It’s that time of year again – we’ve compiled our favourite reads from the last 12 months, enough to keep you busy until next year!

 

 

Soil to Gut: How to regenerate your health with food  

Author: Lucy Williamson; Publisher: 5M Books Ltd 

Reviewed by Victoria Halliday

Working for 15 years as both a farm and small animal vet, before training as a public health nutritionist, Dr Lucy Williamson brings a unique perspective to the relationship between food and health. 

With Soil to Gut, her aim is to help readers move beyond heavily marketed food fads towards a more grounded and joyful approach to eating. Taking a ‘whole health’ approach, Dr Williamson focuses on the gut microbiome and how it influences many aspects of our wellbeing. By understanding how different foods nourish – or deplete – us, we can create a gut environment in which beneficial microbes are better able to outcompete those that may be harmful. 

Soil to Gut shows how this science translates into everyday cooking and eating, taking readers on a journey through the main food groups and explaining how different foods interact with our bodies. At the heart of Dr Williamson’s approach is the connection between the health of our soils and the health of people. A healthy soil ecosystem drives the nutrient cycle: “the natural loop that moves nutrients from soil, through plant roots, into pasture for grazing animals or into crops that feed us”. As soils have become depleted and increasingly reliant on chemical inputs, the nutrient density of many foods has declined. Dr Williamson argues that this is one of the factors contributing to the epidemic of ‘hidden hunger’, where we consume enough calories but insufficient nutrients. She suggests that, at an individual level, we can help counter this by choosing food with a better story behind it and, at a systems level, by supporting farming practices that prioritise soil health. 

Throughout the book, Dr Williamson combines accessible explanations with practical recipes and tips that make the science easy to apply in the kitchen. Rather than prescribing a rigid way of eating, she encourages readers to build a more diverse, nourishing and enjoyable diet while thinking more deeply about where their food comes from. For anyone interested in the links between farming, food and health, Soil to Gut is an engaging, evidence-informed guide that offers practical advice alongside a compelling case for reconnecting the health of people with the health of the land. 

 

Eat the Planet Well: How to fix our toxic food system – one meal at a time

Author: Dave Goulson; Publisher: Jonathan Cape 

Reviewed by Alicia Miller 

Noted environmentalist David Goulson has written widely about the wonder of insects and their importance to our survival as humans. But in this latest book, Eat the Planet Well, he steps into much broader territory, interrogating the monumental problems of our food system which, he comments, is ‘toxic to us and toxic to our planet’. 

Food has largely become a danger to us. The arrival of ultra-processed foods, especially in the UK and US – but increasingly across the world – has led us down a path to ill health and one that it is hard to escape from. We are not only suffering from non-communicable diseases, but we are also consuming an array of pesticides and forever chemicals among other dangers, when we sit down to eat. Further, and arguably more importantly, the intensive nature of our industrial food system is not just destroying our health, it is also rampantly working to destroy our nature – and without nature, we face a denuded and devastated planet that will feed us poorly. 

Goulson covers a lot of ground in Eat the Planet Well – understanding the problems of our industrialised food system is a good starting place for changing how we eat. Farming organically with an understanding of nature’s value is vitally important. There is an essential balance that is lost when the lives of animals are degraded, plants are sprayed heavily with pesticides and soil health declines. Goulson maps out the problems step by step, helping us to think again about how we eat and what we can do to eat better. Each chapter focuses on a specific issue – Carbon, Cows and Climate Change, Should I Buy Local Food, Limited Land and Water and onwards. It’s a comprehensive analysis of what is needed to create a kinder, gentler world that will truly feed us well.

 

Reaping What She Sows: How women are rebuilding our broken food system 

Author: Nancy Matsumoto; Publisher: Melville House Publishing 

Reviewed by Victoria Halliday

To say that our industrialised food system is broken has become a familiar refrain. We hear it so often, yet supermarket shelves remain full and life carries on much as normal. It’s easy to tune out the warnings and keep filling our trolleys. After all, what is it that we’re actually able to do? 

Reaping What She Sows by Nancy Matsumoto shows that there is in fact much we can and must do, if we’re going to revive our ailing food system. The book serves as a powerful antidote to apathy, telling the stories of women around the world who are rolling up their sleeves to rebuild food and farming for the better, bringing their remarkable ingenuity, tenacity and compassion to the task. 

Matsumoto shows how cooperative movements and creative solutions have been born out of systems of oppression, and how these might energise today’s efforts to build an alternative food system in the face of Big Food oligarchies and late-stage capitalism.  Women have historically been important leaders in food production and distribution, but in many modern societies, they have been relegated to the margins of male-dominated industrialised systems. Yet it is precisely because they have been excluded from the dominant system’s centres of power that women have emerged as early adopters of progressive food system change. 

The stories that Matsumoto shares are remarkable. She meets women who have dedicated their lives to pushing for racial justice in agriculture, who are working to rebuild local grain economies, who are coordinating vertically integrated cooperatives that protect smallholders, who are forging the way in building sustainable fisheries – and many more. By exploring the messy human realities alongside the broader systems at play, Matsumoto creates a fascinating read. Reaping What She Sows is recommended for anyone seeking inspiration in their own work or simply looking for a refreshing dose of optimism and agency about the future. 

Importantly, Matsumoto reminds us that change is not only the preserve of policymakers and producers. As consumers, we also have the power to catalyse the transformation of food and farming: “Sometimes a short, ethical supply chain product is hidden in plain sight in a [megastore]. The onus is on us, the consumer, to look for companies that we know are part of the alt system we want to support.”

 

Eat Your Garden: Edimentals as a beautiful, low-effort way to grow food 

Author: Harry Holding; Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing 

Reviewed by Isabel Eaton 

For those who grow their own food, this has not been an easy summer. High temperatures combined with little to no rainfall have made the watering of thirsty fruits and vegetables a seemingly endless task and, against the backdrop of drought and hosepipe bans, one tinged with a distinct sense of unease. In gardens and allotments across the country, many will be asking themselves whether the time has come to do things differently – Harry Holding’s new book, Eat Your Garden, may well hold a solution. 

Award-winning garden designer and life-long fan of growing-your-own, Harry Holding is a passionate advocate for ‘edimentals’ – plants that look good, taste good and do good for biodiversity and the soil. Doing away with the idea that edible and ornamental plants are distinct entities, with the former often confined to the allotment or functional beds hidden at the bottom of the garden, Eat Your Garden sets out the case for putting edible plants at the heart of garden design for reasons of both sustainability and beauty. 

The benefits of perennial edibles, Harry explains, are manifold. Because they have time to develop strong root systems, they are more resilient in the face of challenging weather conditions and pests, as well as being better for the soil, improving structure and reducing disturbance. Once established, they are also lower in effort and cost as there is no need to resow and plant them each year. And with such a wide variety of plants available, they can provide just as much aesthetic interest in the garden as their non-edible equivalents. 

In this accessible and practical guide, Harry shares the profiles of some of the plants he commonly uses in his designs (from familiar favourites such as fennel and chives to many you may not have known were edible, such has Hostas and Lamb’s Ear); he explores the principles of planting design in the edimental garden, and offers insights into some of the most exciting and experimental edimental gardens from around the world. Photos throughout the book help to bring the topic to life and make this a highly readable introduction to the world of edimentals, which may well get gardeners thinking differently about how to produce food in a changing climate.

 

Eating Behind Bars: Ending the hidden punishment of food in prison 

Authors: Leslie Soble, Alex Busansky & Aishatu R. Yusuf; Publisher: New Press  

Reviewed by Imogen Crossland 

Eating Behind Bars is an essential read for anyone who wants to better understand America’s broken prison system and how it might be fixed. Winner of a James Beard Foundation Media Award, the book follows a landmark 2020 investigation of the same title, exploring the woeful state of prison food in the US. Leslie Soble and the team at Impact Justice, a US-based non-profit working to reform the criminal justice system, shed light on an issue that has, until recently, received little public attention. What goes on behind prison doors is so often out of sight, out of mind. 

