Dr Rupy: Malika, you have been very busy since the last time you came on the podcast. What's been going on?
Malika Basu: Goodness, I wrote a food book, Rupy. A bit of a change from my two cookbooks. I have no idea who I am anymore.
Dr Rupy: This is a big, big deal for you, you know, because obviously I've written cookbooks and stuff and but writing a a full prose book, especially one as highly researched as this, and on a very sensitive matter of food sustainability from a food lover's perspective. This is a real big undertaking. So why don't we dive into it? Like, how did the book come about? Why did you decide to write this book in particular?
Malika Basu: Sure. So of course, you know, I started my food writing journey with the Indian cookbooks and then I went on to co-found a spice company. And I was already quite interested and commenting on things like culture, identity, diversity in food. And then when I did the spice business, I got really interested in the farm to fork piece, you know, because we were getting our spices from all around the world. The company was uncertified but organic, and we were very involved in community schemes and like fair trade like projects. And then I just realised that you can't talk about food and people and care about nutrition and then not care about the planet we're living on. You know, those things are so incredibly interlinked. And then I decided to start sort of going on this learning journey myself and I was pretty surprised at what was out there and how confusing and complicated it was. So I thought, you know what, I've had a long career in communications, I love food, I feel really passionately about this, so let's do it. Let's start unravelling this.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Tell me more about the spice company actually, because I don't think people realise that about your history. I mean, you came from like a corporate background and all the rest of it, but like the spice company, that was a real sort of, not a U-turn, but you know, it's a real tangent on your career, hey?
Malika Basu: It was a bit, to be honest, and the plan, Rupy, if I'm honest, was to sell it and retire by 50 in a villa in Portugal, ideally somewhere by the sea. But on a more serious note, people always ask me, where do you get your spices from, right? Like for us, people will obviously wonder where the ingredients are coming from. And I was quite ashamed to tell them to be honest, because I was buying spices that weren't the best quality, I thought. Often I'd get people to bring me spices that were good quality. And I had a friend who was running Europe's most successful organic spice company.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Malika Basu: Yes, and he wanted to do something facing consumers. So he wanted to do a consumer brand. And I was working in marketing communications with a lot of big consumer brands and you know, was a sort of face and a name in the food writing world. So we basically bundled up, including my ex-husband who was art director, creative director, and we had an ops director. And the four of us just went for it. So we created this premium sort of spice brand called Sizzle, S I Z L. And yeah, had a range, launched it, and it was going so well, but unfortunately the pandemic hit and I couldn't afford to be invested in an unpaying food startup. So I had to put my money literally where my mouth was and start, you know, doing more with the consulting and the commentary work.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha. Yeah. And so talk us how that's parlayed to what you're talking about today, you know, the food system, like how would you explain it to our audience?
Malika Basu: So the spices were a really natural way for me to segue into the more systems thinking. It's quite useful to think about the food that we eat and the food that we don't eat as a system because there's a whole world that sits around it. So you think of the fishermen and the farmers, then you've got the retailers, the wholesalers, the transport people, marketing, I mean, even the people who eat, even consumers, we're all a part of this really complex system. And each element of those obviously interact with each other and then when something happens in one place, then it has an impact somewhere else on either communities or society or the environment. And I'll give you a little example. Even culture is a part of it. Say rice, right? You're thinking about rice.
Dr Rupy: I'm thinking about rice, yeah.
Malika Basu: We are always thinking about rice. I mean, that's slightly running in our blood, isn't it? Somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so rice is a staple for over half the world.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Malika Basu: Yes, that's that's how popular it is. Um, when it's farmed traditionally in flooded paddy fields, it's one of the top emitters of methane.
Dr Rupy: Top?
Malika Basu: One of the top, yes. So it's cows, fossil fuels, so fossil fuels, cows and rice are some of the top culprits for methane.
Dr Rupy: Wow, I didn't know that. Oh gosh, I had no idea.
Malika Basu: Well, there you go. And now what happens is if you've got this, you know, crop that is cultural and indigenous and a key part of your diet, but it's also causing climate change, so wild weather patterns, problems with the rainfall, then it affects your crop. So if it's then affecting your crop and your yield, then you have to produce more of it.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Malika Basu: So it's all kind of hyperlinked, you see? And then the cost of it overseas, what we're buying, how much of it we're buying, what quality is, everything gets affected. So that was the sort of thing that got me, you know, into this idea of the food system. And the really interesting thing about the food system is that it is incredibly efficient and it's global. So did you have avocados recently, Rupy?
Dr Rupy: You know what, I literally had avocados about two hours ago.
Malika Basu: Well, there you go.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I know you're about to tell me off for that, I'm sure, aren't you?
