In many countries food is not only political, it’s politicised, from Italy to France and Japan. In the UK it’s relegated to the free market. Blame the Industrial Revolution or fears of the nanny state telling us what we should eat. Yet such a laissez faire approach to food has made us one of the sickest, fattest countries in Europe, and unenviably one of the nations with the most ultra-processed diet.
“We should all be shocked,” says Dolly van Tulleken. Dolly should know, she’s a visiting researcher at the epidemiology unit at the University of Cambridge and was once a Conservative Party candidate in the 2017 general election. Her brother-in-law, Chris van Tulleken, is the author of the best-selling book Ultra-Processed People – so she is deeply embedded in the world of food, health, and politics.
“I used to focus on obesity as the problem. Now I realise it’s a symptom of our creaking food system, which was designed after the Second World War to deliver abundant, cheap calories. This is no longer fit for purpose. Right now, we’re all suffering the consequences of a broken system that doesn’t deliver nourishing, healthy, sustainable food as the most affordable and easiest option,” says Dolly.
“It would be incredible for people passionate about food to get political and use their citizen power to contact their local MP and demonstrate their public interest. Food as an issue should have election winning potential. But very few people, if any, go into politics because they’re excited about changing our food system. But when you start linking it to other issues such as health, community, education or tradition then politicians become a lot more interested.”
Dolly has unique insight into this issue having done a deep dive into the politics of food and health in the UK. Last year, with Henry Dimbleby, she interviewed 20 prime ministers, health secretaries and senior politicians, of national food strategy fame, producing Nourishing Britain: A Political Manual for Improving the Nation’s Health. This provides some great insight into the levers of power.
“Nick Clegg, the former deputy Prime Minister, is a good example of one of those politicians. His interest in food was from a perspective of educational unfairness and life outcomes. He realised that good nutrition was essential to create a level playing field for children in our society,” explains Dolly.
He also said, why is it that when I visit my wife’s poor village in Spain the people there have this incredible relationship with good food, which is wholesome, natural, and traditional, yet there are no class connotations? In the UK, nourishing, fresh food, including fruit and vegetables, is associated with the middle classes and elites. It’s seen as a privilege, intertwined with class identity, where some communities actually reject it.”
Political will, but failure to act
The Nourishing Britian report stresses that there are significant political hurdles to tackling food related ill health. Over the past three decades, Westminster governments of various colours have published 14 national strategies and roughly 700 policies to address the issue, including obesity. Yet this has not shifted the dial on the nation’s health. There’s a political will, but a chronic failure to act on it.
“Politicians are so allergic to being perceived as middle class elites telling people what to do and how to live their lives… that sense of nanny statism. The same is true with public health at large. This kind of political debate was absolutely rife when it came to dealing with smoking or the sugar tax on soft drinks,” details van Tulleken.
“Then you have the issue of commercial influence – big time. It’s not just lobbying. You’ve got entire government departments who are literally there to serve the interests of industries, such as the big supermarkets or the advertising sector. You therefore have mechanisms in-built within the UK government to block any interventions that would be seen to be hampering those industries.”
It was only recently that the UK government was exposed for dropping a health push on fruit and veg, as well as other natural foods, after lobbying by global food firms pedalling ultra-processed products.
Another obstacle that the Nourishing Britian report highlighted is complexity. The food system is such a multifaceted and sprawling issue, tackling it can feel like a political game of “whack-a-mole.” Many actions are needed to drive change, the consequences of which are not always predictable. At the same time responsibility is spread across many government departments, making collaboration and momentum difficult.
“We certainly don’t have a very coherent policy approach to food in the UK or a big idea on how to unleash the market for an alternative economy that will support a nourishing, sustainable, equitable food and farming system,” says Dolly, who has also worked for the Centre for Social Justice.
She is now on a mission to bring about change. Dolly cites the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (AKA The Sugar Tax) bought in by the then Conservative chancellor George Osborne in 2016 and how that has successfully driven a reformulation of drinks sold in the UK (which, admittedly, is a complex issue; there are many who feel the artificial sweeteners used to replace the sugar is doing more damage). But one thing’s clear – bold policies can work.
Crunch time for ultra-processed food
Having become a mother last year (Dolly is married to TV doctor Xand van Tulleken) this has also heightened her awareness around issues concerning children’s food in the UK.
“Firstly I would like to see the formal recognition by government of ultra-processed food as a category that we need to reduce the consumption of. This has already happened in France, Belgium and Brazil, where they’ve integrated recommendations in their national dietary guidelines for people to reduce their consumption of industrialised food,” details Dolly.
She adds: “Secondly, this is where public procurement comes in, we should be promoting 60 to 70% natural foods in public settings versus ultra-processed foods. Procurement by government could drive massive change. Thirdly, we have to look at a coherent policy package around taxing certain foods. We need fiscal levers to generate change, as well as active investment in the food system we really want. Policy must also ensure that those on the lowest incomes have easy and convenient access to affordable, healthy food.”
A study by the Soil Association has found that ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption is particularly prevalent among British children where it makes up a staggering 67% of daily energy intake for under 14-year-olds. Primary school meals often include UPFs, making up 61% of energy intake.
Talking to Dolly van Tulleken provides a rare realisation that there is, and should be, a lot more potential for politics in our food and food in our politics. Perhaps like British diets, it’s all become too convenient, too easy to neglect. The debate, like the food we eat, has become too (ultra) processed to unpick and make sense of.
She concludes: “I dream of the day where there’ll be an election where you’ve got multiple candidates standing on food centric, food prioritised manifestos, or they’re coming at it from their personal perspective, interested in food as one of their top, if not their top priority.”
Learn more about Dolly’s work here: https://dolitics.co.uk/home
One of the key phrases here is “……….after the Second World War to deliver abundant, cheap …..” – the fatal word being ‘cheap’. And because we still feel ‘hard done by’ and think we are poor and need to go for ‘cheap’, that’s one of the ways that keeps people trapped into bad habits. We blindly continue going to supermarkets, making profit for corporations and forgetting to take care of our selves (and each other). The fact is that we waste so much money on UPFs – food that has no nutritional content, we miss the fact that a small amount of something of quality is loads better for us than a massive amount (and a basic diet) of food that will never nourish us properly – our body or our soul. The growing together and the shared preparation of our food is of huge importance. Even if somebody else does the growing (and our Riverford box arrives on the doorstep), the fun that can be had and the collaboration and understanding of processes that can be gained by our preparing food as a family experience is just a wonderful thing. Like Dolly, I look forward to a time when we have more understanding and inclination to join in on some real experiences that are going to add to the quality of our lives as a whole. Let’s play with our food!! I do believe and have faith that we can live more wholesome lives. When ‘politics’ is used to close the Nestle, Coca Cola and Haribo factories (and more) as they provide zero nutrition for any human being, then we, as ‘advanced’ human beings will have made some progress!!!
As a nation, we now lack food knowledge and seem to have lost any kind of food culture, as seen in Spain, France, Greece and even Bulgaria. Removing food education and the means to teach it has resulted in two generations of adults who cannot pass on food skills and knowledge because they don’t have any. Availability of ‘fast food’, where it is cheaper to send your kid to the shop for a bag of chips instead of feeding them at home.
On a different note, manufacturers have been reformulating products for decades, as the government listens to and acts on lobbying to reduce fat, sugar and salt, and let’s not forget acrylamide. It’s an ever changing picture, and that is without the ‘value engineering’ (cheapening) of recipes which is also a constant.