Grounded in the unflinchingly honest words of incarcerated people, their family members and prison staff, the first half describes rat-infested kitchens, rotten food and drinking taps running with brown water that “sparkles” with flecks of metal. The fact that many of the people subjected to these meals are also forced to work on one of America’s industrial-scale prison farms feels especially ironic – producing food for the mass market under horrific conditions, without ever tasting it themselves. 

What follows, however, is an uplifting collection of stories: of initiatives and individuals working tirelessly to bring about change. From San Quentin prison in California, where a movement led by residents has produced a ‘Scandi-style’ plan to transform the food environment, to the ‘Chefs in Prisons’ programme in Maine, where Michelin-starred chefs swap restaurants for prison kitchens, supporting staff with menu design, local sourcing and reducing waste, these examples show what meaningful reform can look like in practice, and leave you feeling optimistic that change is possible.

The idea that ‘food is medicine’ is a powerful core message, and incarcerated people understand better than anyone the impact poor nutrition has on physical and mental health, as well as the restorative potential of good food. It’s also made clear that reforming prison systems doesn’t just benefit those inside – the effects reverberate far across families, local communities and the natural environment. 

It’s a radical book on an important issue, one that ultimately affects all of us. The following quote really captures the heart of it: “We’re not making anyone safer by wielding food as a weapon of punishment. Safety comes when people’s fundamental needs for shelter, sustenance, connection, and purpose are met, and when we treat each other with care and respect.”

 

Cheese Trekking: How microbes, landscapes, livestock and human cultures shape terroir 

Author: Trevor Wamedahl; Publisher: Chelsea Green 

Reviewed by Anna Heinlein 

Last year, I made around 900 litres of cider and perry using only the wild yeasts naturally present on the fruit. For me, that’s what terroir is all about: the microorganisms that reflect the place where the apples and pears were grown, capturing the uniqueness of an orchard and the fruits it produces. I’d always thought about terroir in relation to cider, perry and wine, but I did have a real lightbulb moment when I read Trevor Wamedahl’s Cheese Trekking– the same living microbial communities shape cheese too.  

Cheese Trekking takes you on a journey through landscapes and cultures, introducing the people, animals and environments behind some rare and remarkable cheeses. Wamedahl brings each place vividly to life, whether it’s sheep grazing through Mediterranean scrub in Italy among the deep red flowers of sulla, or herders air-drying yak milk cheese on the roofs of their ‘gers’ (circular structures known to many as yurts) in the Mongolian steppe. Along the way, he explores the agroforestry and pastoral systems that have evolved alongside these native livestock breeds and traditional foods, showing how closely they are intertwined with the landscapes that sustain them. He describes this as ‘deep terroir…a direct aromatic correlation exists between a cheese and the place it is made’.  

Many of the cheeses Wamedahl explores are made without a starter culture – the cheeses are shaped by four factors (he calls them the ‘layers of terroir’): the livestock (breed, herd size and health); the location,which influences their feed, its mineral content, and the water and air they breathe; and a community of beneficial microbes living on the cheese.  This is, then, all brought together by human cultural practices. ‘To this day, the recipe lives on in a cultural body, the amassed multi–generational experiential knowledge passed down by doing the work and honing the senses to the standards set by tradition. It is this knowledge – combined with the tools, materials, and techniques that forms the layer of cultural terroir. The people are the recipe.’ 

Wamedahl also reflects on his own journey from conventional cheesemaking towards a much deeper appreciation of traditional methods, while questioning how packaged starters and standardised processes have shaped the cheeses we produce and eat today. It was fascinating to learn that, despite these pressures, pockets of truly natural cheesemaking continue to survive. The book has certainly encouraged me to seek out smaller producers, both at home and when travelling. 

The book can be a bit technical at times, but I appreciated the details and there’s a good glossary for your questions. The chapters are easily dipped into independently, so whether you’re curious about Sicilian Pecorino one day or yak’s milk cheese the next, this is a perfect summer read for anyone interested in food, farming and the ways that a place and its people shape what we eat.

 

First Helpings: A history of children and food  

Authors: Deborah Albon and Amy Palmer; Publisher: Reaktion Books 

Reviewed by Amy Warner 

First Helpings is a rich and revealing history of a subject hiding in plain sight: how British children have been fed, taught to eat, put to work, and sometimes left to go hungry, from the medieval period to today. Albon and Palmer, both former lecturers in early childhood studies, bring genuine scholarly rigour to the project, but never at the expense of storytelling. The book opens with the testimony of a Victorian child street-seller, and that commitment to surfacing children’s own voices, so often missing from the historical record, runs through the book. 

The range of material is what makes the book sing. Court records of vagrant children sleeping under London market stalls sit alongside Roman physicians feeding advice, wartime rationing schemes, GCSE cookery statistics, and even a properly entertaining detour through breastfeeding anxiety in Game of Thrones. Contentious topics such as breast versus bottle, discipline at the table, and whether the state should feed the child, are addressed with real even-handedness, and gendered labour is a persistent, well-drawn thread in who learns to cook and why. 

The final chapter on hunger, bringing centuries of evidence right up to today’s UK food poverty statistics, gives the whole book its urgency. Neither author is a parent, and they say so plainly — this isn’t a parenting manual, but something more useful: a clear-eyed history of just how contested “the right way” to feed a child has always been.

 

How to Fall in Love with the Future: A time traveller’s guide to changing the world

Author: Rob Hopkins; Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing UK

Reviewed by Alice Frost

It seems increasingly difficult to find a solid non-fiction read about the climate, nature and environmentalism, that isn’t also incredibly unsettling and anxiety-inducing, so let me introduce you to How to Fall in Love with the Future: A time traveller’s guide to changing the world…

How to Fall in Love with the Future does touch on the devastating consequences that our reliance on fossil fuels, intensive agriculture and mass consumerism has caused, as well as the disproportionate damage capitalism, and most notably, the world’s richest have inflicted on the planet, but this is balanced out by offering a genuinely hopeful light at the end of the tunnel. That light? A time machine.

Hopkins is not talking about literal time travel of course – though how cool would that be – he’s talking instead about the power of our imagination and its untapped potential, envisioning a future where we’ve collectively put words into action and begun to make progress so that we can confidently look to the future and smile – rather than grimace.

How to Fall in Love with the Future shares a radical yet entirely credible lens on the future, reminding us of our agency to create a better future for ourselves and the next generation – totally opposite from the one we’re constantly being told is inevitable and that it’s too late to change the outcome now. It’s true: the future hasn’t been written yet, but we need change and we need it urgently.

However, Hopkins doesn’t inspire hope through purely positive sentiments and cautious optimism – he shares real world examples where transformative initiatives across the world are already creating real change: from a successful local food system in southeast France, where 80% of the food served in schools comes from a local market garden (and is 100% organic!), to the (almost) entirely car-free Vauban district in Germany, where for every 1,000 residents, there are only 172 cars.

By imagining time travel is possible, Hopkins dares us to imagine what we’d want 2030 to look like. Is it greener, cleaner, more colourful? What can you smell? Fewer fumes, home-cooked meals wafting from open kitchen windows, pollinating flowers of the city’s sprawling urban gardens? What can you hear? Bird song, children playing outside, no impatient beeping of car horns? Whatever it is you imagine, Hopkins urges us to question why this can’t be our reality. Think about the small adjustments we can all make to create change, and be cautiously optimistic and hopeful in the eye of very uncertain times.

If you’re looking for a read this summer that will lift your spirits amongst the intense despair and gloom, How to Fall in Love with the Future will do exactly that – this book will dare you to imagine ‘what if?’ and reignite your activism. I’m looking forward to Hopkins’ follow-up: Falling in Love with the Present in 2030…!

And don’t miss these other reads…

The Future of Food Policy in the UK: Recipe for Change

Author: Honor May Eldridge

“This book makes a compelling case for the urgent need to develop a new approach to food and farming—one that integrates the principles of food security and sovereignty. In the face of escalating challenges such as climate change and increasing political instability worldwide, it is essential to rethink food production and future-proof it by prioritising resilience.”

