Food Justice

I've got a feeling I've got a little political phase coming on. Partly it's New Job: lots of political stuff coming my way rather than lots of shite about e-marketing and content management systems, and partly it's because I've got time for it in my head at the moment. It's either that or watch Midsomer Murders every week. Or maybe both, who knows.

A long time ago, when I had the Job In A Business Park, I went out for a long walk at lunchtime down to the only real shop it was possible to walk to. It had really good home made sandwiches and I liked it a lot. I think it's shut down now, because they opened some kind of hideous shopping plaza across the road.

But it was still open then, and I was walking back to work, daydreaming about what I was going to do with my life, because though I was working with some lovely people, the Business Park was destroying my soul and this wasn't going to change anytime soon. It was a feeling that had kind of been there for years, but it was harder to ignore there than anywhere else. That song by Sinead O'Connor where she screams "Why don't you go out there and do something useful" -- that song was going on in my head.

And I decided that one thing I would really like to do was take on junk food. There had been a story in the news about teenage parents whose baby had died of salt poisoning beacuse they had fed it on liquidised burgers and fried egg sandwiches, which is what they were eating. I was reading about the McLibel two. I had been into Iceland looking for something that the Co-op didn't have and got angry about all the frozen shite that was really cheap but which you'd get scurvy if you lived off, and I was coming to terms with the fact that I had just moved in with Ms P who not only didn't know how to cook, she didn't know how to shop. If you didn't feed her, she'd live on toast. And ketchup.

And I was thinking to myself that while people say that it's cheaper to eat junk food than fresh food, is it really? Somewhere like India or South East Asia, the cheapest food comes from street stalls where they make it right in front of you. Things like lentils and potatoes are dirt cheap, surely? But of course you've got to know what to do with them, how to cook them, make them taste good, do stuff to them so kids will eat them, get round this thing that men have about it's not a meal if it's not got meat in it, etc.

That was the essence of my big rambling thought. How cool it would be to be part of something that meant people didn't buy value burgers anymore because they had better options that didn't cost them any more. I could do a course in nutrition! I could write a book! Heart disease rates would drop through the floor! Nobody would ever eat KFC again!

But I did recognise this for the hopeless middle class daydream that it was, wandering through the Business Park with my stomach full of smoked mackerel salad sandwich on granary bread, and while I returned to it a few times like all the other hopeless middle class daydreams, it never went anywhere.

Then today I discovered Food Justice -- the campaign for the Food Poverty (Eradication) Bill. Thank god for people who understand how to get things done. Now *that's* what I call strategic. Support them! Tell your friends! I'm going to.

joella