Do me a favour: go and dig in your cupboards to find the healthiest, most nutritionally-abundant ingredient you can. A tin of aduki beans, maybe? Seaweed? Perhaps some stoneground spelt flour? Now flip that packaging over and read the expiry date. If it’s still usable, you’re in the minority, because if stats on UK eating habits are to be believed, these ingredients may make it into our cupboards – but they certainly aren’t making it to our mouths.
When Professor Tim Spector reported in his book (Vintage, £12.99) that 50 per cent of serious diseases are avoidable via ‘optimum diet’, he highlighted the huge role our attitude to food plays in the way our lives will unfold. And it’s not that we don’t try to address this: