Like climate change is food waste, and health, an emergency?

Latest news about Heart disease deaths in under 75’s going up for the first time in 50 years and the government appointing a ‘Food Waste’ Chief means we have an emergency situation in the food industry. Especially when we have known about the problem for years yet watched it get worse.

‘Emergencies’ require radical action. Our previous blogs: Change the economics of the food industry and The Next Big idea provide some radical solutions with getting food on the curriculum at the centre.

This is because to make change we need to have an enlightened, unselfish, society. The recent climate emergency rallies were galvanised by the younger generations so it seems obvious that they should learn about food growing, cooking and nutrition and influence their families. Especially when the supermarkets and big business are spending £millions telling consumers that they should buy more cheap sugary fatty, foods, take aways and salty ready meals.

We need the carrot and stick approach to make change. Sugar tax should be followed with a ‘Fat’ tax to provide the ‘stick’ stimulus, better, healthier, cheaper food from cooking real ingredients should be the ‘Carrot’ incentive. (Sorry about the pun)

When 20% of NHS spend is on food related disease, over half our schools already have a veg patch and many organisations already have already written the teaching notes for the curriculum, educating the next generation about food seems a no brainer. Please sign our petition here