FOOD HERO
n a m " y l B a ! a o J Award-winning food writer, author and investigative journalist Joanna Blythman has spent 30 years getting ‘behind the label’ of the food we buy and eat. She talks to Food Editor Emma Winterschladen about the darker side of the food industry, the timeless joy of cooking and why the future of food has to be organic.
S Finding joy in cooking is one of the best ways to change our eating habits, says Joanna
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tarting her career as a food writer and restaurant critic, Joanna Blythman soon realised that it wasn’t enough to just write about the pleasures of food – she had to know how it came to her plate. ‘It didn’t take me long to see that there were many people capable of excellent recipes and reviews, but there seemed to be a deficit in terms of investigative journalism in food.’ Inspired by Radio 4’s Food Programme, Joanna found herself drawn to the issues surrounding our food chain, particularly the murkier waters of food processing. At a time when the food industry was starting to receive more scrutiny for its practices – with the outbreak of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, in the late 1980s, marking a significant shift – food journalism was still seen by many food companies as a marketing tool. ‘Up until the early 1990s, food writers were frequently given what is known as the “Royal Tour”, then expected quid
TOP TIPS FOR SHOPPING SMARTLY Waste nothing Shop as and when you need, in order to avoid fresh food going off. If you only do a weekly shop, make sure you plan what you’re cooking.
Opt organic Even if you can’t afford to buy organic everything, prioritise certain foods. It’s more important to spend money on organic meat (especially pork or chicken) due to issues of animal welfare, and risk of exposure to pesticides, antibiotics and hormones.
Check ingredients Don’t buy food with ingredients you won’t find in a home larder, and if you don’t recognise an ingredient on a product’s label, avoid it.
Buy in season pro quo to write nice things, extolling the delights of that company’s latest products.’ But for Joanna that wasn’t enough: ‘Tougher questions needed to be asked, and indeed were starting to be, which meant the food industry became more defensive and closed as a result. I soon became aware that if I was going to scrape below the surface of food production, I was going to meet some opposition along the way.’
Get your food variety in a year, not in a week, by eating and cooking with fruit and vegetables that are UK-grown as far as you can.
Invest in staples Stock up on ingredients, such as seasoning, grains and pulses. These will help you transform freshly bought produce into a meal quickly and easily.
Food unwrapped
Undeterred, she dug deeper. ‘Over the years I’ve talked my way into spaces I shouldn’t be; from attending food events aimed at those in the industry to creating false identities to access online dialogues between chemical companies and food manufacturers.’ So what did she find out? ‘Oh, some hair-raising information that would shock an ordinary consumer.’ In her book Swallow This: Serving up the food industry’s darkest secrets Joanna goes behind the label to unearth the truth of ‘clean additives’. It is these so-called clean labels that are increasingly used by food manufacturers and retailers as a means of placating a growing desire for more transparency. ‘Supermarkets are often only prepared to pay a certain price for a product – say a tikka masala – and this will dictate things like the welfare of the chicken and what additives are used, which may not be obvious on the label.’
Back to basics
So how should we successfully navigate the aisles of our supermarkets? Joanna advocates something she calls ‘personal precautionary principle’. ‘Ultimately, the only way we can ensure we have control over what we’re eating is to avoid buying processed foods and “finished products”, opting instead for ingredients we can cook from scratch.’ For many, a lack of time or money may seem like an obstacle to cooking daily, especially when there are ‘fresh and healthy’ ready meals available to buy. To this end Joanna is sympathetic but firm in her conviction: ‘I appreciate we’re all busy and it can seem a chore to cook after work, but if the alternative is eating food where you can’t be sure of the conditions and processes in which it’s been made, then that’s a no-brainer.’
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Home-cooking for Joanna goes beyond giving us sovereignty over what we put in our mouths. ‘You can have a cerebral understanding of food issues but it’s no substitute for the gut instinct that comes from cooking and eating real food.’ It’s finding joy in the process of cooking, with children in particular, that she believes will ensure generations to come will choose home-cooked food over joyless processed meals. ‘Cooking is so much more than sustenance and nutrition, it’s about nurturing yourself and connecting to those you love through the sharing of food. It’s about saying “I am important enough to have good food”. And the more people that come to appreciate this, the more positive change we will see in eating habits.’
The future of food
There’s no doubt our food landscape is already rapidly changing – both literally and culturally. But the question remains: is Joanna optimistic about the future of food? ‘It’s a sad fact that we’re living in an age of depleted soils, industrialised farming and over-processed foods, but there is definitely a hunger for change. We are now seeing a counter-reaction, where people are saying: “I don’t want to be part of this and I certainly don’t want to eat that!” There’s a grassroots movement of people who want to do things differently – be it through growing their own food, farms switching to organic, food assemblies (buying fresh food directly from local producers) and even forming local bread clubs.’ But, for Joanna, this is only part of the solution, and there needs to be bigger-scale changes in our food system – both in Britain and globally. With the world’s population set to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, she is resolute that the answer does not lie in intensive farming, genetically-modified crops or industrialised food production. ‘If we’re going to tackle the problems of the world – things like climate change and feeding growing populations – then food production has to become localised and focused on smaller-scale agriculture around the globe.’
The organic question
This is why, for Joanna, the answer has to be organic. ‘The way I see it is that all the food we ate up until 1950 was effectively organic in all but name. Our grandparents were brought up on food grown and produced how it should be, with nothing added unnecessarily.’ As Joanna points out, it’s only been in the past half century or so that we’ve found ourselves on a chemical treadmill, which includes the use of pesticides in growing crops and antibiotics in intensive animal husbandry. ‘In order to move forward we need to embrace the principles of organic agriculture that have sustained us down the centuries.’ For this to happen Joanna recognises we need to move away from the negative narrative often surrounding organic food. ‘In Britain organic food is seen as a luxury, but in other European countries, you’re more likely to hear people say “Yes, of course I buy and eat organic food – why would you not?!’” The fact is, good food – in all senses of the word – is often more expensive to produce than processed, industrialised food. But that doesn’t mean the cost isn’t ultimately higher to us all – whether personally, culturally or environmentally. ‘If you opt for cheap factory-farmed meat then you have to ask yourself why it’s so cheap and what the implications of that are.’ But while Joanna is fervently against factory-farmed animal produce she believes there’s an important place for organic, pasture-fed meat and dairy in a British diet. ‘We’ve got to bear in mind that much of our land isn’t suitable for cultivating crops – so the idea that we’re going to stop producing meat and have fields of lentils isn’t realistic. But we need to move away from the “meat-and-two-veg” attitude and eat good meat less often, while enjoying the delicious variety of plant-based cooking too.’
‘In order to move forward we have to embrace the principles of organic’
Keep up to date with Joanna at joannablythmanwriting.com or follow her on Twitter @JoannaBlythman. Her books, including Swallow This: Serving up the food industry’s darkest secrets, are available on amazon.co.uk
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