to think "everyone will have the food they need" is a way of saying that food choice will be limited

[chomalungma]

It's what Gove said this morning when asked about food after Brexit.

"Everyone will have the food they need"

I am sure that's true....and who needs a wide choice of food anyway.

If only we could ration people according to which way they voted. That would be fun...

You’re talking as if the only food that will be limited is the unhealthy food. It’s the fruit and veg that will be limited and expensive.

Absolutely. PP are talking upthread about reduced choices in things like fizzy drinks, which have very long shelf lives. It's going to be the fresh stuff (so, mostly, the healthier stuff) where there are the biggest problems.

It's also a bit late in the day to encourage people to grow their own in time for 1 November!

As for more food choices making people slimmer - look at the way people have burgeoned in size since the rationing of the 1950s ended - look at how much slimmer people were in the first half of the 20th Century! More food choice means that people eat more, it's as simple as that.

I can't wait to not be thin shamed. I'm a normal weight, normal bmi. Yet overweight and obese women have the nerve to call me skinny and tell me I "need to eat something".

If Brexit results in people slimming down to a normal weight, I'm all for it.

I also wonder whether this 'everyone' will include formula-fed babies. Because that's what massively worried me before the March deadline - almost all formula is imported, and I ended up stockpiling a lot of DS's Hipp Organic (made in Germany). Fortunately for me he's now over a year and so off formula, but I'd be even more worried now if he was still reliant on formula as I think shortages look even more likely.

Btw, WHO is going to plant, tend to, grow and pick all these lovely veg

I read this as “World Health Organisation is going to plant, tend to...etc” and thought really? They’re gonna do that for us???

The food choices will be most limited for those on a small income. People will eat the cheapest they can afford, which is usually the crappy, sugar and fat laden food.

That has always been the case, and it's only quite recently that we have had access to year-round, out-of-season fruit and veg. The point is that variety makes people eat more. Take the example of custard creams above - if you had nothing but custard creams to eat, you'd soon get fed up of them.

People over-eat because stuff is there - an endless variety of food that we simply don't need. Even 'crappy' food can only make you fat if you eat too much of it.

Look at the supermarket of 30-50 years ago - you didn't walk in and find yourself confronted by stacks of do-nuts, an oozing deli-counter, ready-roasted meats and 30 different types of pizza. There weren't 50 varieties of crisps and snacks, popcorn, supposedly healthy rice-cakes, 'diet' brands of this and that to fool people that eating them didn't count.

I am a remainer. But that doesn't mean that I think a food shortage will do us any great harm. My reasons for not wanting Brexit run much deeper than that.

I'm sure I remember hearing/reading that although wartime rationing was obviously a complete pita, people actually ate quite healthily because portions were smaller, fats and sugar restricted, and vegetables plentiful, as people were encouraged to grow their own.

Nothing was 'plentiful' and the rations for an adult for a week look more like the daily ration for 2019. People had rickets and vitamin C deficiency and were skinny. Go look at your granny's wedding photos. In 1950 the waist size of the average British woman was 27 inches (it was 34 in. in 2017).

Gee thanks for that Mr Govie Govie Govie.

Remind me again, how many dining rooms with heavily subsidised food on offer are there at the HOC?

WIll there be enough room for us all to pop along for steak and chips (9.99) or fish and chips (5.79) or will we have to go down market and have the bowl of soup(about a pound) followed by sponge and custard(also about a pound). Chance would be a fine thing.

Fralla

That would be very helpful of them.

Christ, the 'I'm alright Jack' comments here are pretty grim.

It's going to be 'fun' for anyone with allergies/intolerances/hyperemisis.

I'm off to google where brocolli and spinach come from!

I think you may struggle if you can't cook or have no imagination. I'm just starting to make up my own recipes but it might be a good idea to learn now and source ingredients that will last forever.

He’s good, isn’t he? Barely skipped a beat as he said it.
Tosser.

Bravelurker, I believe that Tin Can Cook book is very good for preparing food from long life ingredients.

I’m sure that’s what they’re told in North Korea too.

viques

“Gee thanks for that Mr Govie Govie Govie.”

😂😂😂

UK agriculture mainly produces dairy products, meat and wheat doesn't it? Very little in the way of fruit and vegetables, except potatoes and for a few weeks per year strawberries

I think you may struggle if you can't cook or have no imagination.

Or have limited options (in food and cooking) due to disability.

When Gove refers to everyone, he means everyone he cares about. Which does not include the less wealthy and the vulnerable.

FFS, rationing did not result in more health! Visit The Peoples' Palace in Glasgow, so you can swot up on how semi-starvation, which rationing was, is not healthy and was a huge cause of maternal and neonatal death due to 'contracted pelvis' from rickets. But they were slim so that's what counts .

Gove doesn't give a fuck if everyone has food, he and his ilk will be fine and dandy - all their money safe offshore.

How can people be so thick?

Lots of apples, and rhubarb, not sure about other fruit and veg.
And rape fields - but I don't know what that's used for.

The reason I talked about fizzy drinks is because, if you can only clear a certain number of shipments a day, how will you prioritise? Things like fizzy drinks, which no-one actually needs (though the might not be as nice straight!) will not be making it to the front of the queue.

Fresh produce, and other items deemed more necessary, should attract priority. Given that everything is on a 'just in time' system, the bare shelves that remain will be those where the non-essential items were.

BTW: slight but I hope brief deviation - can the govt send a military cargo plane to pick up (at least prescription) medicines, and fly them in over any disruption? I know military planes carry meds in proper conditions (they do for overseas deployments).

But that doesn't mean that I think a food shortage will do us any great harm.

You mean it won't do you any great harm

I still laugh at my friend saying ‘sure we were fine in the 70s’. I pointed out that he was an only child to parents that could afford to spoil him, whereas I was in a family with siblings that went hungry often, plus who the hell wants to go back to eating bland food? He also used the ‘if we have to live on good old British baked beans and toast for a while, it’ll not do us any harm’. His face when I pointed out that good old British baked beans are actually grown in really hot countries and send here, you could see the penny starting to drop.

I used to love Vesta curry! I wonder what it tastes like now?

@S1naidSucks, thank you for that. I detest cookery shows and following recipes, but I think it might be the way forward.
Also with no money to have fun with, I will have the time to do it, adopt it as a new hobby.