Beware the zealots who claim junk food is the cause of all society's ills, says this writer in her new book: trans fats are no match for our intransigent class system.
Food bores have been with us forever, but in the past, epicureans and gastronomes kept to their own kind, and waxed lyrical about stuffing down lark's tongues in the privacy of their own vomitoriums. They obviously got sufficient kicks from their personal obsession to recognise it for what it was – just another taste thrill, literally – and then, appetites satisfied, went off to worship their chosen gods, albeit false ones. Today's food bores, however – in the absence of having any life of the mind or the spirit – have made what should be a private pursuit into a public crusade; the cult of 'Foodoo'.
Foodoo cult leaders – Jamie Oliver and Gillian McKeith come immediately to mind, hectoring horribly – are so narrow-minded and unimaginative (McKeith can poke around the excrement of strangers for money and still not see herself as an object of pity) that they have focused on grub as an explanation for all that ails the world.
Working-class kids doing lousily at school and the gap between rich and poor in this country growing ever greater? It's not our foul class system and the continuing stranglehold of the old school tie bolstering up the dumb, rich kids and keeping down the smart, poor kids; no, it's Turkey Twizzlers! Put that right and, hey presto, everything's beautiful and everyone's equal!
It's a lie of course. The nutritional input of growing youngsters is neither here nor there; the Eton mess served up at lunchtimes would cause a riot at Wormwood Scrubs, yet the boys who eat it go on to run the country, as they always have.
And when we look at our greatest sportsmen, particularly footballers, they are to a man working-class lads who have grown up tucking into just the same trans fats as everyone else on their estate.
'A healthy mind in a healthy body' goes the old saying. All well and good. But, as Peggy Lee – a dedicated drinker who was also a great performing artist – once asked, 'is that ALL there is?' Look at the great wits and writers since time immemorial – what an all-round smoking, drinking, troughing tribe they were! Thank goodness that Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, two great examples of brilliant minds in dodgy bodies, aren't still around to be subjected to the imbecility of the Foodoo Nation – she'd be forced into apologising on primetime TV, while poor Oscar would be yelled at by Harvey The Mean Marine as he dragged himself around an obstacle course, one-liners silenced for once. My dear, the indignity!
What exactly is missing in the lives of the followers of Foodoo that they take it upon themselves to worry so obsessively about what other people eat? I don't know if it's cause or effect, or what came first – the corn-fed chicken or the free-range egg – but it is a fact that people who are obsessed with healthy eating are quite mind-blowingly boring to talk to. I for one would rather be stuck in a lift with Oscar and Dottie than Gillian and Jamie.
'Winning Olympics can stop Britain becoming a nation of Vicky Pollards!' screamed a Mail headline. But my fear would be that a nation of health-bores, obsessively cautious about and fearful of mere food, could never have produced the sick, brilliant minds who produced Vicky, Daffyd etc in the first place. And frankly, I'd rather be 'big-boned' than dull-minded. I'd rather put 'junk food' in my mouth than have boring garbage come out of it. I'd rather sit on my fat ass reading books and eating chocs all day than be as self-righteous as people like Oliver and McKeith, who really seem to believe that if the poorly educated and badly paid ate ten portions of fruit and veg, society would then play fair with them and their problems would be solved.
The simple fact is that you are not what you eat; you are where you're born, you are how rich your parents are, you are where you went to school, what you are lucky enough to be handed on a plate. Even Ruth Kelly has admitted that the gap of achievement between the richest and poorest children is now bigger than when Labour came to power.
The idea that all that is stopping working-class children from achieving is that their dumb, working-class parents are stuffing them with Turkey Twizzlers – rather than the whole rotten system of class, privilege and nepotism – is a sickening and dangerous lie.
And a chub, after all, can lose weight, as I well know. But a life-sucking, fun-crushing bore, alas, is one forever.
What do you think? Has bad food become a scapegoat for social problems? Email us at food@johnbrowngroup.co.uk. 'Made in Brighton' by Julie Burchill and Daniel Raven (Virgin Books; £14.99) is available now.
Price correct at time of publication.