Diet, health, inequality: Why our food supply system doesn't work

Tim Lang, Britain's leading expert on food policy, says we already faced a challenge unmatched since the war. And things just got worse...Coronavirus - latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageTim Lang likes to take the long view. A conversation with the internationally renowned professor of food policy at London's City University will roam in detail from the repeal of the Corn Laws, through Brexit and back again, the narrative seasoned with detailed facts and figures. It's why he has been a consultant to the World Health Organization, special adviser to four House of Commons select committee inquiries and a food policy adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. So when he says in his new book, Feeding Britain, that, "although not officially at war, the UK is, de facto, facing a wartime scale of food challenge", it's worth paying attention. We are, he says, in serious trouble.Lang, who established the pioneering Centre for Food Policy at City University in 1994, makes no apologies for the bluntness of the statement. "I did not write that lightly," he says, when we meet in central London. "I sat in my study, reviewing all the data. Things have just got worse." Even so, he recognises how it looks. Panic buying aside, our supermarket shelves are usually full. We have access to a greater range of ingredients at better prices than at any time in human history. The conversation around how and what we eat often feels like it sits front and centre of the culture. "I like my food," he says. "More joy around food has come into our lives." Continue reading...