Bad Food Britain: How A Nation Ruined Its Appetite

So it is not so much that Britons do not have the time to cook, than that they no longer see cooking as a good use of their time.

Why would one want to cook, so the thinking goes, when nearly everything else in life is potentially more interesting and rewarding?

Like the archetypal forgetful husband, who dashes out guiltily to luxurious shops to buy a hasty, badly-chosen and expensive present for his largely ignored wife, many working women in Britain now dash out to the supermarket, in search of products that look as though they approximate to an idea of likeable, edible food. Indeed, in the age of the ‘cash rich, time poor’ shopper, not having time to cook has become a sign of status. If you do still cook on a humdrum daily basis, you risk being seen as less of an achiever than those who don’t – by implication, your time should be taken up with something more worthwhile and improving than cooking.

Delia’s retirement marked the consignment of any serious attempt to teach Britain practical cooking skills to the dustbin.

prefer, finally, to spend lots of money on supermarket ready-meals while idly turning the pages of spotlessly clean cookery books until the microwave pings.

Welcome to the peculiarly British world of food pornography, where watching other people cooking food or talking about cooking food has become a substitute for doing it yourself.

One out of every two meals eaten in Britain is now eaten alone

BRITAIN’S TOP 10 BAD FOOD BELIEFS
* Eating is about refuelling, not pleasure. A part of life’s routine, just like going to the lavatory.
* Home cooking takes too long. Successful Britons buy ready-made food instead.
* Food is not important. Pretty much everything else in life matters more.
* A dining table is a redundant item of furniture.
* The single most important thing to know about food is what it costs.
* There is no point in giving children good food. They won’t appreciate it.
* There is no such thing as bad foods, only bad diets.
* British supermarkets stock such great food, there is no need to shop else

One out of every two meals eaten in Britain is now eaten alone