The Last Cows: On Ranching, Wonder, and a Woman’s Heart

Author: Kathryn Wilder

“Told from the unique perspective of a woman, mother, environmentalist, cowboy, and rancher, this work of literary nonfiction conveys the joys, challenges, heartbreaks, and qualms of contemporary ranching in the American West.”

Gather: Black Food, Nourishment and the Art of Togetherness

Author: Ashanté M. Reese

“How can we create a world where everyone has enough? We can start by focusing less on lack and more on abundance. In Gather, anthropologist Ashanté M. Reese argues for a new vision of food justice that centres the resilience of Black communities and argues that community nourishment deserves as much consideration as individual health.”

After more food and farming inspiration? Read our 2026 film and TV reviews here.

 

 

As food systems took centre stage at London Climate Week 2026, the Sustainable Food Trust was there to listen, challenge and contribute to the debate. In this round-up, the SFT’s Bahareh Sarvi (SFT’s Trials Data Manager), Amy Warner (Head of Fundraising) and Jessica Gunn (Director of Advocacy and Communications) reflect on five of the most significant conversations – from affordability and investment to regenerative agriculture and the rise of ‘Big Dairy’ – and what they mean for the future of food and farming.

The irony wasn’t lost on anyone: as the Capital sweltered in temperatures of 35C, scientists, policymakers, executives and activists gathered in their thousands to discuss the climate crisis. Newspaper headlines screamed “London Climate event on coping with extreme heat cancelled due to extreme heat” and “London isn’t calling, it’s cooking!”; it all felt very real.

London Climate Week Action 2026 was bigger than ever – reportedly surpassing even New York Climate Week in the sheer number of events. There were panels, roundtables, big events and intimate gatherings across the gauntlet. The good news was that food systems as a topic was well represented from the Palace to Goals House. As ever, the Sustainable Food Trust (SFT) was deep in the weeds of it all, so if you weren’t able to be there in person – these are the five main things you need to know from this year’s event.

1. The affordability trap

The Economist launched its Resilient Food System Index, a serious attempt by a serious institution to hold companies accountable for food system performance. The Index presents four pillars of measurement and success – availability, quality and safety, adaptability, and climate and affordability. This all sounds very sensible, until you get to that last, despot of an argument that, in reality, has driven decades of soil degradation, biodiversity collapse and public health crises – here now again enshrined as a measure of success.

A UNICEF representative offered the most single, devastating data point in response: obesity has now overtaken hunger as the world’s primary form of malnutrition. Both conditions disproportionately affect people in poverty. Both are driven, in large part, by cheap food.

The SFT view: The race to make food cheaper has not fed the world or made us healthier. It has malnourished us – differently, but no less completely. Whenever a proposal emerges that might raise food prices, industry players (and Government) reach for ‘affordability’ like a weapon – and it works every time. Price has become equated with public good at the expense of every other measure of a food system’s health. Finding new language for this – language that holds space for both access and quality – is one of the most urgent tasks in food policy today.

Find out more here: insights.economistenterprise.com/energy-environment/resilient-food-systems-index

2. The investment gap nobody wants to own

Harry Farnsworth from Rabobank said something that should have made the front page: the climate is still not priced into the market. The reality of agriculture’s risk model still failing to reflect the environmental reality it operates within – global conflict, climate change, degraded soil, dwindling biodiversity etc, and the fact the margins on farming are already too low, means a sustainable transition is simply not investable at scale – unless someone steps up to take the first loss.

Two new funds have been set up to address this: a DEFRA-backed nature bond and a Wildfarmed initiative, both relying on government or philanthropic capital to absorb risk that private markets refuse to touch.

The SFT view: These are promising experiments. But they are two drops in an ocean that requires a tide. The food industry’s lobbying budget runs to tens of billions annually – while philanthropic capital flowing into food system change is measured in the hundreds of thousands. We are bringing a trowel to an excavation that needs heavy machinery.

Find out more here: https://uknaturefund.com

3. Net zero: A useful framing or a dangerous one?

One of the sharpest critiques to emerge across multiple sessions was directed at net zero itself. The framing, various participants argued, has created tunnel vision – a single metric absorbing all available attention, investment and political will, while biodiversity, water quality, soil health and community resilience, are treated as afterthoughts.

The SFT view: Net zero has become too narrowly focused on carbon. Offsetting has overtaken genuine emissions reductions, and has inadvertently rewarded intensive production because it can appear carbon-efficient (see Big Dairy) while in reality still harming ecosystems. Measuring success primarily through CO₂ can obscure wider environmental and social outcomes. Instead, we need a whole-systems approach that integrates climate, food security, ecosystem health and long-term resilience.

4. Thinking in systems, not commodities

‘Regenerative’ might be a buzz word but how to define it? Discussions around the week confirmed the answer remains elusive. Regenerative agriculture however, many now agree, is not a destination, it is an approach to farming that by design is in constant motion. Regenerative wheat is classified as such, not simply because of how the crop itself is grown, but because of the barley, legumes and grass leys that preceded it – the label emerges from a community of plants (or commodities) working together. The whole farm system is the unit of analysis, and most of our financial and regulatory infrastructure is completely unequipped to handle that complexity.

The SFT view: A true understanding of regenerative agriculture (or lack of) has profound implications for how we finance, measure and incentivise farming. Supply chains that claim to support regenerative practice must begin investing in farmers to support the transition. This process must not simply be a matter of passing the cost to consumers, nor relying on government alone to bridge the gap. If a company’s share price was genuinely exposed to the climate risk embedded in its supply chain, that investment would follow quickly. The Regen10 Framework believes that ownership of the transition must not be a dictatorship; each farm and landscape is different and the challenge for each will reflect that. Our role is to define where we need to go, not necessarily how we get there.

Find out more here: True Cost Accounting report and https://regen10.org/outcomes-framework/ 

5. A big debate about Big Dairy

The SFT hosted its own panel on the rise of Big Dairy in the generously donated environment of Goals House. There was a diverse line-up of people in the room, with Patrick Holden at the helm. Against a landscape of the number of ‘mega dairies’ in the UK doubling over the last decade, while dairy farms overall have declined rapidly from 54,000 in 1974 to under 7,000 today, it leaves in no doubt the reality that the message to dairy farmers has felt like ‘go big or get out’.

Today 60% of the milk now consumed in the UK comes from Big Dairy, aka: ‘fully housed’ systems – and the public are only just waking up to this – helped by high profile campaigns from Project Sling Shot. High on the agenda was agreement that the dairy system is trapped in a commodity model that rewards low price above all else. Commodification has simultaneously dissolved dairy’s intrinsic value, and the sector’s control over its own narrative. Stronger storytelling around its stewardship, nutrition and security is vital.

The SFT view: we need a trusted, shared framework on measurement that rewards farmers for sustainable practices, higher welfare and ultimately, human health. The current system is optimised for a small number of actors – we need pricing mechanisms that serve farmers, the public, climate and food security. Bringing people together from all sides of the debate is the first step towards a shared vision.

In a nutshell
What we need now is not more agreement on the problem, but rather the leadership – political, financial and institutional – to act on it.

This makes it all the more striking that London Climate Week generated very little mainstream press coverage. Thousands of people, hundreds of events, some of the most consequential conversations happening anywhere in the world about food, land, water and climate – and the national newspapers were largely silent. When the public conversation isn’t happening, the urgency stays trapped in the room. That, perhaps more than anything else, is what needs to change.

Image credit: Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

Last week, the High Court ruled in favour of a judicial review challenging regulations that remove labelling and traceability from so-called ‘precision bred’ organisms. The judicial review was led by Beyond GM, with Patrick Holden, CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, and two others standing as co-claimants. Here Patrick reflects on why he chose to speak out and on the importance of the case.

I cannot pretend that I fully understood all the legal arguments when I first agreed to become involved in a judicial review challenging new regulations governing genetically modified ‘precision bred’, organisms (PBOs).

I am a farmer, not a lawyer. What I did understand was that the new regulations, which removed traceability and labelling from certain types of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would make it harder for producers and consumers who wished to – or had to – avoid genetically engineered organisms to do so.

That seemed wrong to me then and, following the High Court’s judgment last week, it’s clear the Government did not fully consider all the options available or the impacts of a profound change in legislation.

