Food

The British government should be stockpiling food, according to a leading expert on food policy, as it is not prepared for climate shocks or wars that could cause the population to starve.

Prof Tim Lang of City St George’s, University of London said the UK produced far less food than it needed to feed itself, and as a small island that relied on a few large companies to feed its giant population, it was particularly vulnerable to shocks.

Was on a radio show with Lang once. His ability to be wrong in service of gaining publicity for Tim Lang is unmatched. The Spud of food policy.

Lang’s report for the National Preparedness Commission, published last year, found that the UK’s food system is extremely vulnerable to attack due to its concentration with a few large companies.

It found that the 12,284 supermarkets around the UK are “fed” by just 131 distribution centres.

These were a “sitting duck” for drone or cyber-attacks by malign states, he said: “The nine big retailers account for 94.5% of all retail food. That’s nine companies, using just 131 distribution centres. In drone war, that’s a sitting duck.”

See?

You know, just everything is always the rise of unchecked corporate power since Ronald Reagan.

Almost a quarter of soup on sale in UK supermarkets has too much salt, study finds

Too much implies that there is some logical, supportable, definition of “enough”.

Analysis of nearly 500 tinned and chilled products finds 23% exceed government’s voluntary salt target

Ah. So more than some made up number patrolled by pecksniff morons then?

Of the 481 soups Action on Salt and Sugar (AoSS) tested,

Ah, yes, pecksniff morons.

Consumers searching for healthy food from trusted sources have fuelled the UK organic market’s biggest boom in two decades, according to vegetable box seller Riverford.

The delivery business, which sells meat, cheese, cookbooks and recipe boxes alongside vegetables, recorded a 6% increase in sales to £117m in the year to May 2025,

Ooooh, ooooh, squeal for piggie! 6% growth!

as the UK organic food and drink market grew by almost 9%

So Riverford is growing slower than the market. Hmm. Food inflation was 4.4% in the 12 months to May 2025. Corporate accounts are not inflation adjusted. So actual sales increased by 1.6%.

Boom, eh?

What ultra-processed foods really do to your body
With UPFs making up 56 per cent of the average UK diet, experts reveal how over-consumption of them can impact our organs and overall health

A properly conservative newspaper would be shouting “Fie!” to these morons. But nooooo:

David Cox
Health and medical journalist

Sigh:

“Overall, poor diet has overtaken tobacco globally as the leading cause of early death,” says Chris van Tulleken, a professor at University College London and author of Ultra-Processed People.

Complete bollocks of course. Unless we’re talking famine which does still kill people.

It opened in 2013 and gained its first Michelin star a year later. It received another in 2022, making it the first site in Wales to win two stars. Prices start at £468 per person.

The restaurant scored one out of five from a visit by Food Standards Agency officers on 5 November, meaning “major improvement” is necessary.

Now, whether this defence is true or not is another matter. But it’s an interesting defence:

“I’m buying sashimi-grade fish from Japan and they’re questioning, ‘Well, we don’t know the water, so how do we know it’s sashimi grade?’

“Well, it is sashimi grade, this stuff’s eaten raw all over the world and just because our rules don’t fit their rules, they’re questioning it … I’ve got a salt chamber for ageing fish but they obviously don’t like the idea of ageing stuff.

Who to believe, eh, who to believe?

It’s so difficult getting to grips with the idea that the local council employees are ignorant cretins, isn;t it…..

Kimchi from China sells to restaurants for about 1,700 won ($1.15) per kilogram, while Korean-made versions average about 3,600 won ($2.45), more than double the price.

In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea imported $159m worth of kimchi, almost entirely from China, while exporting $137m.
…
There are more than 150 recognised types, made with radish, cucumber, spring onions and other vegetables, seasoned with blends of chilli powder, garlic, ginger and fermented seafood paste, shaped by local climates and tastes.

The fermentation process produces beneficial lactic acid bacteria that contribute to kimchi’s reputation as a health food.

Families traditionally prepared large quantities together during kimjang, the annual winter preparation ritual recognised by Unesco as intangible cultural heritage.

OK, stuff changes. How good/bad according to taste.

Market forces mean that price, rather than origin or method, are now the decisive factor.