Malika Basu: I won't, I won't, I won't. Okay, I'm not going to tell you off for that.
Dr Rupy: Tell me about it, go on.
Malika Basu: But when was the last time you stopped to think about how an unripe avocado got to us from Peru or Chile?
Dr Rupy: I'm ashamed to say I don't think about that. Every time I see a juicy, well ripe avocado in my health store, I'm like, I better grab that because they're like a dime a dozen. They're very hard to come across. They're usually hard or whatever. I don't think I actually think about where it's been, where it's originated from or anything. Yeah. Very selfish.
Malika Basu: Great. Well, you've answered your first big question, which is why did I get interested in this? And it's because we don't stop. You know, we don't stop to think about the food that's on our plates and around us in shops that we're so used to enjoying, even the healthy good stuff, you know? Um, and of course, it is a huge feat of achievement for that product, asparagus from Peru, you know, mangoes, pineapples from Costa Rica, for these things to get to us, what Joanna Blythman, the food writer called global summertime, they get to us intact, unripe, unblemished, right? And that is because the food system is inherently global, but it is also capitalist and industrialist. So the UN sees food as a basic human right, but the system that gives us the food we need is in fact done and designed for profit.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Malika Basu: So there are all these really complex things that sit within the food system. And one of the things that people complain about is that it's broken.
Dr Rupy: Okay, okay.
Malika Basu: Of course, it may not seem very broken to us because you're not worried.
Dr Rupy: I mean, we're so privileged, aren't we? Because we just we we saunter in, I'm talking about myself here. We saunter into our local market of our, you know, health food store, our major supermarket, which we just did now, actually, we just went filming just to get some B-roll for some YouTube videos that we're doing. And I can see asparagus, I can see tomatoes, I can see corn, I can see everything, and I can see those pretty much the entire time, you know, from January to December, avocados, everything I need, basically. And it's just become so normal. It's just so habitual to think that, yeah, I can get more to any time I want. Like, you know, I don't need to adjust my recipe for that. I mean, how dare someone expect me to adjust my recipe if more to is called for, more to is what's going to go into the curry.
Malika Basu: Exactly that. And that is global summertime. But here's the thing, that comes at a cost. Yes. So you might have something, a product or a produce grown somewhere, packed somewhere, processed somewhere, and then sold somewhere else. And for the average food lover, what we call foodie or super foodie, this is a remarkable thing. You know, we can enjoy, like, you know, I'm, as you can tell, probably your listeners can tell, but you know, I'm from India. And you know, it is wonderful that I can buy indigenous Indian ingredients and products in the UK. But it comes for a reason and with a cost, but we don't stop to ever think about that, right? And so that is kind of what I've tried to centre in the book and explain so we can all make more informed choices and we can talk about some of that later. So if all of this is happening, Rupy, then why do you think the food system is described as broken?
Dr Rupy: Why is it broken? Well, clearly, if we're not paying the cost, someone and something and the global environment is. Um, and I'm sure you're about to tell me about that and why I need to be a lot more cognizant of food in general and my purchasing behaviour and how I spend my pounds so I can shape the food landscape. Um, but that's my impression.
Malika Basu: I think that's a very, very astute impression right there and observation. So, I think firstly, I should say that I'm not here to tell anyone what to eat, what to buy. I think for everyone, their reality is going to be very different. And I know, you know, when we talked on my podcast, you said like it's the 90/10 rule and 90% of the time we try to be good and then inevitably we might slip to 80/20. And it's similar for things like, you know, society and impact and sustainability. But it helps to look at the food system, what's going wrong with it through four lenses, basically. Now, I'm not going to say the food system is broken because there are parts of it that are working incredibly well. And profit is not a bad word. I mean, you know, we all need to make a profit. Like it is just life. Um, but there are four ways in which it's not actually working that well. So it's failing. And the first one that we have to talk about is environment and climate. So food production, the way, you know, things happen, it contributes to between 25 and 30% of greenhouse gases. So it is a big contributor to climate change. Now, it uses a vast amount of fresh water as well. So I think something like 70 to 2% of global fresh water goes into agriculture and a lot of that is to do with food production.
Dr Rupy: 72%?
Malika Basu: 72%. So quite a lot of water is used for agriculture.
Dr Rupy: And when you say agriculture, is that both uh animal um agriculture as well as growing crops and
Malika Basu: That's exactly right. And also not necessarily crops for us to eat, crops also for things like biofuels, you know, to feed the livestock that we use for other things. So it's it's quite food is a big part of that, not entirely, but agriculture on the whole is a big user upper of fresh water. Then you've got crops like avocado. Sorry, I promise I will not bash you on the head too much with avocado.
