cars declines in favour of shared electric vehicles, garages and driveways should revert to places for food and animals.

Chemicals and Preservatives

So much has changed in our food in my lifetime. Its subtle changes. Changes that are convenient and match our busy lifestyles, so they go unnoticed and in many cases welcomed. I have recently started buying milk from a vending machine thats filled up by milk that was drawn and pasturied that day. It reminds me of how milk used to taste when I was a child. Bottles with cream on top would be delieverd every morning by electric vechicles which made no noise bar the clank of the odd bottles. Everyone in the street had this. How advanced was this? A whole fleet of electric vehicles from a local depot, drivers all knowing who lives where. Imagine such a thing in a world where Amazon is taking off, it would have been environmental and quick, plus come with an element of security. But the milk in supermarkets is now homogonised so that it looks pretty in our fridge, and I don’t even know what other preservatives go into it.

White sliced bread is another example. This can now be left in the cupboard for nearly 2 weeks without showing any sign of mould. There is only 1 reason for this and thats because it contains chemicals and preservatives. Real bread should go off on the second day. Real bread can be made from 4 ingredients. The French have passed this into law. They respect high quality (read this as natural and unadulterated) food. We, on the other hand, like convenience and cheap food that lasts. But we pay the price for this with our health.

And Finally

This is what I mean by Frankenstein food, its become a monster, food companies make greater profits, drug companies make greater profits treating our health problems from our bad diet, and we suffer. It needs to change.

(c) AJP Nov 2020