That’s why The Guardian is pissed. Imagine allowing something as common as trade to determine culture!

To make matters worse (or better, depending on your sense of humour), the “Italian” cuisine that conquered the world was not the one Italians carried with them when they emigrated. They had no such cuisine to carry. Those who left Italy did so because they were hungry. If they’d had daily access to tortellini, lasagne and bowls of spaghetti as later imagined, they would not have boarded ships for New York, Buenos Aires or São Paulo to face discrimination, exploitation and the occasional lynching. They arrived abroad with a handful of memories and a deep desire to never eat bad polenta again.

Worth reading that piece. It’s good.

I’m sorry to say something that may cause an international incident. But the Portuguese cook as if my Yorkshire foremothers had moved to southern Europe. Portuguese produce is excellent: fresh fish, wonderful vegetables, fine meat. But restaurants mostly just plonk a sea bream, a large boiled potato and a steamed vegetable on to your plate. The Italians and Spanish take the same ingredients and magic them into dishes of excitement and grandeur. Puzzlingly, Portugal doesn’t seem to believe in sauces, spices, herbs or flavour. It is what my father would have appreciated as “good plain food”.

The fish can indeed be like that. Just damn good fish on a plate.

The sauces and spicing all over in the meats and stews section, d’ye see?

Scientists demand cancer warnings on bacon and ham sold in UK

Gosh. Scientists!

Four of the scientists behind the warning about processed meat issued by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and other experts, have written to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, urging him to take bold action to reduce the danger nitrites pose, in a letter organised by the Coalition Against Nitrites.

Why’s that then?

“Consumers deserve clear information. Most people don’t realise that the WHO classifies nitrite-cured meats like bacon and ham in the same carcinogenic category as tobacco and asbestos,” said Denis Corpet, an emeritus professor of food safety and nutrition at Toulouse University and one of the four scientists.

Same group and warning as the contraceptive pill too. So, you know….

Joe Wicks: My fight against UPFs and why fat jabs aren’t the answer
The fitness coach has made a documentary highlighting the problems of ultraprocessed foods which has not gone down well with some of his followers

Apparently all that money piled up in lockdown ha gone. So, new gig, new grift required. If van Tulleken can why not?

Failure to tackle dependence on food banks in UK driving public discontent
One in six households went hungry last year, says Trussell, with Britain facing ‘new normal’ of severe hardship

If we’ve lots of food banks then we’ve people feeding the hungry. If we’ve people hungry then we’ve not enough food banks.

We cannot use the existence of food banks as proof of hunger – food banks are a cure for hunger.

A man who threw a sandwich at a border agent in Washington DC has been fired by the US attorney general after being identified as a justice department employee.

Sean Charles Dunn was arrested and charged with assault after allegedly hurling a wrapped Subway sandwich at a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officer on Sunday.

Only thing to do with a Subway. They’re appalling.

At one point Ireland actually banned them from calling whatever it is they use from being called bread – too sweet.

Ham and bacon sold by supermarkets including Tesco, and Marks and Spencer still contain cancer-causing chemicals almost 10 years after the World Health Organization warned about the dangers of their use in processed meats.

Bastards!

However, it found the levels of nitrites in all 21 products were well below the 150mg/kg legal limit.

Oh.

A zoo in Denmark has appealed for unwanted pets to feed its predators.

Aalborg zoo in northern Jutland issued a call for small healthy animals to be donated to ensure “nothing goes to waste”.

In a social media post, the zookeepers suggested the animals would be fed to their contingent of European lynx.

“Chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs form an important part of the diet of our predators,” the zoo said. “Especially the European lynx, which needs whole prey that resembles what it would naturally hunt in the wild.”

The zoo in the Tower of London used to sweeten the offer. Free entry if you donated a dog sorta stuff. Very sensible.

Owners could donate a maximum of four animals, zookeepers said, which would then be euthanised before being used as food.

Ah, in Londom, no euthanasia…..

Ocado is facing a potential £20m loss after a major UK farming start-up backed by the company fell into administration.

The logistics group, led by Tim Steiner, had been a major backer of Jones Food, which was hailed as a game-changer for Britain’s farming industry, allowing vegetables to be picked next door to delivery depots.