Dr Rupy: I don't mind, I don't mind. It's okay. Can I just make a plea for avocado? Very high high in fibre, really good source of monosaturated fats. It tastes delicious, but yeah, it might come as a cost at a cost.
Malika Basu: We'll come back to options. Yes. You don't worry about what we should be eating. Avocados are not going anywhere soon. Absolutely not. They're great to eat. Um, but a lot of water intensive crops are actually grown in water scarce regions. So Peru, you know, Southern Spain, Canada, California even for almonds, these are quite water scarce. And so we're then producing these water intensive crops which puts additional pressure. Um, biodiversity. So when I say biodiversity, I'm basically talking about nature. Yeah, all like lovely living organisms.
Dr Rupy: My wildlife.
Malika Basu: Wildlife, birds, bees, all of that. Um, food production depletes biodiversity quite significantly. But also, if you think about it, that we eat all this food, right? So all this food comes to our plates and our supermarkets and everything. We waste one fifth of it. Right? So all the cost that went into producing, transporting, distributing all this food comes to us. We then waste it and then what happens to the waste?
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: Is that it basically just breeds methane into the environment. So you've got that what is known as circularity is kind of, you know, things come in, things go out, you're using them. That's not really happening. And the thing about that, which we'll talk about later, is it's also quite morally repugnant because there are very many hungry people in the world.
Dr Rupy: I mean, I'm 100% telling this to Raphael as well. He leaves half his plate. I mean, he's one, so I understand it, but honestly, it leaves me with so much guilt when we have to clear his plate and a lot of it goes in the bin, but you know, he's one. But one day, I am going to be giving him this spiel about how we should not be wasting food because it is morally repugnant.
Malika Basu: That's it. And I feel sorry for poor Raphael already. But I feel like I'm to blame for his future lectures. But you know, we grew up with that and it is especially even more true in today's world when we know, we see the news, we know what's happening out there. So that's the kind of environment and climate piece. And you know, it wasn't always like this, by the way. So if you think about what's happened in this like this last century almost, in the early sort of 1920s around then, there was a there was a guy, basically a chemist called Fritz Haber and he and this other guy, Carl Bosch, they basically found a process to create a chemical reaction which would give us synthetic and artificial fertilizers. Yeah. And that was quite revolutionary. It's also very controversial because what then happened afterwards is after the World Wars, you had a guy called Norman Borlaug. Have you come across him? Have you heard his name?
Dr Rupy: No.
Malika Basu: So, you know, an American agronomist, he was essentially tasked with making sure the world didn't run out of food because after World Wars, there was a genuine worry with the population boom and you know, what had just happened, that there just wouldn't be enough food around. And if I'm honest with you, that is a huge challenge even now. I mean, you look at the global population, it's going to exceed 9 billion people.
Dr Rupy: 9 billion.
Malika Basu: How are we going to feed everybody? So that challenge has not gone away. What Borlaug did was he went to Mexico and he intensely studied sort of farming and agriculture and he found ways to engineer crops, make them disease resistant, use modern methods of irrigation, use the synthetic and artificial fertilizers from the Haber Bosch process. So they were quite fundamental to that. But around that time, there's also something else that's happening, which is that we've just had World Wars and a lot of chemical weaponry was used in those World Wars. And those chemical companies are now going, oh, we need to now sell these chemicals. So they essentially got repurposed to make our crops multiply, so to increase those yields. So, you know, there's an amazing Indian activist called Vandana Shiva and she said this quote that just sticks with me is that we're still eating the spoils of war.
Dr Rupy: Gosh.
Malika Basu: And if you think about that, that literally eating is one of the most intimate acts you can do. You're putting something in your mouth. So you have a toddler, when he's running around like touching the crevices of your home and then putting his fingers in his mouth. What's the first thing you do? Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't put that in your mouth. And here we are as grown adults putting things in our mouth we know nothing about that were once, you know, weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: Which is quite incredible.
Dr Rupy: It is, isn't it? Yeah.
Malika Basu: So moving on from environment and climate. Have I have I depressed you enough yet?
Dr Rupy: No, no, this is great. You know, you're you're just a bundle of light. And so when you talk about this, it sounds enjoyable and fun even though it's a very depressing topic. So I'm glad because when you described why you were doing this book, you know, it's a food lover's journey through sustainability. I knew you were going to put like, you know, some animation behind it and stuff. So no, it's great. I wouldn't shy away from the depressing angle of it because we need to hear it.
Malika Basu: Okay, well, yes, I've honed my craft talking about culture and diversity over a few years now. Look, the next thing we probably ought to talk about is animals.
Dr Rupy: Sure, okay.
