Joanna Blythman does not look like a food issues campaigner, or at least she does not look like the stereotyped idea many of us still have of foodie vigilantes. No sandals, no Indian skirt, no army jacket, and not even the slightest whiff of lentils about her at all; instead she is petite and blond in a sassy dress and red lipstick.
While it's ever so slightly patronising to describe how somebody looks rather than what they do, Joanna Blythman and her blonde bob sum up the changes that have taken place in the fight against GM foods, dodgy pesticides and animal welfare. Originally, the voices that expressed concern over the food we eat were in the minority, voices that were probably prophetic but sounded an awful lot like cranks.
But after the BSE scandal, all that changed and people, ordinary leather-wearing, meat-eating people woke up to the fact that we can no longer take for granted that the food we eat is safe, that the most simple foods such as tomatoes or potatoes have not been tampered with before the seeds were even planted.
Blythman has been writing on food issues for more than 10 years and has watched and documented the growing public awareness with interest. Formerly food and drink editor with Scotland on Sunday and a regular contributor to the Guardian, she wrote her first book, The Food We Eat in 1997. Looking back she sees that this was a watershed time in terms of food awareness.
"Back then if a new food popped up, the first question people would ask is `is it good value?' but BSE changed all that. People became suspicious. If you ask the average person in the street whether they think we have safe food now, most will say no. While the advent of mad cow disease was nothing but disastrous for the beef industry and farmers, Blythman outlines a more positive outcome. "After BSE when the brave new world of genetically modified food came along, people were up in arms. They had had enough of people tinkering with their food . . ." She describes The Food We Eat, which won a prestigious Glenfiddich Special award, as a kind of guidebook for consumers. "It outlined the problems, offered alternatives and explained things like the differences between wild and farmed salmon. It empowered the consumer to make good decisions."
Now she has brought out The Food Our Children Eat which Blythman wanted to call "How to get children to like good food". This is the emphasis throughout the book - as she points out it's not about healthy food for babies or how to create vitamin enriched snacks, it's a workable thesis that will ensure your children eat a little more than crisps and cartoon-shaped chicken nuggets. "I think it's really important to get children to like good food. You're giving them a pleasure for life by showing them the whole range of food and besides, it's important to safeguard the food culture. When I was growing up we ate the same food as my parents because there wasn't anything else. Now though, the food industry has made a fortune out of convincing us that this is the only stuff children will eat."
Blythman came to food writing and food issues via a rather circuitous route. After years working as an information officer for various non-governmental organisations, a trip to New York introduced her to the joys of the world-renowned deli, Dean & Deluca. She started her own foodie heaven in her native Edinburgh - it was beloved by food critics but a financial disaster. Years of saying to herself "I could do that" eventually started her writing for the Scotsman in 1988.
Although there is much that still concerns her about food growth and production, Blythman describes herself as optimistic about the future. The clamour for good food, not health food but healthy food, is growing louder, and she believes this is happening as a result of a breakdown of faith in the government.
"There is no confidence that the government will properly regulate the food industry. I think that's healthy. People are beginning to realise that big companies are trying to control every level of food from the seed to the plate and there is a feeling that we can't allow that to happen. It's an anti-big-business thing as much as anything."
She first became aware of GM food during the four years she lived in Strasbourg when she spotted a picture of top German chefs demonstrating in 1992. "They had placards saying `Do you want fish genes in your tomatoes?' I had heard of it, but like a lot of people I thought it was something they were fiddling away at in a laboratory somewhere. But at that time all the big GM companies were lobbying the EU - they wanted to get it out into the food chain without consulting the public."
For Blythman, the start of 1999 was a turning point in the fight against GM foods. She linked up with Greenpeace to assemble 150 of Britain and Ireland's leading food writers to speak out against food companies such as Monsanto. "It was all simmering away and that was the spark that set the whole thing rolling. Supermarkets went from thinking that GM foods were great to thinking they were the anti-Christ. It was the old power of the shopping basket again - women were saying `well I may not be a molecular biologist but I don't want food that's been tampered with'." Interestingly, she is of the view that the sword can sometimes be mightier than the pen and supports the actions of groups who illegally dig up genetically modified crops. "If the public say they don't want something and the government ignores them then direct action can be justified. It can be justified because they are backed by popular opinion."
Two things cause Blythman's cautious optimism - the first is that France is going to make a stand against genetically modified food at the World Trade Organisation conference in Seattle in November. "Even Chirac is against them and it seems certain that Europe will seek a moratorium on GM foods - basically you don't mess with French farmers."
The second is perhaps more momentous, given the influence of the US and the fact the big GM companies originate there. "America is just waking up to GM foods. In a recent Time magazine poll, 80 per cent of Americans wanted GM foods to be labelled and 60 per cent said they wouldn't buy them if they were . . . Now both Gerber and Heinz have banned GM products, and farmers who were told they would make more money from GM crops now can't sell them for love nor money.
"The farmers are disillusioned and angry. I used to be a pessimist about it all but now I really think that it's still at a stage when it can be stopped. The signs are good."
The Food Our Children Eat, by Joanna Blythman is published by Fourth Estate, £8.99 in the UK