Anna Richardson (Food) interview
Coming to Channel 4 in September 2010, Anna Richardson's new series, Food, is a brand new magazine programme dealing with the food we buy in our supermarkets.
> Buy Anna Richardson's Body Blitz book on Amazon.
Here, she explains a little more about the series, and why all of us could do with honing our food shopping skills...
Your new show is Food. What's the concept?
"It's the ultimate show that we should all be watching before we hit the supermarket. Essentially it's a prime time magazine consumer food series like no other. It's something that I'm really excited about, because it's something that the UK hasn't really seen before. At the heart of the show is a great deal of information and knowledge, but also myth-busting."
What sort of myth-busting are you talking about?
"It's the sort of manipulation and misinformation of the manufacturers. The show is aimed at making us much, much savvier. For example, anti-oxidant drinks - is there any truth in the idea that pomegranate and blueberry drinks are any good for you? Are they anti-oxidant? Which is better for you, margarine or butter? We have this fear of butter and tend to go for low-fat margarines.
"We'll be looking at the information behind it. Labelling of foods; if you buy some farm eggs that have beautiful pictures on the front of hens pecking around a forest, is that actually the truth? Yesterday, I learned about Loch Muir salmon - Loch Muir doesn't exist. So my role is to investigate what's going on. I'm quite excited about looking at the facts behind the image."
You're presenting with Jay Rayner and Ravinder Bhogal. Will you all have specific roles on the show?
"Yes. Jay and I will be presenting every show from a working farm in Hampshire, and Ravinder will be the reporter. She'll be looking at all of the foreign food stories, specifically looking at food from source to plate. She's been to Morocco to track the journey of tomatoes, from how they're grown to how they're harvested, stored, transported and end up in our supermarkets. So she's tracking every stage of the journey. Jay is looking at the UK version of what Ravinder's doing - he's looking at UK sustainability.
"That is his expertise - he's absolutely passionate and incredibly opinionated about food and sustainability. For example, as UK consumers, many of us like the idea of our chickens being reared in a forest and free range and organic, but Jay will then be pointing out that if everyone turned to organic free range chicken, would it be sustainable? Do we really understand what we're buying, but also what we're asking of our manufacturers and farmers? And my role is as the straightforward consumer, but looking behind the information that's on the packet, and discovering for myself what's really going on in terms of the food that we eat."
So are we likely to find you in our local supermarket scrutinising the labelling and ingredients on every single item? Sounds like hard work!
"Absolutely! We will be looking at ingredients though, and have a leader board of the most shocking. For instance we'll look at baked beans - which ones have the highest sugar and salt content; cereals, looking at kids' food that's absolutely packed with sugar. We're also looking at food neurosis - we get terribly uptight about buying bottled water, when in fact tap water is just as good. And we'll be looking at headline news every week - very, very topical information that will be right up to the minute.
"And we also have something called the rotting room. It's a room set up with a fixed camera that's going to show us exactly how our food disintegrates, and at what rate, and what particular bugs and diseases you can get from it at what stage. And from that, we'll learn about how to properly store our food. For example, did you know that the warmest part of the fridge is the door? And yet most of us keep out dairy produce in the door."
Will filming this series give you the opportunity to sample lots of delicious food?
"I'm always up for eating a great deal of any food that's around. But I suspect that this series will actually have the opposite effect, and make me wary of certain foods. But I welcome that - this series is going to inform me, and make me a lot more aware of what I'm buying, and what it costs, in human and environmental terms."
Would you describe yourself as a foodie?
"I'm a foodie in that I'm greedy and I love food! I've often called myself a food addict. But I'm by no means an expert. Jay is your expert, and I hold him in huge regard. I'm a straightforward consumer of food, and I most certainly need to be educated about it."
What are your favourite foods?
"I'm mainly vegetarian - I would very rarely eat red meat, I do eat chicken occasionally and I do eat fish, but I mainly eat vegetarian. My favourite type of food is probably Japanese, or really wholesome, hearty, home-cooked food, like vegetarian cottage pie."
Are you a good cook yourself?
"I'm appalling. Absolutely appalling. In fact, I was turned down by Come Dine with Me. I'm shocking."
But some of the celebrities who have cooked on Come Dine with Me have been truly terrible. How bad must you be?
"Embarrassingly bad. I actually have a diet book out with recipes in it, but what I say in my book is 'Listen, I'm a terrible cook, so if I can cook the recipes in here, anybody can.' I do not by any means hold myself up as Heston Blumenthal or Jamie Oliver."
If you were really trying to impress someone, what's your signature dish?
"I can whip up a fantastic, really low fat prawn balti in about 15 minutes, and it always gets good comments about the taste, how quick it is, and how it doesn't taste low fat."
Do you like eating out?
"Oh yeah, absolutely. Favourite places would be seafood restaurants, places like J Sheekeys, or Japanese places. I love a bit of really good fresh fish or shellfish."
Do you think working on this series will change the way you shop and eat?
"Absolutely, 100 per cent. I'm going into this with a little bit of trepidation, because at the moment I shop mindlessly. I'm both anxious and excited about what I'm going to learn with this series, because I think it will make me a lot more savvy when it comes to entering a supermarket."
The show sounds like it will basically be helping people to shop more ethically, efficiently, healthily and economically. That's a pretty powerful combination.
"Definitely. It's information, knowledge and entertainment as well. It really is aimed at making us all savvier shoppers. We all have to eat. We're certainly not going to tell people what to do, but we're going to give them information to help them make an informed choice."
Food airs from Wednesday 15th September 2010 on Channel 4.