Malika Basu: Um, because animal injustice, animal welfare is a big challenge as part of this whole food system. We love eating animals. I love eating animals. So I'm quite carnivorous, which I'm trying to change. And you know, I've spoken to you about protein for my articles and things, which I found very useful how to get your protein from plant-based sources. But look, most of the animals we eat, especially land-based, are intensively farmed. Yes. So that is done for cost. It makes our meat and also some of our fish very, very cheap. It's also quite unnatural. So they are not being raised in a natural way. And that comes at a cost. So, you know, animals are sentient beings. We have something called cognitive dissonance where we essentially have this vision of like, you know, our animals that we're eating, they're grazing on these beautiful pastures and most animals that are raised are not raised like that. If you think about chicken, you think about pork. Yeah. Um, you know, it it's not ideal. So there are some great developments on that front. We can talk about later. And animals are a really important part of good agriculture, but unfortunately, because we're so driven by cost, most of the meat we eat is cheap. It's also eaten selectively. So we pick the best cuts. You know, and if you think about our cultures, we were so into nose to tail eating. Oxtail was a big thing in this country, in the UK. Oxtail is of course still enjoyed as a delicacy in a lot of the Caribbean. But you know, by and large, things like fish head, brains, liver, you know, unwanted bits of animals, these have really fallen out of our diet and we're reaching for things like steaks and, you know, I mean, I'm sorry, but chicken breasts, they're like polystyrene. I have no idea why anyone eats a chicken breast. It's like plastic. So and we didn't talk about plastic in an environment.
Dr Rupy: This is the yeah, this is the food lover's guide to sustainability. So this is that's a very good point. And I think we're very easy to trick, aren't we? Because we go to the supermarket, we buy the packet of chicken breast or some of us do anyway. Um, and you know, it's got like a label on it and it's got, you know, grass and this image of a of a free range farm with just two animals on it per acre or whatever it is. Um, but it's not like that at all. And I think you're right about the cognitive dissonance. It's we know that's not true, but we choose to ignore it. Um, we choose to not engage our brain and we just get on with it anyway. Um, and you know, a lot of people are making this decision because this is their only option. I think we're going to acknowledge that now and a little bit later. But um, for those of us who can afford to make the pragmatic choice based on environment, sustainability and for our own health as well, it's one that we need to be a lot more cognizant of.
Malika Basu: Absolutely agree with that. And part of the challenge, of course, is that many of us live in urban town centres and we're limited by our budgets. Yeah, yeah. And frankly, like I've worked in the communications industry for a very long time and I'm bamboozled, Rupy. Like reading a label when you're busy and you're shopping quickly, you know, sometimes the fine print is so small. Like I'm literally there in my reading glasses trying to work out where fruit and veg is coming from.
Dr Rupy: Totally. Yeah, yeah.
Malika Basu: And that is a really tall order. And you know, we are the absolute food elite if you think about it. For the average grocery shopper or food like eater, it's incredibly difficult.
Dr Rupy: Totally. Yeah.
Malika Basu: But chicken is a fine example, of course, of what's going wrong and changes, positive changes that are afoot. So there is something called a better chicken commitment in the EU that you might see on packs coming up. So the average chicken lives for only, I think it's 36 days or something, like tiny, which animal welfare activists have called Franken chickens. But what's interesting also is that chickens like being cosy and comfortable and staying indoors. So even if they're free range, they often won't go outside unless you trick them. Come on, go, you know. And they need like a comfy space outside. So if it's raining or cold, they're all like That's a very awkward sound effect.
Dr Rupy: That's a great chicken impression.
Malika Basu: That's a chicken impression for you. But you know, they'll need covered, they'll need comfort, they'll need exits that mean they're not squashed while they're exiting. You know, it's not so easy to actually just stamp free range chicken on something. Um, and the cost will go up if chicken is produced for longer and in better welfare, then we are going to have to pay more for it. And that brings its own set of challenges.
Dr Rupy: Totally.
Malika Basu: So animals is a big thing, antibiotic resistance, of course, we're very good. It's very well controlled here, but it is a genuine worry in lots of parts of the world. And that kind of nicely links to our health and nutrition, I suppose, which is
Dr Rupy: Just on the animals actually, before we go into the health and nutrition, I think um, there is a bit of a trend within the nutrition world. This is actually a very nice segue toward people eating more of the organ meats because of the nutrient density of them. There's a trend towards like ancestral eating or paleo diets or whatever you want to call them. Um, I actually kind of welcome that. You know, me and Rochelle, we make bone broth and that kind of stuff. We make oxtail because oxtail is a very traditional Italian, there's loads of Italian recipes, aren't there? Um, that she uses. Um, so we we try and like lean into that, but it is very hard to do that on a scale, you know, like bringing it into the back into the public domain and re sort of like invigorating the older recipes that have fallen out of favour because our palettes have changed massively, right? Like we're we're a lot more sort of salt and sugar driven um because of the the ubiquity of ultra processed foods rather than appreciating the the fatty sort of minerally flavours of for one of a better word of like some of the off cuts.
