I’m in Bill’s, looking at a lot of green vegetables, when a light bulb goes on in my head: I understand the solution to Britain’s problem of obesity. Here it is! Right in front of my eyes! And the amazing thing is that the solution is incredibly simple. So simple, in fact, that I begin to doubt it. Looking at the cabbages and broccoli, I feel that, somehow, I must be wrong.
I think: surely somebody must have thought of this.
And: those people at the Department of Health - what have they come up with? Eat five helpings of fruit and vegetables a day. That’s the best idea they’ve had. Sure, it tells you to eat good stuff. But it doesn’t tell you not to eat bad stuff, does it? And that’s the big thing, isn’t it - not eating bad stuff.
Here’s my idea: as far as humanly possible, only buy food that has no packaging. Buy vegetables at the greengrocers, meat from the butcher, and so on. Try to eat stuff that is loose at the time of purchase. If people did this, they’d lose weight, wouldn’t they? They’d have to learn to cook, of course. But they’d be healthy. And we’d have no need for incinerators.
Yeah, right, but think of the headaches it would cause. Less profit for the food companies, fewer ‘food miles’, less haulage business. It all adds up to lots of people on the dole. That’s what I’m thinking as I walk out of Bill’s, with a cabbage, a bunch of purple sprouting broccoli, some leeks, and a handful of blueberries. Three paper bags and a cardboard punnet.
Not many votes in that, are there?