Becoming a claimant in a judicial review is a serious commitment. It required putting my name to a public legal challenge against the Government and accepting a level of scrutiny that many might prefer to avoid. But then again, the core issues of the case led by Beyond GM – the integrity of living organisms and the protection of organic standards – are issues that I have a long history with.

The experience has caused me to reflect not only on the case itself but on how dramatically the debate around genetic engineering has changed since the battles many of us fought in the 1990s. History, it seems, still has some important lessons to teach us.

Lessons to learn

Back in the late 1990s and early noughties, when I was director of the Soil Association, one of the standout campaigns with which I was involved was against the introduction of GMOs.

Our GMO campaign, arguing that the Government should not allow genetically engineered foods to creep into our food system was won, due in no small measure to the massive media attention it attracted, but also because Labour’s Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, was both privately and virtually publicly on our side.

Michael was the one who championed the Farm Scale Evaluations – a series of large-scale trials to test the impact of GM crops on local biodiversity and ecosystems, prior to any commercial approvals. The results raised serious concerns about the environmental consequences of planting GMO crops and undermined claims that they would automatically deliver public benefits.

He paid the political price for doing the right thing.

Coincidentally, I met with him on the day that he was sacked by Tony Blair. “I’ve got some bad news,” he said, “let’s go and have a drink on the Terrace.” It was never stated publicly, but many of us believed his opposition to the Government’s pro-GM policy played a significant role in his departure.

It is heartening to know that one of the last actions Michael took before he passed away, was to stand with Beyond GM on the steps of Number 10, to deliver the ‘Letter from America’ – a plea from American farmers, businesses, food advocates and civil society organisations, representing some 57 million people, for the UK not to follow America’s unquestioning embrace of GMOs.

The empire strikes back

Twenty years later, how things have changed! There is no equivalent to Michael Meacher in the Government. Many of the MPs who waved this legislation through without scrutiny probably couldn’t tell a GMO from their own elbows and are utterly seduced by the idea that we can improve on nature using the great white heat of technology.

After a decisive blow, the industry, or perhaps one might say the empire, has struck back, and very effectively too. It did this in the form of a seemingly innocuous piece of legislation – the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act of 2023 – which sought to distance GMOs from their past failures by giving them a shiny new name: precision bred organisms (PBOs).

Ask anyone on the street and they likely won’t be able to tell you what a PBO is, yet 8 in 10 people in the UK believe that all GMOs should be labelled and traceable in our food system. This change of law has a major impact on the right to exercise informed choice and to choose not to plant, sell or buy GMOs.

The Act was signed into law by the Conservatives, but it is Labour that passed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations into law in 2025, which allow the commercial planting and sale of PBO plants.

Despite a feeling of a fait accompli, Beyond GM and its legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers believed there was still a possible route to challenge what was happening. Not by reversing the primary Act, which would require another Act of Parliament, but by challenging the legality of the regulations made under it.

Taking the fight to court

The gathering of co-claimants was part of an intense and meticulous 13-month effort by Beyond GM and its legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers.

What was needed was evidence from farmers who could explain how the absence of labelling and traceability would affect their ability to maintain the integrity of organic and non-GM production. Organic farming depends not only on what happens in the field, but on the reliability of the whole chain – seeds, feed, ingredients, certification, trust. Organic farmers are legally obliged to avoid all GMOs, including PBOs. If precision bred organisms can move through parts of that chain without being identified, then the ability of organic producers to avoid them is compromised.

The case also needed a consumer voice, and that was provided by Joanna Blythman, whose long-standing commitment to food quality and transparency is well known.

As with all legal issues, there were fine lines to negotiate. Today’s organic standards, for which I can claim some credit, have always recognised that absolute purity can be difficult in a contaminated world. Spray drift, environmental contamination and other forms of unwanted intrusion have long been part of the reality organic farmers face. But that is precisely why a functioning regulatory system matters. If the Government creates a regime in which contamination becomes both inevitable and harder to identify and avoid, it cannot then pretend that organic producers and consumers are unaffected.

“Organic farming depends not only on what happens in the field, but on the reliability of the whole chain – seeds, feed, ingredients, certification, trust. Organic farmers are legally obliged to avoid all GMOs, including PBOs. If precision bred organisms can move through parts of that chain without being identified, then the ability of organic producers to avoid them is compromised.”

The Court’s verdict

I may not be a legal expert but I can read and the Court’s judgement makes very good reading.

It concludes that the Defra Farming Minister was repeatedly “misadvised” by his advisors that he had no power to mandate labelling and traceability for these new GMOs. It goes further, noting that had the Minister been given correct information he would have given greater consideration to the wider impacts of the regulations and indeed might have made different decisions about what they should contain.

The Court accepted that the consequences of removing the tools necessary to support traceability and transparency were real and likely to impose greater burdens – and costs – on famers, businesses and consumers.

It went further still, stating that organic farming is not merely a technical standard or certification scheme. For many, it represents a fundamental set of values, principles and professional commitments which the Regulations make much more difficult to maintain. To my knowledge, this is the first time something this impactful to organic has been made plain in a legal judgement.

More than a food issue

These are serious findings and, beyond their relevance to the food system, they reveal something very troubling about the way the government now works. If ministers are not properly informed, if MPs are not fully engaged and if complex regulations are waved through on the basis of ‘party lines’, industry lobbying and soothing language, then democratic oversight becomes little more than theatre.

Will the judgment make a difference? We shall see.

As I write, Beyond GM and its legal team are now in discussions with the Government about what should happen next. The Court has identified serious flaws in the way these regulations were developed and these cannot now be ignored.

The missing media

One thing is unfortunately clear. The media appetite for this issue is much less than it used to be. When the judgment was handed down, I rang my contacts at the BBC Radio 4 Today programme to let them know about a major breaking story. They said they were interested, but in the end came the familiar refrain: “Do keep in touch, we are interested in this, but unfortunately it didn’t make the cut for tomorrow’s programme.”

That would not have happened in the 1990s.

Today, the public, politicians and much of the media have allowed themselves to fall into a state of torpor about food and farming. The progressive industrialisation of our food systems has gone so far that many people have almost lost the will to complain. It is now difficult to buy genuinely high-quality, nutrient-dense, contaminant-free food.

What comes next?

I suspect this lapse of attention may be temporary. People such as Chris van Tulleken, who I recently interviewed for the Sustainable Food Trust podcast, have done a brilliant job alerting the public to the dangers of ultra-processed food. Many younger people, especially in Gen Z – if my sons are anything to go by – are increasingly worried about what is being done to the food they eat.

So, thank you Pat Thomas at Beyond GM and Lawrence Woodward, who provided strategic advice throughout, for your thorough and thoughtful work on this issue. Please do not give up – because this issue will not go away.

I may be just an ‘average person,’ albeit rather better informed than most because of a lifelong interest in this area, but I do not want to re-design nature. I do not want to eat food of poor nutritional quality. I do not want food contaminated by pesticide residues, GMOs, additives, preservatives or anything else I cannot identify or avoid.

Some people who shared these views were, perhaps understandably, reluctant to step forward and put themselves through the rigours of being a co-claimant. I chose to do so because I believe these regulations compromise my right, and the rights of others, to eat food that reflects our values and to grow it for others.

I am absolutely convinced I am not alone.

Write to your MP – you can be part of the action by writing to your MP. Use this link, expressing  your concerns and your support for transparency and labelling for PBOs. It’s quick, there’s suggested text to use and it does meaningful work in letting the Government know what the people really want.

Weight-loss drugs are reshaping how we think about appetite, health and what it means to eat well. These medications, often hailed as breakthroughs, are changing lives and offering new hope in the face of chronic disease. But as the focus shifts towards eating less, is a fundamental question being overlooked? Here, Dr Lucy Williamson — award-winning public health nutritionist, author and former vet — draws on 30 years’ experience across soil, livestock, food and human health to explore what’s being left out of the conversation.

The rapid rise of weight-loss drugs has sparked a global conversation about appetite, health and how we eat. For many, these medications are life-changing, supporting weight loss and improving metabolic health, in particular, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Where other approaches have fallen short, they are offering new hope and the potential for longer, healthier lives. That matters.

