Propaganda on the BBC

In my previous posting I said that there was a report on national radio about a local store, in a near by village, that had run out of bread. This was the result of panic buying and that may have been why I had difficulties myself buying bread in my village too. However my solution was to bake my own. I know that I am lucky to have that skill, and the ingredients so that I could do this, but it was not that long ago that most people would bake their own bread, or at least have the skills to do so.

It really is something that I do not understand, as cooking skills are so fundamental, I just don't understand how people can have lost the skill to cook so quickly. It was this aspect of modern life that I was already working on with a new Blog, Ye Olde Cookbook, as a way of trying to help folks discover the joy of cooking and the pleasure of real food, therefore baking bread had to be a good starting point for this.

I wanted to keep the postings separate from these postings, so that I could keep this much more on topics related to environmental and natural history matters. I know that over the years, I have covered my other topics here too. But often that can mean that folks looking for postings on one topic get lost trying to find what they want. So by keeping them separate hopefully will stop that.

Anyway getting back to the issue of bread, my significant other said something yesterday that really warmed my heart when I asked her what she wanted to break her fast, she said she preferred my bread and just buttered. Well if she keeps on saying things like that she will remain hired as girl friend.

However, the main reason for this posting is that on the BBC recently there have been a couple of series that have been little more than propaganda for the industrialised food industry. When the first was on, I was tempted to post something about this. However, it would have just looked as though I was just complaining as I did not like the series. Yet my real reason for being concerned about that one was that it seemed to be trying to promote the over processed food that we have forced upon us. In that programme they looked at the science behind the way that food (pseudo Food) is produced. Therefore, any criticism of the series would have looked as though I was anti science or against education.

But my main problem was simply that the programmes were just so unquestioning of why these processes were allowed? With a slightly different emphasis, the question could have been asked why are governments and statutory bodies allowing our food to be mucked about with in such an adverse way?

Had the programmes been on a commercial channel most people would have seen it as food industry propaganda. But on the BBC where there is supposedly no commercial influences, it seems to have got under the radar.

And this is something that really puzzles me in relation to food. In so many ways society has become really cynical and will not take on trust most of what it is told. Yet when it comes to the highly processed foods we are forced to buy, people will eat them unquestioningly?

There seems to be more propaganda being delivered by the BBC in a new series that started last night, or the way that industrialised farming can feed an ever growing population. Even though the environment was mentioned several times, it was more or less dismissed as well we need the food so the environment will have to suffer.

All the examples shown were of mega business and Agri-industry. And the location in the first programme was Brazil where vast areas of rainforest and natural savannah has been cleared for this agricultural revolution. In all the cases and examples shown, it was by liberal use of chemicals that this was achieved. Even though mention was made that the chemicals can pollute water sources, it was dismissed by saying care was taken.

Last year industrial farmers were complaining that several agricultural chemicals were banned in Europe. They were banned as they were discovered to be harmful to health. This year, on the first of January, Europe changed the way that chemicals are licensed. Previously a chemicals was deemed safe unless it was proved otherwise. Now the chemicals have to be proved safe before they are licensed. This has happened as far to often chemicals used for years have been shown to be seriously damaging.

I am not against the use of chemicals in Farming and Agriculture, there are times when are needs for them. However, if they were used carefully and sparingly, there would be much less problems with them. But farmers and especially industrial agriculture will use them much more liberally than is needed. Often using pesticides as a prophylactic even when there is no sign or indication that the chemicals are needed.

While there is a problem with food supply looming, for the BBC to become a propaganda mouth piece for the industrial food industry is really shameful.