Back in 1992, when I was 23 and had wangled a job on the features desk of the Sunday Express, a research and health information service was set up called the World Cancer Research Fund. Its aim was to establish the link between diet and cancer. My aim back then, in between filing stories (my patch included going undercover at fashion shoots and dressing up as Barbara Cartland), was to drink as much as possible while having equal amounts of fun. My liquid diet was supported by full English breakfasts, dinners in restaurants, and then wholesome food back home in Northamptonshire at the weekend.
According to a report this week from the WCRF, looking at how diets have changed over the past 30 years, my diet was not unique. Lots of red meat, quite a lot of white bread, not much fruit and sterling amounts of booze. Most of us were at it.
The report of the nations eating and food shopping habits analysed data from the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs on weekly purchasing, and the results show startling changes. Today we buy 50 per cent less tea, 56 per cent less white bread and 32 per cent less red meat (pork, lamb and beef). We are also buying 23 per cent more fresh fruit.
Which goes to show that I dont appear to have moved with the times. Im still eating what I did back in the early 1990s. And Im still not eating any fruit.
The point of the WCRF is to raise awareness of the reasons people get cancer, and how vital the role of diet is in disease prevention. Over the years, its campaigning has coincided with a soaring interest in food inBritain.
The 30-year British Food Revolution has seen the emergence and growth of food TV from the launch of MasterChef in 1990, to entire TV networks devoted to the subject. The internet happened; recipes became one of the most searched-for items. Web-based food delivery grew with Ocado founded in 2000 (it still hasnt made a profit). Apps became a thing, many offering dietary advice, while things around your wrist could measure the amount of exercise youwere taking.
Restaurants grew in quality and number, young chefs from across the world flocked to apprentice at the kitchens of people such as Gordon Ramsay in London. Farmers markets grew to a point where you couldnt find a space in a provincial car park on a Saturday morning. Coffee drinking became a high street obsession. Waitrose stocked things called sumac and zaatar, and suddenly all your nieces and nephews were vegans.
And here we are, 30 years later. With more exposure to information about food and more variety at any time in our history, and the results are in. In addition to the previous WCRF stats, sales of ready meals are up 100 per cent and pizza by 143 per cent. Alcohol purchasing is also up by 38 per cent and guess what obesity rates are at an all-time high; some 63 per cent of adults are overweight. Obesity, that most terrible of modern phenomenons, which costs the Government more than terrorism.
Dr Giota Mitrou, director of research at WCRF, has coined a new behaviour pattern called the nutrition transition. She points to the fact that today people [are] more reliant on processed foods that are high in fat, salt or sugar. Being overweight increases the risks of at least 12 types of cancer.
Dr Mitrou and her chums must be scratching their heads. 30 years work, a nation more interested in food than ever, with access to a wider variety of ingredients and more available knowledge than at any time in history. And more gyms and fitness gurus everywhere. Were obsessed with food, yet were fatter and sicker than ever.
When food becomes a sport of jeopardy on TV, a badge of trendy credentials and a multibillion-pound discount business, is it any wonder? I weigh the same as I did in 1992. I glug booze voraciously, eat greedily, swim, cycle, play tennis and panic most of the time.
I may yet succumb to a dreaded disease, but I suggest we all ignore the food fads and the campaigns and reports and the telly, and follow the meat-and-two-veg rules of my mother, who still hates cooking and lacks a modern fascination for food.
She should do a cookbook and save the nation.
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We care more about what we eat than ever so why are we getting fatter? - Telegraph.co.uk