Currently:

• The hidden cost of chronic disease in the UK attributable to the food system is £268 billion
• Ten percent of the NHS budget is spent on diabetes, the majority on type 2
• Over 50% of UK energy intake comes from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), rising to nearly 70% in 11-18-year-olds

But as this conversation gathers pace, it risks narrowing our focus. Much of the attention is on eating less – on appetite suppression, portion control and reduced intake. While this is part of the picture, it leaves a more fundamental question largely unasked: what is the quality of the food we are eating, and where does it come from?

At the centre of this discussion is GLP-1, a hormone naturally produced in the gut. It helps regulate appetite by slowing digestion, balancing blood sugar and signalling fullness. The latest medications work by mimicking or enhancing this process. But if the focus remains solely on suppressing appetite, without improving food quality, we risk overlooking the very systems that support health in the first place: our biology, our vital gut microbiome, our food and the soils that grow it.

Appetite, food and the gut

Appetite is not simply a matter of willpower, but a biological process shaped by signals between the gut, brain and metabolism, and influenced by our environment. At the heart of this system lies the gut microbiome, the vast community of microbes living in our large intestine; it supports our wider health, protecting it from immunity and inflammation, against allergy, overweight and obesity, cholesterol imbalance, cognitive decline and even cancer.

A healthy gut microbiome depends on a diverse diet rich in plant fibres and ‘bioactive’ compounds like antioxidants. UPFs in which nutrients have been displaced by high energy sugars and fats, reduce this diversity, weakening its protective role in overall health, including its influence on appetite. Food itself is more than nutrients – it should be a multi-sensory experience – a complex ‘matrix’ of structure and chemistry that determines how quickly its nutrients are absorbed, how full we feel and how long that fullness lasts. When this matrix is disrupted by processing or lower nutrient density, our biology no longer recognises this ‘food’ and our finely tuned appetite system just doesn’t work for us.

The gut microbiome and GLP-1

Our gut microbes are constantly producing probiotics for us – healthful compounds that work closely with our biology, for example stimulating cells in our gut wall to produce GLP-1, directly contributing to feelings of fullness. Prebiotics in our diet (types of fibre) further support this process by encouraging certain microbes to increase GLP-1 production. There is also emerging evidence linking our natural production of GLP-1 with higher levels of butyrate-producing gut microbes. Butyrate is our natural anti-inflammatory compound.

In this way, beneficial gut microbes help regulate appetite by enhancing GLP-1 signalling. In contrast, diets high in processed foods can reduce microbial diversity and weaken these mechanisms. Appetite, then, is not just about how much we eat, but what we eat, and how that food interacts with our internal ecosystem.

Inflammation: the root of chronic disease

Many of the chronic health conditions of our time – obesity and metabolic illness, allergies, cancers and digestive disorders, share a common root – inflammation. While inflammation is designed to be short-lived and protective, it is now often persistent. The gut microbiome is deeply involved in regulating this process.

The goal, therefore, is not simply to override appetite, but to restore the body’s natural ability to regulate it and in doing so protect our long-term health. To do that, we need to look beyond the plate.

Soil: where the story begins

To fully understand the connection between food and health, we must look to the soil in which our food is grown. The “soil to gut” connection is largely invisible, yet fundamental to the quality of our food and, ultimately, our health.

Healthy soil is a living ecosystem, rich in microbes, fungi and organic matter. These organisms support plant health and influence the nutrient content of crops and pastures being grazed for meat and milk. When soil is healthy, plants are more resilient and better nourished. In turn, foods grown in these systems can provide a richer array of nutrients and compounds that support our gut microbiome.

Antioxidants such as polyphenols and carotenoids, linked to reduced inflammation and improved heart and metabolic health, are often found in higher levels in crops grown in healthier soils. This emerging research shows a trend that organic produce often contains significantly higher levels of certain polyphenols, including flavanols and anthocyanins. Vitamins such as C, E and A are also often higher in food farmed in harmony with nature, reflecting the ability of microbe-rich soils to unlock nutrients for plants.

In contrast, the use of agrochemicals has been linked to poorer gut microbial health. Exposure to pesticides is linked with inflammatory changes in the small intestine, shifts in the gut microbiome and disruption to the gut’s mucous layer, an essential barrier that helps protect against inflammation.

It’s not only food that shapes our microbiome. Increasing evidence suggests our environment plays a role. Time spent in nature, such as gardens, green spaces or farmland, has been linked to greater microbial diversity. Contact with soil and plants exposes us to a wider range of microbes, helping to build a more resilient internal ecosystem. We don’t just eat to support our microbes; we live among them.

There’s still much to understand about these complex ecosystems, with soil health shaping the gut microbiome and, ultimately, human health, via food. Our microbiome is not separate from the wider ecosystem and in many ways, it is an extension of it.

Reconnecting the system

All of this brings us back to appetite and weight. Reducing overconsumption, particularly of ultra-processed foods, will undoubtedly benefit health. For some, weight-loss drugs are an important and necessary intervention.

But eating less of a poor-quality diet is not a long-term solution. If we focus only on suppression, reducing intake without improving food quality, we risk overlooking the systems that sustain our health.

The goal is not simply to control appetite, but to support it. That means looking beyond the individual to the wider system, from the food we eat to the soil it grows in.

Food produced from healthier soils, within farming systems that prioritise diversity and ecological balance, has the potential to better support the gut microbiome and the biological processes that regulate appetite and our metabolism. This is not a quick fix, but a shift in perspective.

It moves us away from seeing health as something to control, and towards understanding it as something to cultivate. Human health does not exist in isolation. It’s shaped by the health of our soils, our food systems and the environments we are part of.

If we want to improve public health, we need to look beyond the plate and reconnect the system from soil to gut.

Register to pre-order Lucy’s upcoming book, Soil to Gut: https://mailchi.mp/cfb2bb5b34ac/soiltogut

Connect with Lucy: https://lwnutrition.co.uk/

Food trends come and go, shaping what we eat and how we think about health. From plant-based to low-carb, with each new wave comes a surge of products designed to cash in. But behind the marketing, what does the evidence on health really say? And how do these trends relate to the realities of farming and food production? Joanna Blythman takes a closer look, through the lens of protein.

Suggest to the beefy blokes lifting weights in the gym that ‘high protein’ is merely the latest food-fad, and they’ll put you right. They have long seen a high protein diet as the only way to build muscle and need no persuading that a daily plate of steak and eggs could only be a good thing. But in recent years, high protein diets have crossed over from the sports nutrition domain to capture a much wider market, one with a more feminine demographic.

We were probably ready for that change of message. The ubiquitous ‘plant-based’ trend peaked in 2021 and has been losing ground ever since; UK plant-based food sales fell 4.5% in the year to January 2025.

Veganism, its most extreme incarnation, is right off the boil. An eating pattern that always appealed more to women than men, its Waterloo moment in the UK, came last year when the former head of communications at Veganuary quit her role to advocate a shift away from veganism to ‘less and better’ meat-eating. The proposition that populations would eventually transition to a diet free of animal-sourced foods proved to be a harder sell than its ardent proponents had hoped.

But another significant factor powering the taste for high protein is the arrival on the market of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro. Available from GPs, or unsupervised over the internet, these drugs suppress appetite and reduce overall calorie intake, but they also cause loss of lean muscle mass.

Nutrition advisers of a ‘Keto’ inclination have habitually stressed the value of protein-rich foods as a means to feel fuller longer. But now that so many people – once again, a majority of them women – use weight loss drugs, higher protein intake is advanced as the prescription for muscle repair during periods of rapid, drug-induced weight loss. “Muscle mummies”, who are full of the joys of a high protein diet combined with resistance training, attract more social media ‘likes’ than ‘cardio bunnies’ who remain loyal to Zumba and low-fat as the formula for weight control and health.