Malika Basu: Absolutely right. And we've lost knowhow. We've lost knowledge. And if you think about what drives the average, you know, grocery shopper or food like eater, it's price, taste and convenience. And so we're losing some of those skills and things that our parents did. So let's take bones as an example. Where do you get your bones from, Rupy?
Dr Rupy: I get it from the butchers. They always have bones just there and they're super cheap.
Malika Basu: Yeah. Now, it would take an effort, wouldn't it? It's not in your local supermarket.
Dr Rupy: No, no, no, it's not.
Malika Basu: So it would take an effort to actually go to a good butcher. You'll want some nice bones, you know, to use. You need to know your butcher. And all of those things have fallen by the wayside, even by the way we're shopping and but I'm a big fan of bringing some of that back. But when I go to my fishmonger, I go to my farmer's market on a Saturday and buy like a few things that I know I won't get locally otherwise. So I buy nice local fish. And when I ask him for a fish head, he just chucks it at me. He's literally just take it for free, man. What are you on about? But you know, fish head is like a real delicacy in Bengal where I'm from. So you mash it with seasonal veg, you do which is with rice, you might have it in a dal. So, you know, all that omega-3 from like a trout head, I'm guessing there's lots of omega-3.
Dr Rupy: There is, yeah, trout and salmon.
Malika Basu: Trout, salmon, salmon we talk about later. We have a very intense conversation about salmon in a minute. Don't go anywhere yet. I can't believe I'm talking about such miserable things and cracking jokes. It's extraordinary, really. Tell you what, this has put serious pressure on my GSOH, this conversation. Um, but look, you know, those things are actually prized in a lot of cultures. And oxtail is a brilliant example of how it's sort of got elevated by this move to nose to tail eating. And then the community were finding it hard to get hold of it and you know, to get hold of it and pay, you know, reasonable price for it, which is, you know, shocking. But I'm a big fan. I think we should bring it back. I was on the kitchen cabinet panel recently and I made the team afterwards, we went for Pakistani curry and we ordered beja, which is brains.
Dr Rupy: Oh, really?
Malika Basu: And I got a whole load of newbies to try brains. I know. And they actually quite liked it.
Dr Rupy: Really? Even Jay Rayner?
Malika Basu: Yes, and Jay is brilliant at trying something new, big fan of, you know, proper curries and they all tucked into it. So, yeah, bring it back, I say.
Dr Rupy: That's funny how cod head found its way into like a really high-end restaurant. Fallow. So they got they were made they went viral, right, for having a cod head on the menu. And when we went a couple of years ago, it was incredible. Like, I mean, it's massive and you really got to dig into it and stuff, but like the way they presented it, you know, the size of it as well. And it's a statement piece. It's a statement to say, look, we throw away this food. And if we're in the business of conserving and actually protecting the nutrient density of what we put on our plates, these are the kind of products that we can't just leave by the wayside. So good on you.
Malika Basu: I think Fallow are doing a great job. It's one of my favourite restaurants in London actually. Um, so they were the ones who put ex-dairy cow on the menu and they are also doing, well, they grow their own mushrooms in their kitchen, which I mushrooms are one of the most sustainable foods. And um, there's a really interesting movement on breeder hens. I don't know if you've come across that.
Dr Rupy: Oh, spent hens, is that what they're called?
Malika Basu: Exactly, that's right. So spent hens, breeder hens, it's called Leghorn, the brand, but they're introducing it on menus and they're working with a lot of chefs. It's beautifully, richly flavoured. It's like no chicken you have ever tasted.
Dr Rupy: Brilliant.
