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As producers of almost all our own food on our own land we have a feeling of outrage that many people in the western world are food and drink junkies, eating and drinking to excess, whilst in developing countries, starvation and malnutrition are widespread and cause grave suffering and death. This sense of outrage is further heightened by the news that great efforts are being made to develop "foods" and drugs which will enable "western fatties" to eat and drink as much as they like and manage at the same time to lose weight.
The US Food and Drug Administration has already approved the use of a shortening i.e. a cooking fat, in the manufacture of certain snacks which has the advantage of not being absorbed by the human digestive tract. Never mind that it has been necessary to fortify this product with additional vitamins to compensate for those which it would otherwise strip from the gut, and let us not worry ourselves that it may cause what is politely termed anal seepage (leakage from your bum) : as long as we can stuff ourselves with crisps and munchies all is well and it is even better if we think we gain super-model figures as we do it.
The Times of 19 August 1996 in an article On the research breakthroughs which promise a cure for the plague of obesity, says that the magazine Scientific American lists 12 commercial studies into anti-obesity drugs. These trials variously target the brain (to reduce the signals we interpret as hunger pangs), the digestive tract (to lower the proportion of food digested or to block appetite) and fat levels (to speed up fat burning. In the UK a recent stock market flotation was for a company which is developing enzymes to enable us to eat our food but not extract nutrition from it. Another well established pharmaceutical company is forecasting a rosy future from its work on its anti-obesity treatments.
In many developing countries there is no need for such research because there just isn't the food although there is no doubt about the hunger pangs. One of the UK's leading nutrition scientists, Professor Philip James, states in The Times article, "Obesity is a phenomenally debilitating condition, and we have an epidemic on our hands. It's ridiculous that we have only just started dealing with it".
We feel it is not merely ridiculous but truly obscene that large numbers of civilised people are unfit through over eating and drinking when their fellow humans in poorer countries are suffering and dying long painful deaths due to lack of food.
Current thinking seems to be that the fat/thin business is due to our genetic make-up rather than to our environment. If this is really so we wonder how and why the nation's genes have changed so much since the end of the Hitler War. It was unusual to see a really fat person during that war and a study of photographs of that period will confirm this. (Even Field-Marshall Hermann Goering, one of the most infamous fatties of the time, looks quite frail against the likes of Chancellor Helmut Kohl).
The writers' own experiences of wartime rationing were that whilst some foods were either in very short supply or indeed not available at all, the basic ration of essential foodstuffs such as meat, fats, sugar, eggs, and cheese was guaranteed to all and thus the diligent cultivation of one's own garden or allotment generally produced adequate meals. Probably the shortage that was most difficult to remedy was that of a sufficient supply of fat - both cooking and spread on your bread types. We well remember eating cakes and pastries made with the rather grey coloured wartime flour mixed with various fats such as margarine, lard, dripping, and a rather fearsome looking compound called national cooking fat which closely resembled zinc ointment. Whilst such goodies did not attain culinary excellence they were wholesome and nutritious, as indeed was most wartime food. The nation's health has never been better: obesity and its inevitable serious dangers to health was simply not a problem. It is also worth bearing in mind that in those days most local journeys were made either on foot or by bicycle and not as now by motor-car.
This system of controlling the national consumption of foodstuffs which was established in January 1940 continued after the war due, some say, to Britain's serious economic difficulties and the desire of certain politicians to preserve the nation's health; but it ended finally in 1954. The shops began to fill and were soon carrying a range and variety of foods never really seen before by the average citizen.
Unfortunately ever increasing competition between retailers was combined with the desire by manufacturers to sell more and more added value foods. The great success of the convenience food ethos can be verified quite easily by a brief visit to any of our super markets.
There will be aisle after aisle of ready to eat convenience and junk foods and very little space devoted to real groceries such as flour, packet not bag tea, coffee either ground or better still beans, butter, cheese, sugar, and other goods essential for high class home cooking. In fairness it must be said that all major UK super-markets sell high quality real groceries at very competitive prices, and the fact that so much space is devoted to junk surely reflects the shopping public's taste conditioned as it is by massive advertising.
Our major super-market chains are also very aware of the profitability of fresh fruit and vegetables and stock a wide selection, although quite naturally the quality and freshness of these mass produced goods is decidedly lower than those grown organically in one's own garden. For example recently we saw, in one of the largest stores in our area, courgettes and green beans on sale which were so limp and stale in appearance that we would be reluctant even to feed them to our goats, let alone pay good money for them and eat them ourselves!
There still remains the question of what chemical treatments the growers have used to ensure that their produce reaches the appearance, uniform sizing, and shelf life standards demanded by the super-market. These standards appear to over-ride those of nutrition or flavour for both seller and buyer.
This neglect of standards of nutrition and flavour appears to be inextricably involved in the use of convenience foods.
This neglect of standards of nutrition and flavour appears to be inextricably involved in the use of convenience foods, but their sales growth over the last forty years, fuelled by powerful advertising, has resulted in a similar growth in obesity and consequent general unfitness. It is indeed a very apt comment on the situation that the recent Olympic Games, hosted by the nation with the world's largest consumption of convenience and junk foods, were described as, "The fattest watching the fittest".