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the plant-based craze, but more people now seem to understand the fact that animal-sourced foods – meat, fish, dairy and eggs – are typically nutrient-dense, much higher in protein, weight for weight, than plant-sourced foods. Furthermore, it is gradually becoming more widely appreciated that the protein in meat, dairy, eggs and fish is more ‘complete’ in terms of providing the nine essential amino acids we need, in their most easily absorbable, digestible forms; the Sustainable Food Trust’s Grazing Livestock report has noted that, “…grass-fed meat and dairy tend to have superior nutritional profiles compared to their grain-fed equivalents”.

The Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS), endorsed by the FAO as the most accurate method of assessing protein quality, measures amino acid absorption in the small intestine. By this score, animal proteins (meat, egg, dairy, fish) score higher than plant proteins. On the DIAAS scale, beef and eggs, for instance, score 1.22 and 1.12 respectively, while kidney beans and oats score 0.61 and 0.44 respectively.

Soy is one of the highest-quality plant proteins, with a DIAAS score of 0.92, but consumer attitudes towards it are mixed, with taste preferences and perceptions varying widely across populations.

The role protein plays in supporting hormonal health, by regulating our appetite and stress hormones, has now emerged as a talking point. In women’s health circles, where the perimenopause and health in ageing are big issues, protein is commonly discussed as a strategy to combat muscle loss, stabilise metabolism, manage weight and maintain bone health, as oestrogen declines. The logic here is that women need to get less energy from carbohydrates and fats, and more from protein, to compensate for the biological changes that occur at menopause.

Over the years, government ‘healthy eating’ guidance has told us that overconsumption of fat is making us sick and obese. The low-carb lobby has argued back that carbohydrates, so rapidly digested as sugar, are the real culprit – not fat. Enter the ‘Protein Leverage Effect’ theory. It focuses on the satiating effect of protein and postulates the idea that without an adequate proportion of protein, the body’s drive to reach its target protein intake will make us continue to over-eat unnecessary energy from fats and carbs until we get the protein we need.

Heightened awareness of protein’s critical role in maintaining good health is, of course, good news for livestock farmers. UK meat sales saw a substantial upswing in 2025. We spent £500 million more on meat products.

Meat is off the naughty step, at last. The ‘yuk’ reaction towards meat has taken another knock from soaring interest in bone broth. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers always had a stock pot of bones and carcasses bubbling away and saw that precious liquid as a foundation for good health. Bone broth contains collagen, which breaks down into gelatine during cooking, providing amino acids that are essential for joint health, gut lining integrity and connective tissue repair, along with useful micronutrients – magnesium, potassium and more – and fat-soluble vitamins from the bone marrow. As the currently strong growth in demand for ready-made bone broth products shows, previously squeamish meat avoiders can nevertheless be persuaded to purchase 500 ml of liquid bone broth at £7 a time, or keep powdered bone broth beside the kettle. Might concentrated powdered bone broth be the new Bovril?

But it is minimally processed dairy products, such as Skyr, that have benefited particularly handsomely from the protein quest. Witness the fortunes of cottage cheese. For decades, it looked like a legacy product from the 1960s, but now, powered by a TikTok buzz, cottage cheese is hot, hot, hot.

Grahams, the Scottish family, reported cottage cheese sales growth of 40%, just in 2024 alone. Propelled by the appetite for protein, its new Protein Cottage Cheese, with 25% more protein than standard cottage cheese, is flying off the shelves.

Manufacturers of ultra-processed foods are, naturally, only too glad to surf the protein wave. A ‘high protein’ label is the latest way to imbue products that least deserve it, with a halo of health. So, you can buy high protein everything, from crisps and energy bars, through meal replacement shakes and smoothies, to pizza dough and wraps.

A closer look at the composition of M&S’s High Protein Chocolate Porridge gives a flavour of the less processed products of this type.

It contains more than 21% sugar, which qualifies as high in sugar by even the most forgiving dietetic measure. It also contains chicory fibre (inulin). Fibre, in particular chicory fibre, is having a moment in some weight loss circles and is used in many ultra-processed food formulations, not exclusively high protein ones. But it can produce bloating, gas and other irritable bowel symptoms, particularly when taken in large doses in the form of supplements and powders.

Most high-protein supplements and snacks are based on concentrated ingredients, such as whey protein isolate, milk protein concentrate, pea protein isolates and soy fractions. Inclusion in a formulation of these hyper-processed substances allow manufacturers to keep the protein-seekers happy, but their creations lack the pleasing taste and texture of protein found in natural forms. Protein isolates can make products overly dry and chalky, with a challenging dense texture. Like soy, they often taste bitter. At this point, food technologists and product developers reach for emulsifiers, stabilisers, sweeteners and flavourings to make them palatable. Meanwhile the marketing departments are hard at work, positioning such novel creations as convenient tools for sating appetites and building muscle.

But there is no robust research on how these highly synthesised, industrial forms of protein might impact on human health in the long term. It’s more than likely that such new-fangled protein forms won’t be as well adapted to our body needs as protein in its more traditional forms.

So, should we be cynical about the high protein trend? It has to be said that our forebears were well aware that protein ‘keeps you going longer’, as they put it. The costliness of protein foods was the only reason they saw to restrict their consumption. But now over 50% of the food we eat in the UK is ultra-processed. If that mirrors your diet, watch out for any high protein sales pitch designed to convince you that the product you’re buying is great for you when, in fact, it is anything but.

Yet for people who cook for themselves routinely and actively avoid ultra-processed products, this current focus on protein is surely welcome. The prominence of protein in diet debates demonstrates that many more of us are now actively seeking out nutrient density, as opposed to counting carbs. That’s a welcome corrective to the stale plant-based, vegan fixation. Protein’s prominence puts animal-sourced foods back at the heart of our diets, which is where they always used to be.

To find out more about how we can produce nutrient-dense foods from sustainable livestock farming, read our report, Grazing Livestock: It’s not the cow but the how.

What’s really in our food these days and how might it be affecting our health? In this conversation on the Sustainable Food Trust podcast, Patrick Holden, founder and CEO of the SFT, and Stuart Oates, founder of the Fossil Free Farm project, discuss what chemical residues and ultra-processed foods might mean for our health, and consider possible solutions.

Patrick:
Let’s discuss the influence of what we eat on our health. I’ve recently come across a couple of reports: the first was a retraction by a well-known journal that published a report, I think about 15–20 years ago, saying Roundup was safe. Last week, they retracted it because they realised that a lot of Monsanto employees had intervened and influenced the research, making it unsound. I think that’s big because Monsanto, and more recently Bayer, have been relying on that report.

Roundup is widely used all over the UK and the world – on arable farms for weed control and as a pre-harvest desiccant, which is how it mainly gets into our food. Even if it breaks down quickly in the soil, it’s still on the crop at harvest. The first thing we should fix is that pre-harvest desiccant – that’s the biggest problem.

Stuart:
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. That pre-harvest desiccant is the biggest concern.

Patrick:
It ties into the broader conversation about chemicals in our food…and, as well as what’s applied to our food on the farm, there are also other kinds of chemicals in what we’re eating: the additives, the flavourings, all that stuff that’s put into food after it leaves the farm – particularly ultra-processed food.

There was a report in The Lancet recently looking at ultra-processed foods and other additives and the effect on the human microbiome. It sounds incredibly worrying. Basically, a lot of these additives are things our microbiome can’t cope with, and that’s almost certainly behind the exponential increase in previously uncommon diseases.

You have to ask why it is that one in two of us are now getting cancer. Surely that’s partly due to what we eat – and what we wouldn’t want to be in our food. I think The Lancet is drawing attention to that.

Stuart:
Yeah, absolutely. I think we’re only at the very beginning of that kind of research. For some reason, food has been completely unlinked from health for so long. I have lots of friends who are doctors, and not a single day of their course is spent on healthy eating and diet. That’s crazy.

That should be a big part of their training, because that’s preventative medicine – that’s what helps us live healthier lives along the way. Did you see the Panorama programme?

Patrick:
Yes.

Stuart:
That’s the next level. It’s looking at these forever chemicals.

Patrick:
That is quite scary.

Stuart:
Forever chemicals are going to be a big topic over the next decade. They’re only just being talked about in the mainstream, but they’ve been around for a very long time.