Malika Basu: And it's so good. I can just imagine you doing some one of your lasagnas with walnuts and whatever stuff you put in your food, you know, all these healthy omega-3 and everything. I'll I'll use the recipe later. Yeah. Um, but you know, the the flavour and then you're hitting lots of things, aren't you? You're getting a very sustainable meat, you're getting a good quality protein, you're getting a delicious ingredient, you know, blow this up.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. Let's let's talk a bit more about the health and nutrition angle as well. Um
Malika Basu: Well, this is where I think you can really come in, can't you? I mean, this is like your whole bit about it. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Rupy: I mean, look, the the the challenge here from connecting sustainability and nutrition piece is that, do you remember when food was all about pleasure and joy? And then people like you, experts like you have done a great thing of centering and mainstreaming nutrition. So seeing food as a source of health and medicine. Um, and then now we're at a point where we see sustainability as a separate thing. Like people will often say to me, oh, are you turning into like a tree hugging hippie or something? I'm literally like, mate, you will not have a planet to live on. I'm not being funny. Yeah. We're going to eat ourselves into oblivion. But those things are incredibly linked. And what's fascinating, as you know, is that we can be overfed and undernourished at the same time.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Malika Basu: And that is shocking. I mean, I think there what there's what over a billion obese people in the world now already. There's quite a high percentage in the UK and the US. Um, ultra processed foods is a good thing to talk about now because a lot of food production is not actually food we eat, it's commodities. So it's ingredients that are bulk produced that go into processed food items. So the crops that are the highest rates of monoculture. So monoculture is when you literally grow like rows and rows and rows of the the same crop with these industrial chemical fertilizers, you know, you won't see a lot of birds or bees or bushes or diversity. So those crops are actually grown to then feed into things like industrial, intensive farmed animals and then the kind of junk food that we eat, you know, the high HFSS food, high fat, sugar, salt food that we eat. So that is kind of the problem. And that started, well, it started a while ago, but 70s, there was a big turning point in that. And we have our friends in the US to thank a lot as well. As you know, you know, the industry, food industry started playing a much bigger role in what we were putting in our mouths. And so the bliss point was perfected. Howard Moskowitz, I think is his name.
Dr Rupy: Oh, he he did he pioneer that bliss point where they just get the
Malika Basu: Yes, he did. And so the bliss point is the perfect point of taste that addicts you essentially. And also also nutritionism, which I think Julia talked about on one of your recent podcasts. Um, but this idea that you can take something that's really quite shit for you. Sorry, am I allowed to say shit?
Dr Rupy: You can go ahead.
Malika Basu: Like you take something that's really quite shit for you, then you just added a few, you know, fibre, protein, you know, here's a few nuts and seeds. And what was fascinating listening to her is that they're not even in these quantities that will actually make a huge difference to you, but it then meant that we could isolate certain things and view a food that is not actually particularly good for you as good food.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's a real like greenwashing or nutrition washing, whatever you want to call it, issue that a lot of people fall for. Um, and the low fat yogurt thing is a really good example because the industry will convince you that this is healthful because they've stripped out the fat. It's cheaper to produce for them. They add a bunch of thickeners and gums because they need to replicate the flavour, which are very cheap to manufacture. And then they utilize that fat and then the the things that they've skimmed off and put them into protein bars and protein powders and all the rest of it. So you've actually increased the amount of revenue you can derive from that product whilst putting essentially terrible products onto the market. Um, and you know, when you add like a protein label or you add multivitamins or whatever to the label of a packet, like there's a lot of companies that do this these days, you can charge a premium. So you're actually charging more for a terrible product that shouldn't be on the shelves. Um, and if they are on the shelves, there should be better education around why we shouldn't be opting for these either. Um, and the ultra processed food issue, I think it's purposely confused, made confusing to people. Um, and I this is where we like go into conspiracy corner here and we put on our tin hats. Um, because, you know, it just seems wild that we can't agree what is a a food and what is a food-like substance. Um, and there are a lot of food-like substances on our supermarkets today, um, that are tricking people. And you know, there is this sort of party line in the food industry that, well, we and our developments and the use of fertilizers and pesticides and all the rest of it are the reason why we can feed so many people well is because the cost of a calorie has come down so far because of the things that we're doing. This is a good thing. We need to strip that back. We need to unpack that because that that is A, an incorrect argument, and I think it just it it it's made even more confusing to the consumer because I don't think people realize that we can produce in a way that it protects yields and also protects nutrition for the vast majority of us.
Malika Basu: 100%. I couldn't agree with you more. And I go quite deep into ultra processed foods in my book actually, because it's become something of a red herring and you're seeing these camps emerge. And I just want to root this by saying that ultra processed foods and convenience foods were also things that emancipated women. You know, there is a good reason I am not chained to my oven cooking all day. You know, convenience foods have a role to play in our modern lives. The issue is not the fact that they exist, the issue is that they are a huge percentage in our diets and we're losing skills that we need to have, like cooking, like understanding what real ingredients are. Um, and we will come on to the society piece later. But the very importantly, when ultra processed foods were first kind of categorized in the Nova system by Carlos Montero, it was meant to be a very rudimentary analysis. So he had a few buckets and then everything that was not easily distinguishable just went into like this might be an ultra processed food. It was never intended to be used as a nutrition model. And it did not look at processing. What has happened in time is that an ultra processed product has become synonymous with a product that is effectively junk. So there's junk food, which is HFSS, and there's ultra processed food. Some ultra processed food is actually terrible for you and properly HFSS. Some of it is, well, as part of a diet, potentially, could it be good? Bread is a really good example of that, which can be fortified. Often a piece of whole meal or seeded bread is going to be a really good dietary kind of, you know, ingredient. But how do you then separate that? So there's a lot of work going on at the moment by other academics who are diving more deeply into this. And I talk about it because of course, this brings us nicely on to inequity.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really want to underscore what you said actually about the ultra processed food, convenience foods and actually allowing higher productivity levels within the economy because of the the extra time it's enabled us. That's a really good point. I don't think that gets enough attention.
