Food, glorious food..?

Chris Rogers BBC South West Political Editor

The effect could be felt all the way down the food production chain to her...

In the perpetual food debate - junk v fresh - we find an anomaly that is threatening the future for some of the finest food in the country. Advertising some of the food that is nutritionally excellent, is being heavily restricted... we find out more...

Ask any Devonian or Cornishman worth his salt what we in GodzoneAcres do well and they ought to reply "Food, glorious food".

No they will not be singing the song from Oliver, that is pretty old hat these days.

But food production is a vital part of the local economy in all the South West counties and whether it is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in Dorset, or Rick Stein in Padstow or even John Burton Race in Dartmouth, the production and serving of world-class food is increasingly associated with the South West.

So how have our products come to be lumped in with so-called "junk food" consumed by the masses?

And why is it so often demonised as being at the heart of every medical problem from obesity and heart disease to early death?

It is a somewhat convoluted path, but it has got some South West MPs hopping mad.

Advertising rules

Sausage producers could be strung up over advertising rules

Concerns about children's health, especially obesity, have caused the broadcasting regulator Ofcom to devise some stringent new rules about advertising food when children might be watching.

Not being food experts, Ofcom has sought help from a fellow quango, the Food Standards Agency, which publishes tables of food ingredients.

As you might expect, your average MightyWhoppaMeatyCheezyBurger with chips is so laden with levels of salt and fat that medics shudder at the thought.

Ofcom has decided it is less than healthy - that is Ofcom-speak for what we call "junk food". Right-minded "foodies" will not mind that advertising this product will be restricted.

But what about award-winning natural products of excellence like organic pork sausages stuffed with succulent meat, reared, made and sold in Cornwall? Or that wonderfully crumbly golden Cheddar cheese, made on the farm near Totnes in Devon, using local milk from local cows, surely that is what great food is about?

Apparently, not according to Ofcom.

Time to get hopping...

It's preposterous that Ofcom restrictions should be based on a model so flawed as to take cheese off the air, while diet cola, which has no nutritional value whatever, is left firmly on children's menus Dan Rogerson MP

Because sausages and cheese come as "high fat, high salt" in the FSA tables, they too are regarded as less than healthy, or junk, and would have restricted advertising.

Time for some hopping by Cornish Liberal Democrat MP Dan Rogerson, who happens to be Chairman of the MPs' All Party Cheese Group ( yes, there is one). Dan is not a happy man.

"It's quite right that Ofcom should have new regulations, but cheese is a natural product we've been eating for a thousand years and it's quite wrong it should be lumped in with junk food", he hopped.

"It's preposterous that Ofcom restrictions should be based on a model so flawed as to take cheese off the air, while diet cola, which has no nutritional value whatever, is left firmly on children's menus," he insists.

We're waiting to see whether Ofcom is prepared to peep over the parapet and concede the point to natural Cheddar cheese.

We are also left wondering whether this means they are going to ban Wallace and Gromit until after the watershed this Christmas.

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