They’re deliberately designed not to break down. They have incredibly strong bonds, so they’re used for things like Teflon coatings on frying pans or waterproofing on jackets.

What shocked me in the Panorama programme was learning that there are forever chemicals in the sprays used on our food – pesticides and fungicides. They’re designed to stick to the surface of leaves and stay there. And that then gets into our food, our bloodstream, our bodies.

They’ve found forever chemicals in every single person they test. Every single one. You can’t understand how anyone thought that they were a good idea in the first place. Can you imagine, Patrick?

Patrick:
One chilling bit in that programme was when the presenter was offered a glass of red wine. Before asking if she wanted to drink it, the researcher explained that forever chemicals – which are active ingredients in pesticides – are sprayed onto grapes.

They explained that these chemicals are in the wine. Then they asked her if she still wanted to drink it. There was a grimace, and she said no. That was powerful.

I wonder whether red wine sales will drop this week – and whether organic red wine sales might rise. Because these issues really haven’t been brought to the public’s attention.

I don’t think the organic movement ever adequately described the extent to which unwanted chemicals get into our food and affect our health.

Stuart:
I think this is the big opportunity for organic. And we’re bound to say that, Patrick, as organic farmers and proponents of organic agriculture. But organic farming doesn’t allow forever chemicals – never has. That was part of the standards, even if we weren’t talking about forever chemicals when organic began.

If people really knew how their food was grown, things would change. I don’t want to attack other forms of agriculture – everyone is doing their best – but people need to know the truth so that standards and regulations can be higher.

In the UK, we’ll never compete globally on volume. But we could be the source of good, healthy, high-end food that’s environmentally responsible and careful about agricultural chemicals. We could be world leaders in that – if we choose to take the opportunity.

This extract is from an episode of the SFT podcast and has been lightly edited for readability. To hear the full conversation, click here. You can find all our episodes on the main podcast page.

Ultra-processed foods are everywhere – and now some of the world’s biggest food companies are being called to account. Victoria Halliday, the Sustainable Food Trust’s Communications Manager, looks at the evidence behind the health risks, cultural impacts and rising scrutiny of these products.

Recently, the city of San Francisco sued 10 leading food makers over their ultra-processed products. The accusation is that these companies are knowingly selling foods that have been linked to a rise in serious diseases, with comparisons being made to the tobacco industry. These ultra-processed foods (UPFs) make up an ever-increasing proportion of our diets – now accounting for over half of the food we’re eating in the UK and 60% in the US. Given that the latest research shows UPFs are associated with rising ill-health across the globe – from heart disease to depression – this raises urgent questions.

While our appetite for highly processed products is seemingly growing, it’s encouraging that the subject of better food and farming is breaking into both mainstream and fringe cultural discourse, from prime-time TV to post-punk poetry. Confrontational ‘no-wave’ poet and musician, Lydia Lunch (pictured), speaks of how heavily processed foods mean “we end up consuming so much poison”, while Happy Mondays’ lead singer, Bez, talks about replacing processed juices with fresh oranges, “preferably organic so there’s no pesticide sh*t in them”. And the issue is being covered through more mainstream channels too – from Joe Wicks’ Licensed to Kill on Channel 4, to Tim Spector’s popular science work on gut health and diet.

These voices can be incredibly powerful in helping to shape opinions and behaviours – most of us are much more likely to pay attention to a cultural figure whose work or opinions resonate with us, than to the earnest words of NGOs, politicians or policy experts. But whoever might be delivering the message, the facts on UPFs are becoming hard to ignore. As San Francisco’s case makes its way through the courts, it highlights three core claims that sit at the heart of the growing challenge to ultra-processed foods.

1. They’re engineered to be addictive

UPFs are designed to reel us in and keep us hooked. Food companies pour vast sums into engineering foods – or “food-like substances” as author Michael Pollan refers to them – that light up our brains’ reward centres due to their ‘hyper-palatability’. Combinations of high levels of sugar, salt and fat, as well as softer textures and artificially intense flavours, lead to cravings and a desire to eat more – so we end up eating too many calories but not enough nutrients.

The corporations behind these ‘foods’ are using increasingly aggressive tactics to drive consumption, influence research and prevent regulation. Although these companies put a lot of resources into advertising, seeking to persuade us that we have endless choice and novelty, the proliferation of UPFs means that we are, in fact, finding ourselves with fewer and fewer real options – just picture a supermarket shelf stocked with 20 different brands of ultra-processed, plastic-wrapped bread.

While addiction and craving are baked into the UPF business model, we’re encouraged to push blame onto each other (and ourselves) for not making better food choices as individuals. Our personal choices are powerful, and we can advocate for the type of food system we want by directing our spending accordingly – but the reality is that ultra-processed foods make up an ever-increasing proportion of what is available to buy in many supermarkets, especially in lower-income areas. The finger-pointing narrative serves as a smokescreen, diverting our frustration away from those making vast profits at the expense of public health and wellbeing.

2. They’re harming our bodies – and more

UPFs have been linked to harm in all our major body organs. The Lancet recently published major new research showing that the more UPFs we eat, the more likely that we will suffer from obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, Crohn’s disease, kidney disease, depression and many more conditions that result in ill-health and mortality. Professor Carlos Monteiro, one of the Lancet series authors, says this latest evidence “strongly suggests that humans are not biologically adapted to consume [UPFs]”.

Of key importance is the impact that UPFs have upon our gut microbiome – an intricate community of around 100 trillion microbes that live in our intestines. This microbiome is a major modifiable factor in our health and wellbeing, as explained by Tim Spector on the SFT Podcast: “A lot of the chemicals in your brain that transmit mood – and other states like fullness and hunger – are produced as chemicals, as your microbes digest plants. [These chemicals] go up into the bloodstream, into your brain, into the vagus nerve and can make the difference between you feeling happy or sad.” As well as mood, our gut microbiome influences many other aspects of health, including immunity, metabolic health and disease prevention.

While consumption of gut-damaging UPFs is on the up, the amount of fresh produce we consume is falling – a big problem for the health of our gut microbiome which depends upon a wide diversity of fresh foods. Fresh foods that have been grown in healthy soils and without agrichemicals provide us with unique fibres, polyphenols, and nutrients that feed different beneficial gut microbes. Which leads us to…

3. They’re crowding real foods off our plates

UPFs are pushing whole foods off our plates. This is a pattern being repeated across the globe – with the UK and US leading the charge. The impact on our health alone should be reason enough to resist this trend, yet the effects extend beyond this.

Food processing used to be mainly concerned with preservation of whole foods, as well as making them easier to use in the kitchen. Processing techniques varied from place to place – from fermenting cabbage to produce kimchi in Korea, to jellying eels in London’s East End. Now, industrial food processing is increasingly aimed at creating food-derived substances that take the place of whole foods entirely.

Long-established methods like freezing, drying, canning, pasteurisation and salting, largely preserve the natural composition of foods, whereas UPF technologies significantly alter them, mixing in industrial additives like plant protein isolates, mechanically separated meat, modified starches and oils, artificial colours, flavour enhancers, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers.

As UPFs become ever more ubiquitous, they flatten regional food cultures, replacing distinctive local cuisines with the same globally standardised products. Food that once reflected place, season and tradition is reduced to a uniform commodity – weakening local food economies, eroding cooking skills and severing the connection between people and the land that feeds them.

Will 2026 dish up a moment of reckoning for UPFs?

So, as the evidence mounts against UPFs, what comes next? Putting limits on the influence and reach of UPF manufacturers through regulation and taxation is essential; the ban on pre-9pm junk food adverts, which came into effect this week, is a small but significant step forward.

The costs of the harm caused by these foods – or, at least, a significant proportion of those costs – needs to be borne by those who profit from them, not by the public, an approach that the SFT advocates through its True Cost Accounting work. We as citizens also need to be educated, encouraged and supported to make healthier food choices – and those healthy choices must become the easier, more affordable option.

While the outcome is yet to be decided, the San Francisco lawsuit marks a significant escalation in how local governments are challenging food industry practices on public health grounds and could be the beginning of serious change. With mounting evidence, stronger regulation and growing public awareness, UPF manufacturers may finally be facing a crunch point.

