One thing we'd like to ask about this National Food Strategy

Well, another thing. Much blame is placed upon the consumption of “ultraprocessed” food. The argument then being that we should all be eating unprocessed foods. Or rather, foods that are not processed in a factory, but are processed in the kitchen, at home.

Hmm, well, OK. Who is going to do this?

Or, to put it another way, why are we trying to abolish the washing machine?

As both Hans Rosling and Ha-Joon Chang have been known to point out the washing machine matters. For the former it brought him books, the latter has insisted - and he’s probably right so far at least - that it’s a more important technology than the internet.

Neither are really referring to the machine itself, rather it’s a symbol of all those domestic technologies which have saved that unpaid labour in the household. The very things which have allowed the economic emancipation of women over the past century or so.

The demand now is that the processing in factories must stop. Thus, someone, somewhere, is going to have to be doing it at home. So, who is that going to be?

To put this another way, has Mr. Dimbleby actually thought through the effects of adding another 5 to 10 hours (perhaps a 50 to 100% rise) to the household weekly labour budget? We’re really pretty certain that he hasn’t and also that he should.