I never did like this idea. Seemed to me to be really rather stupid in fact.

The argument in favour of it is that you can grow stuff more efficiently indoors. Grow lights, no birds thiving the crop and all that. Controlled conditions. But to do so you are going to use urban land.

Urban land is expensive. Especially urban land you’re allowed to build upon. Lorries to bring stuff from distant fields into the city are cheap. So, whether the plan works depends upon whether the increase in efficiency covers the increase in capital costs – the urban land.

And, well, I can’t see that ever being true in the UK. I’ve watched people trying this – and yes, obviously, a market system both will and should try this sort of stuff – and always wondered how they came up with the thought that it could/would work. Dunno – maybe they’re all infected with this idea that food miles are a massive cost or summat.

Urban buildings to produce what can be grown in a corner of any field*? Just can’t see how the business case ever stacked up.

*Yes Jim, I know farming’s more complex than that. But not that much.

Juventus pair Weston McKennie and Timothy Weah are facing the wrath of Italy after criticising the nation’s famous cuisine.

The Americans unwisely agreed in an appearance on a recent podcast that the food since they arrived in Turin “has no variety”. To dig themselves deeper into trouble when the Serie A season begins, both went on to suggest US restaurants were better.

In more detail:

“You guys don’t have variety – it’s pasta, pizza, fish, steak,” McKennie said. “You know what the problem is with Italian food? It’s great, it’s good specific food that you do very well, but in America if I go to a burger joint or a steakhouse, then I go to another place 10 minutes down the street, I’m still eating a burger, but it’s a completely different taste. In Italy, I go to this restaurant and get a pesto pasta, I go 10 minutes down the street and order a pesto pasta, it’s the same thing.”

What we think of as “Italian food” isn’t, really, Italian food. Or, to present this the other way around, it is Italian food but no Italian eats like that.

There’s Neapolitan food, Sicilian, Fiorentine (where everything has spinach, even the eggs), Turin, Venetian and so on. And locals in those local areas do get superb versions of those local cuisines. But the pick and mix of all of the best of those local cuisines – which is what the rest of us call “Italian food” – not so much. A Sicilian restaurant in Turin might be more difficult to find than one in London. Heck, even a Milanese one in Turin…..

Yes, I am exaggerating. But there’s still a point there. In any one Italian city and hinterland you’re going to have a great deal of that local cuisine. Some of which will be truly excellent. But it ain’t “Variety R Us”.

Top chefs tell us their go to snacks.

Yes, of course there’s the usual poncey crap (special type of Spanish very lightly pickled mussel on special Spanish crisps, Lord forgive the poseur) but a couple that work:

Jason Atherton
I like prawn cocktail crisp sandwiches with grated cheddar and HP Sauce.

Acshully, not quite wholly sure there. Salt and vingear perhaps…..

Hannah Evans
Spread Marmite across a tortilla wrap, sprinkle on some grated cheddar, fold it in half and zap it in the microwave for 15 seconds until the cheese has melted.

Ah, yes, now that does work.

Vegans and Muslims must be catered for in a possible food apocalypse, experts have said, warning that Britain is woefully unprepared for “shocks” to the supply chain.

Professor Tim Lang, a professor of food policy, said that if there was, for example, a cyberattack or Russian assault that knocked out Britain’s “vulnerable” food chain, ration packs would need to offer comfort.

If people were “in psychological shock they need to have things they are familiar and comfortable with”, he added.

So, canned Woolton Pie anyone?

A dinner at Donald Trump’s $1.7 million-a-head event for crypto investors was labelled “worse than airline food”.
….
Guests were served what was billed as “pan-seared halibut with a citrus reduction, a filet mignon with demi glaze” on Trump-branded plates. But the appearance of the food and paltry offerings of vegetables drew a poor response.

If you’re going to a banquet for the quality of the food you’re making a category error.

Now, it may have been true, back when – given technology and all that – that an Escoffier do at the Savoy was top nosh. But there is a reason it’s called the rubber chicken circuit these days…..mass cooking, for hundreds, just doesn’t compare these days. I think – think – because individual cooking, that is cooking small amounts for individuals, has got so much better.