Too busy for time to dine

THE BIGGER PICTURE Can current societal trends where the emphasis is on speed, pressure, "time is money", "cash is king" etc…

THE BIGGER PICTURECan current societal trends where the emphasis is on speed, pressure, "time is money", "cash is king" etc be considered progress?, asks Dr Patrick Wall

Efficiency and effectiveness doesn't always equal fulfilment. If you do 20 tasks today rather than 10, you'll be expected to do 25 tomorrow.

The constant rush is resulting in people who are stressed, families that are dysfunctional and a society that cares more about goods than about people.

The increasing incidence of mental breakdowns and the rising number of suicides in young men in Ireland has to be an indicator that something is wrong in our society.

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I worked for several years in a rural hospital in Tanzania where the local people were subsidence farmers.

They had very little but if you asked them "how are things going", if the children were healthy and they had enough food for the next dry season, they would reply in Swahili "Inatosha" - which translates into English as "I have enough".

I have never heard anyone in Ireland with its Celtic Tiger economy say that they have enough.

Yet we have more than enough and nobody stops to put a price on contentment and peace of mind.

Both parents working, the demise of the family meal, adults and children with busy schedules are generating a requirement for "food to go" and "food on the hoof". Industry has responded and amplified this trend with innovative, targeted advertising.

In commerce, food is now categorised as fast moving consumer goods. The day of three square meals is disappearing and we are aspiring to be as good as the undisputed snacking champions of the world, the US, who on average eat 17 times per day.

Apparently, it now takes 12 minutes to prepare the evening meal in the UK; probably the figure is 10 minutes in Ireland, as we would tear the packets open faster!

Fifteen per cent of all food eaten in the US is eaten in cars, "dashboard dining".

You may say this trend will never catch on in Ireland: well it already has, and you would be hard pressed to get a puncture repair or a headlight bulb in a garage forecourt now.

Rather they would supply you with a cup of coffee and a sausage roll and console you for your trouble.

In the drive for efficiency we are moving towards foods with longer shelf lifes.

Packaged for ease of distribution through a global supply chain - mass produced, mass processed and mass distributed and the reality of production is divorced from the final ready-to-eat, ready-to- cook product.

People no longer realise what they are eating even when it is labelled, a strategy often adopted by industry claiming they are giving consumers informed choice.

However, many people don't understand the myriad of detail on fats, carbohydrates, proteins, additives etc included on labels in minute print.

The old adages "your health is your wealth" and "you are what you eat" are as true now as they have ever been but somehow seem to be forgotten.

Your greatest investment is in your health but isn't it ironic that people are often too busy to mind themselves?

An increasingly sedentary lifestyle and the consumption of food of low nutritional value, high in saturated fats, salts and sugars is contributing to the rising trend in obesity and its associated adverse health effects.

Often people don't start to be concerned about their health until they lose it, and the first health decision they take is "will I have angioplasty or a bypass or will I have chemotherapy or radiotherapy?"

As a doctor it amazes me when I hear people boast that they are now walking five miles per day since their bypass, or that they are now eating more fruit and vegetables, or have taken up yoga to reduce their stress levels.

When, if they had adopted any of these initiates before they had their bypass, they might not have required it in the first place.

Dr Patrick Wall is adjunct professor at the Centre for Food Safety in UCD and a management board member of the European Food Safety Authority. He is former chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland

Shalini Sinha is taking a break.