Malika Basu: It doesn't. And I will often find myself telling a sad story about when I went to listen to a panel on ultra processed foods at a private members club and I left my kids with a packet of instant noodles and an apple each for dinner because I just hadn't had time. I hadn't had time to cook that day. I hadn't had time to take something out of the freezer and I knew that the kitchen would be an absolute trash pad had I left them to cook something. So my kids are 16 and 15, which means they're not sensible yet. I hope they're not listening to this podcast. Probably not. Um, and so, you know, and I tell that story because I'm like, is that what I eat on a normal basis? Is that what my kids eat at home all the time? It isn't. But the answer is not to kill our instant noodles. The answer is to have a better instant noodle. It is dried noodles in a packet with a spice mix. Why does it need to have a hundred things on it that we don't recognize? So in these conversations, and I'm often like the lone voice of like the single parent and, you know, the inner city London London person who shops on a budget. But I'm a bit like the answer is not to kill those products, is to have better versions and think about the fact that yes, we need to live more like our parents did or eat more like our parents did, but we don't live like them. You know, our lives have changed and convenience is a factor of modern life. So what do we do here?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely.
Malika Basu: One more point actually that I do want to make on the health piece.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: Which is that health and you were talking about this, health being used as marketing spin. I think the biggest example of that is salmon actually on omega-3. And we do have to talk about that because that is a complex product. So I don't know if you have any facts or any background on how healthy salmon actually is for us.
Dr Rupy: I mean, so so I did a little bit of research on the omega-3 levels of fish and like it is up there on the last time it was reviewed in terms of the omega-3 and I'm specifically looking at the long chain omega-3 levels, EPA and DHA. Um, trout is up there, sardines, I believe herring, mackerel, just from memory, I don't have the stats in front of me. But those are relatively on the high side. But to meet the requirements for omega-3, um, you'd have to eat quite a bit of fish every single week to actually get to those levels. I remember that was kind of a stark thing I remember during my nutritional medicine masters that actually to meet the recommendations, you have to eat quite a bit. But uh, burst my bubble about salmon. What what do I not what what do I not know about salmon that I should know and everyone else should know?
Malika Basu: So Scottish salmon, how do you think it's actually produced or what?
Dr Rupy: I I I think it's farmed. Is it mainly farmed in these big nets where they all have lice?
Malika Basu: It is entirely farmed. So the reason farmed was dropped from Scottish farmed salmon is because it is all farmed. There is no Scottish salmon that comes from being caught. But most people don't realize that.
Dr Rupy: There's none at all?
Malika Basu: There's none. I mean, the stocks are completely busted. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Oh my gosh.
Malika Basu: So it's all farmed salmon. Now, some farmed salmon is a massive industrial farmed ingredient in our daily meals. So it's an industry. It is an industry that is of huge significance to Scotland. It employs lots of people, it's worth millions. It's also huge in Iceland and Norway. And what's happening with that is that there are some significant environmental challenges with producing it. So there is something called salmon mortality, which means salmon actually die, several salmon die so you get one fish.
Dr Rupy: What?
Malika Basu: Now, fish are sentient, so they can feel pain.
Dr Rupy: They can feel pain?
Malika Basu: They can feel pain, fish, yes.
Dr Rupy: But muscles can't, right?
Malika Basu: Apparently not, no, but I'm watching this one.
Dr Rupy: So muscles, razor clam and stuff, that kind of stuff, yeah.
Malika Basu: Bivalves can't, they're called.
Dr Rupy: But salmon, regular, they've sentient, okay.
Malika Basu: Yes, they're sentient. Now, so they feel pain. So what is happening? We're killing a few to get every piece of salmon. Because of the way they're raised, they get
Dr Rupy: So that's literally the rate of death, like so to have one decent salmon.
Malika Basu: A few die. Yes, I think it was eight last time I checked, but the industry is constantly improving its standards. So I need to research what the latest figure is. But what also happens is that they get growth hormones, so they're basically made to grow pretty quickly and other different things go into them to fatten them up. Um, they also get something really gross called sea lice.
