Chef attacks 'Mars Bar' culture

Raymond Blanc says poor food is making the West sick

Chef Raymond Blanc has launched an attack on the UK's fast food culture, saying it will soon cost the health service billions of pounds.

He warned that the food industry would have to change if a health crisis was to be avoided.

The Frenchman also laid into the "uncaring" agriculture industry for putting productivity ahead of the quality of produce.

But he said he believed the British public would soon revolt against the quality of food provided in the UK.

Speaking at the launch of his autumn menu at his Manchester restaurant, Mr Blanc said: "To me, an omelette and a glass of wine will always be better than a bloody Mars Bar and a glass of Coca Cola.

Large landowners... don't care about the soil, they don't care about the produce, all they care about is yield, how fast it grows, how big it grows Raymond Blanc

"I hope that the British people know that and I think they do - there is going to be a big revolution to the world of fast food.

"All the fast food will have to reinvent itself because the West is getting very sick and that sickness costs the British government hundreds of billions of pounds.

"We are terribly frightened because we have a health service which is already in a pretty bad state.

"Malnutrition is going to cost the government too much."

GM food

Mr Blanc, who in July created a £635 salad with a caviar worth £12,000-a-kilo, said British people needed to be prepared to pay more for better, locally grown produce.

But he said he was pleased to see the UK public "standing up" to genetically modified (GM) food.

He said: "Great Britain has a culture of intensive farming which is led mostly by technocrats not by farmers.

"Farmers make up 10 or 15% of the cultivated land - all the rest is large landowners who farm on hundreds of acres of land and don't care about the soil, they don't care about the produce, all they care about is yield, how fast it grows, how big it grows and a seed which is resistant to any form of illness.

"But when Mr Blair decided to give the British GM food without asking them, it was marvellous to see them standing up and saying 'No Mr Blair, we do not trust that food we want far more evidence that it won't harm us and the environment'."