Who’s the bad boy now then?

Discovering that the foods we love aren’t good for the environment means sacrifices have to be made, says dairy farmer Ro Collingborn

IF you slavishly followed government recommendations, you’d have certainly been doing the wrong thing for at least half the time.

Remember Edwina Currie and her eggs?

As Junior Health Minister, she was notorious for her 1988 public statement: “Most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella.” The public alarm resulting from her pronouncement caused egg sales to decline by 60% and put many small producers out of business. It also led to greatly increased suffering for hens, which now had to have a whole plethora of injections so that no disease like salmonella could be transferred to humans.

There are two sides to every story however – it was later revealed that there was a problem with salmonella in eggs at the time, though the problem could have been better handled, and there was also the surprising affair with John Major.

What is the nutritional advice years on? “Eat as many eggs as you like, they’re good for you.” It’s now said that eggs increase the level of HDL, the “good cholesterol.” In one study, eating two eggs a day for six weeks increased HDL by 10%.

Faced with an ever increasing obesity problem, the Department of Health went for “low fat”, ignoring the fact that this problem could have been caused by the modern processed diet, rather than products like milk, cheese, butter and lard which had been part of British diets for millennia. To make low-fat products edible, manufacturers added copious amounts of sugar. Sugar is now the latest bad boy – rather late in the day. Advice to avoid sugary drinks years ago would have saved many small children’s teeth.

Remember when we were told to cut down on butter and lard, natural fats and eat low fat products instead which spawned the margarine industry with its industrial fats. These Trans fats, as they were known, lowered HDL – “good” cholesterol – levels. Years later we are told that these industrial fats may contain possible carcinogens. Lard from free range animals is resistant to high heat and therefore a good choice for deep frying. In moderation, butter is a healthy part of your diet; it’s rich in nutrients like bonebuilding calcium and contains compounds linked to lower chances of obesity.

Government advice has extended to what we drive – diesel cars not petrol cars, and for many years diesel was subsidised at the pumps, until Government advice did a U-turn and diesel became the next bad boy.

It’s confusing for a poor old consumer, wanting to do the right thing but finding foods we love aren’t good for the environment. I need to stop eating scallops. I only started eating them recently when they became commonplace on restaurant menus. They are delicious but I understand that extracting them by dragging the sea bed is doing horrible damage and destroying the habitat of many other sea creatures.

Avocados are now a problem for my conscience too. I love them and have started having them as an essential ingredient to liven up our salad bowl. Yet we’re told that the huge demand for avocados in Europe and the US is causing irretrievable environmental effects. Ancient Mexican forests have been destroyed for avocado production

and burning has also taken place. Avocados need intensive irrigation in areas where there is a water problem. There has been loss of biodiversity, soil degradation and extreme weather conditions, all due to our love of avocados.

I’ve just made another horrific discovery about almonds, widely sold in the supermarkets in packs of nuts and in almond milk. Some 80% of the world’s almonds are grown in California, and it’s a rapidly growing industry, increasing by 10% in seven years to 2014 and 18% more in 2020 than in 2019.

Almonds have a catastrophic water footprint, I’m told one almond to 3.2 gallons of water! This is in a state with serious water shortages. There is no crop rotation, and deep drilling for water means that the soil is drying rapidly, affecting habitat for water birds, fish and contributing to wildfires.

Bees which are brought in for pollination are frequently dying due to

the chemicals used on the almond trees. Californian is currently suffering from a severe drought with savagely high temperatures .

I do recognise that there has been an alarming decline in the number of insects, but round here it isn’t obvious.

There is a bumble bee nest in a hole under the boarding outside our kitchen and on the other side of the house a large population of masonry bees has bored into the stonework, creating a dimpled effect.

The vegetable garden is home to millions of black fly and a smaller population of lady birds who can’t keep up, the air is full of flies and gnats, and many other small flying things I can’t identify, giving food to swallows and bats who fly around the house each evening. The flower garden is alive, full of bees and butterflies.

When I’m gardening there is a constant background noise, the thrumming voice of many insects. As

I write, there’s even a squirrel trying hard to get in through the window. Goodness knows why! We may live in a small overcrowded country, but every one of us is part of the big, wide world, and how we live in the UK has consequences elsewhere and what we eat is a big part of this.

The livestock industry is very aware of the damage done to the Brazilian rainforest from the import of soya and is looking hard for alternative homegrown proteins. I am sure vegans would love tofu to be made of something other than soya.

My diet might be less interesting without almonds, avocados and scallops, but I need to make the sacrifice.

Ro Collingborn has been dairy chairman of the Women’s Food and Farming Union, on the Milk Development Council, the Veterinary Products Committee, the RSPCA Council and is currently a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Director

We’re told that the huge demand for avocados in Europe and the US is causing irretrievable environmental effects