Interested to learn more about what’s in our food? We recommend this episode of the SFT Podcast where Patrick Holden and Stuart Oates discuss UPFs, chemicals in food and what we can do about it.

Image credits: Image 1 (Lydia Lunch): Creative Commons; Image 3 (serving food at market): Mike Swigunski

What’s in your food and how can you eat better? In this series, we look at some staple meals, considering what’s good for you and what’s maybe not – and how you can turn them into dishes that are healthier, better for the planet and alive with flavour.

Christmas Pudding is an enduring favourite for dessert at the end of the Christmas meal. But what it is today, is a long way from where it began, somewhere around the 14^th century. For starters, it included varied meats along with grains and it was cooked in a thickened broth called ‘frumenty’ which could include a range of ingredients, both savoury and sweet along with wine and spirits. It was traditionally aligned with reference to Christ and the twelve apostles, with thirteen ingredients in the recipe.

Through its history, it has evolved into a tastier and sweeter version, much thanks to the Victorians. The Nineteenth century cook Eliza Acton is credited with developing the first proper recipe for Christmas Pudding, appearing in her cookbook Modern Cookery for Private Families. Making your own Christmas Pudding isn’t as difficult as you might think, and it’s well worth having a go at it, because the ones bought in the supermarket are likely to have a number of not-so-good ingredients – almost all of the supermarket Christmas Puddings have palm oil and vegetable glycerol, along with emulsifiers such as E471 and E472e. And though organic versions are much better, you’d be surprised by what can slip in. In fact, many shop-bought puddings fall into the realm of ultra-processed food (UPF) – a category describing foods that are branded, commercial formulations made from cheap ingredients combined with additives, and mostly containing little to no whole foods. A recent study published in The Lancet reports that increased consumption of UPFs is driving multiple diet-related chronic diseases on a global scale.

There are myriad variant recipes for Christmas Pudding, but traditionally it started with mixed dried fruits and nuts playing an important role. Both are high in fibre and polyphenols, and they can sweeten food without the added sugar. They are also rich in antioxidants, and further, the spices in Christmas Pudding have both anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties, so you can feel good about your dessert! Suet is used in most Christmas Puddings to meld the mixture together and it’s generally easy to get from a good butcher. For vegetarians it’s a little trickier as vegetable suet can contain highly processed ingredients – but opting for organic and avoiding formulations that contain hydrogenated vegetable oil can help to steer you towards healthier, more sustainable variants.

Recipes

Here are three home recipes to try this Christmas, each offering a slightly different take – from a tried-and-tested classic to a pudding that makes the most of in-season fruit.

1. This Christmas pudding recipe from BBC Good Food takes a classic approach
2. This steamed pudding uses quince as the fruit – currently in-season in the UK
3. This recipe from Doves Farm is a nice alternative to the traditional Christmas favourite

 

To read the other articles in our ‘Making More of Your Meal’ series, click here.

In July 2024, the Sustainable Food Trust (SFT) launched the Beacon Farms Network, bringing together sustainable and regenerative farms acting as educational platforms to inform and inspire young people and adults about the story behind their food.

At present, many of us are disconnected from where our food comes from and how it is produced. In response, the aim of the Beacon Farms Network is to harness the power of ‘seeing is believing’ experiences on farms and increase public understanding of the connections between farming, climate, nature and health with an emphasis on how food can be produced in harmony with nature.

One year on, the network has grown to over 40 farms across the UK, representing a diversity of farm types and locations, with farms hosting events for a wide range of audiences. A particular area of focus for the SFT this past year has been working with The Harmony Project to support farms in delivering school visits using our Beacon Farms resources. From April to October this year, 10 Beacon Farms have delivered 75 school visits for primary aged pupils, engaging more than 1,800 children, many of whom had never visited a farm before.

What’s in your food and how can you eat better? In this series, we look at some staple meals, considering what’s good for you and what’s maybe not – and how you can turn them into dishes that are healthier, better for the planet and alive with flavour.

Fish pie is one of life’s greatest comfort foods – the beautiful flaky pastry (or alternatively, yummy whipped potato topping), the creamy, tangy roux that envelopes the fish, the tasty additions you may love.

But sadly, many of the fish typically used in this dish are from populations on the verge of collapse. A recent report by Oceana UK on the state of UK fishing detailed the troubled waters: “over a quarter (27%) of the UK’s commercial fish populations are overfished to the point of having critically low population sizes, and 25% are being overexploited”. Many prized UK fish and crustaceans continue to be overfished, most notably North Sea cod and crab (in the Southern North Sea). And the most depressing thing about this, is that government bodies have done nothing over the years than to continue business as usual, allowing quotas to overreach scientific thresholds for the health of fish stocks, causing them to decline in peril.

So, what are the options here for that fish pie? Well, luckily there are some.

A good choice is Cornish, gillnet caught hake, which has been gradually replenishing since the early 2000s. In 2015, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified the fishery as sustainable. Hake is a firm fish, much like cod but much more sustainable, and it’s ideal for fish pie. Also, look at other options such as Scottish haddock, coley and whiting to mix it up a bit. And keep in mind what often gets discarded – cod cheeks for example, which are a succulent overlooked bit of the fish.

A recent report by Oceana UK on the state of UK fishing detailed the troubled waters: “over a quarter (27%) of the UK’s commercial fish populations are overfished to the point of having critically low population sizes, and 25% are being overexploited”.

Sadly, for those who like prawns in their fish pie, they’re really not that sustainable anymore. The best shrimp option in the UK is brown shrimp, but these are caught in a bottom trawl (beam), which is a highly destructive form of fishing associated with a high amount of by-catch (unwanted species that are then discarded). The MSC give wild-caught brown shrimp from The Wash a ‘Best Choice’, but the damage done to the seafloor and the benthic organisms that live there remains problematic, while North Sea shrimp need improvement. Scallops are a delicious alternative for a real treat in your fish pie, but be prepared for the price of them.

Farmed salmon might seem like a good way of avoiding damage to wild stocks, but in reality is best avoided. As well as issues like mass mortality and sea lice, one of the many problems of fish farming is what the fish are fed. In the case of salmon, it takes more than a kilo of wild fish to produce a kilo of farmed salmon.

 

Delia Smith’s Flaky Fish Pie

You don’t have to do Delia’s recipe for fish pie, but it’s a hard one to beat and it’s easy.

This recipe is from The Delia Collection: Fish (serves 4)

Ingredients

For the pastry:

• 8 oz (225 g) plain flour
• 6 oz (175 g) butter
• a pinch of salt
• beaten egg, to glaze

For the filling:

• 12 oz (350 g) any white fish
• freshly milled black pepper
• about 12-15 fl oz (330-425 ml) milk
• 1 oz (25 g) butter
• 2 level tablespoons plain flour
• 1 level tablespoon capers, drained and chopped
• 4 small gherkins, drained and chopped
• 2 level tablespoons chopped parsley
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

You will also need a baking sheet measuring 14 x 11 inches (35 x 28 cm), greased.

1. Chill the butter for the pastry (in foil) in the freezer for 30-45 minutes. Sift flour and salt and grate the cold butter into the flour, mix with a palette knife, sprinkle 2-3 tbsp of cold water, bring together and chill for 30 minutes.
2. For the filling: poach the fish in just enough milk to cover for 5-10 min, reserve the milk, flake the cooled fish (remove skin/bones) and set aside.
3. Melt butter in the same pan, stir in the flour, cook for 2 minutes, gradually add the reserved milk (300 ml), stirring constantly. Bring to the boil, simmer for 6 minutes, remove from heat and stir in the fish, capers, gherkins, parsley, chopped eggs, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Leave to cool until quite cold.
4. Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 7 / 220 °C (425 °F). Roll the pastry to 30 cm square; lift onto a greased baking sheet. Place the cold fish mixture in the centre. Brush the edge of the pastry with the beaten egg. Fold opposite corners to the centre, pinch the edges to make a cross shape and glaze the top and any pastry trimmings with the beaten egg. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until pastry is well risen and golden.

 

To read the other articles in our ‘Making More of Your Meal’ series, click here.