The food we eat - Labelling must help consumers

SO MANY of the habits surrounding the food we eat, the sustenance we give to our children, are shaped by fashions advanced by television’s high-kitchen evangelists.

A predilection for prosciutto rather than a plate of decent streaky bacon is a statement at the very frontline of the never-ending class wars. It’s a predilection that’s really a badge of class loyalty and a means by which people recognise their own.

Some people are confronted with choices no more daunting than sirloin or fillet, burgundy or bordeaux. Others face a more rigid economic reality each and every day.

Yet, there are so many risible affectations surrounding our quasi-religious food fads that they have clouded the waters for a most necessary debate on what we eat and how we treat domesticated animals before we turn them into dinner.

We have the low-fat brigade, entire battalions of organics-only and even those who choose their food by how far it has travelled rather than how it tastes.

We have slow food, fast food, frozen food and “chickens” flown halfway round the world at two for a fiver. We allow vending machines in schools to sell junk food and fizzy pop of the very worst obesity-making kind.

Even worse, we are a good distance down the road to creating a society where cooking your own meals is becoming the exception rather than the norm.

In all of this comedy of manners we have lost sight of the most important things about food — at least from the consumers’ point of view.

It must be affordable and must not damage your health. It must be produced in a way that does not misuse the animals involved.

And when you are buying it you should be able to make sense of the labels on the packaging without having a PhD in food science or a magnifying glass.

We should know easily what we are eating.

In reality the great majority of us have placed our trust in regulatory authorities believing that if it’s on the supermarket shelves it must be OK. Whether that faith is justified remains to be seen, especially when some of the technicolour, long-life options are considered.

In the latest skirmish for our hearts and waistlines Dublin chef Kevin Thornton described chicken sold in Irish supermarkets as “poison”.

His assertion was immediately denied by the IFA whose poultry committee chairman Ned Morrissey said: “The standard of poultry produced here is extremely high and is among the highest in the European Union if not the world.”

Mr Thornton’s take on the misfortunate chicken may be more to do with satisfying epicurean ambitions rather than the everyday need for sustenance but, once again, the consumer is confused and left wondering who should be believed.

If Mr Thornton is right, how can I give my children chicken? If he’s wrong why shouldn’t I?

It should not be down to the individual to adjudicate these matters, that’s why we need a clear and reliable set of food guidelines that serve consumers not producers.