You Can't Eat Trees

Many will be unsurprised by the fact that food and good food at that plays a significant roll in my daily life. One would judge by the number of "artisan" food producers featured on the telly or indeed the proliferation of some good programs extolling the virtues of good old fashioned food preparation at home that we were all aware of a utopian, healthy life style. I regret that a visit to any supermarket near you will shatter such illusions by merely lifting a pack of any product on display and reading the label. A trip down the isles of super food is a real eye opener for not only is every product crap but dangerous crap.
Before I am sued by some powerful ethnically challenged persons of  a multimillionaire persuasion I should hastily add that most supermarket food will not kill you on contact however the financial implications of buying any of their products certainly will finish the UK off. Only the tiniest pinch of the ingredients of these death cookies is sourced in the UK almost all the rest from powdered milk to processed fats are transported here from eastern Europe, Russia, Kenya, India and China under conditions that would break the heart of any self respecting food hygienist or safety offical.
The problem is dear friends, that as a nation we can no longer feed ourselves and rely on cheap dodgy imports promoted by our fellow common marketeers who profit mightily through our short sightedness. When the balloon goes up, as it surely will we are going to starve.
This was driven home to me on a recent stroll through Glen Orchy with a number of enthusiastic dogs; where at a cost of many millions a new native species forest has been planted. I am sure everyone has their own opinion of such ventures and indeed of the rapacious nature of the planting techniques and unnecessary land drainage, to say nothing of the complete lack of any forest resources management plan; or the basic fact that native species do not grow at 1500 feet above sea level. Off course the bearded phd planners did not take the trouble to ask any locals but must have consulted reference books on the Russian Steppes instead.
What really worries me is that this was inflicted on good food production land and we need every inch of it. Why plant trees where we can produce food? Particularly as we seem happy to watch other countries chop down their forests to grow crops that after many miles of transport and ghastly over processing end up as inedible plastic rubbish on our supermarket shelves?
Please grow your own veggies, harvest your own fruit; it is even OK to shoot or catch your own protein if, like me you can cope with that sort of thing. Spend a few extra quid in the local shops,buy real whole milk, wear clothes made from local yarns in local factories; because nothing is more certain than that if we cannot get to grips with this, as a nation we are doomed.
Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.