Scots would live longer if....

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

.... they ate like the English. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15561501 And so would the Welsh and Northern Irish as well. So put down your deep fried Mars Bars O Celtic brethren, pick up a Yorkshire Pudding and do your arteries a favour. What could be controversial about that?

I've driven through Bettyhill on the way to Cocoa Mountain.

I'd never even heard of Ocado til I came on MN
I know Bettyhill though and have spent many happy hours at Farr Bay.
But back to Cogito (I always have a chuckle at your nickname btw ), the Celtic/ Anglo dietary divide is just a reflection of overall socioeconomic differences, no?

Same, schmohawk. Never heard of it and have never seen a Waitrose either.

If you look back to the diet of our great grandparents and grandparents, there diet was mainly oatmeal, fish, eggs, potato, home grown vegetables if they could, rabbit and full fat unpasteurised dairy. A fairly basic diet ruled by the seasons or rationing.
They walked or cycled everywhere.

If you ever get a chance to visit the old graveyard on the Howe of the Mearns where Lewis Grassic Gibbon is buried, almost all those buried there lived to over 90 plus.

I firmly blame the big four supermarkets which not only have roads detoured and vast free car parks but the crap they sell by stealth (special offers, bogof, end of aisle, hard advertising, etc) and the entire psychology behind the planning so you buy loads of junkfood and spend lots. Profit before health.
Lager can sell for less than a bottle of water ffs.

Totally agree soup, although we have access to a far greater range of foods now, on the whole we have a poorer diet. The supermarkets have certainly played a huge part in this; although in a way their success was probably inevitable in our free market capitalist economy, where private gain comes before public good. Not saying this is right, I'm just not sure what a feasible mainstream alternative might be now, iyswim? But in the end, the availability of the range of foods that people have come to expect all year round will surely be determined by changes in global food supply, not customer demand!
Will certainly check out the Mearns graveyard if I'm in that area. Have a real soft spot for Sunset Song and the descriptions of that landscape.