Dr Rupy: Oh, I've heard of the sea lice, yeah.
Malika Basu: And it's really quite grim to look at, but because they are farmed in open nets in the sea, um, and these are nets, but some of them escape, so they basically infect the wild fish populations.
Dr Rupy: They what?
Malika Basu: Yes.
Dr Rupy: Oh my gosh.
Malika Basu: Yeah, I mean, it's really quite bad with salmon. So lots of chefs and lots of food writers just won't touch salmon at all.
Dr Rupy: Really? That bad?
Malika Basu: It's pretty bad. It doesn't end there, I'm afraid. There's more.
Dr Rupy: Are you ready to poke your eyes out yet or not?
Malika Basu: Okay, so the next thing you need to know about salmon is that it feeds on little fish and fish oils.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Malika Basu: That are edible by humans. So we're taking basically taking food away from people.
Dr Rupy: Really? What kind of things?
Malika Basu: Coastal communities, like little fish.
Dr Rupy: Oh.
Malika Basu: And basically those coastal communities that depend on these little fish to eat are being obliterated. And in fact, there was a big petition to Norway for West Africa because we're eating away into their livelihoods and their local foods to then produce these fish that are impacting our environment.
Dr Rupy: Wow. Oh my god.
Malika Basu: Wow. But
Dr Rupy: I love you said that with a little chuckle.
Malika Basu: I mean, if you don't laugh, you cry. Literally, you will cry. What is very sad about all of this is that people will just buy salmon thinking it is the best source of omega-3 without knowing what sits behind it. Now, of course, there are trade-offs everywhere. Organic salmon is definitely a better choice. There are lots of farms that are doing some really interesting new good things.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, because the farms are not all they're not all the same, right? Like some farms are doing a good job, you'd say that.
Malika Basu: Some farms are doing a better job. Um, the view generally amongst people who know is that there is no sustainable farm, no sustainable salmon out there. Salmon is unsustainable. So even when you see wild Atlantic salmon, even that has human intervention.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Malika Basu: So they feed like babies in, yes, to help the stocks go. And animal welfare activists have actually linked dwindling wild salmon populations with the growth of the salmon aquaculture industry, which is of course contested, um, and the industry is doing lots of things. But you know, it seems to be a strange coincidence that that is happening. Yes. So generally, I would say if we're eating salmon, we need to treat it a bit more precious. We need to look at the labels. We need to reward farms and brands that are doing a good job. Um, but it isn't the, oh, I'm getting home from work late. What can I eat tonight that's healthy? Two packs of really bad salmon. It's just not that. You'd be better off using tinned fish actually. So sardines, um, some mackerel, uh, they're better and we can talk about, you know, some of the options. But that's the piece about salmon.
Dr Rupy: Oh gosh. Okay, fine. So salmon are eating up little fish, they're on hormones, they've got lice and these farmed salmon are actually impacting wild stocks.
Malika Basu: Yeah, not good, is it? Not looking good for salmon at all.
Dr Rupy: So is there literally nowhere in the world that I can get decent salmon? Like aren't people like, you know, catching, I'm so ignorant to the fishing industry. Are people catching it like line caught? Like does that mean anything?
Malika Basu: I believe there's some salmon in America. Um, I'm not entirely sure to be honest because obviously I focus very much on the UK. Um, I think a retailer, um, Abel & Cole has just worked with quite a high standard, high sustainability, um, Icelandic salmon farm. So they're doing some interesting things. I know some retailers are working very closely with farms, like named farms and watching them closely. Um, and of course there are labels, we can talk about that later as well. We'll come on to the positives, what we can do.
Dr Rupy: Okay, I'm glad we're going on to the positives.
Malika Basu: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I think the the two things to quickly finish off with, one is inequity and inequality and we've touched on that with the with what's happening in West Africa. But you know, people will often say that things got really bad since, you know, World War II and since all this industrialization of agriculture happened. But you know, things were pretty bad from when colonization and exploration happened, like centuries ago. Because we went, people went overseas looking for land, they chucked indigenous communities who knew how to work with nature. They had farming systems, food production systems, they understood health and nutrition from their own cultural perspective, generationally, we chucked them off their land and then we forced things like monoculture. So actually a lot of the roots of monoculture come from plantation economies. It's when sugar, you know, crops were being grown, supported by the transatlantic slave trade, of course, they were being grown in these massive fields and that is a format that basically just got commercialized, right? So those inequalities and inequities have not gone away. You've got the industrialized nations, the global the global north, the settler nations, you know, where those colonists went and lived. You've got the global south, you've got some nations less industrialized than other, having to produce things like palm oil from Indonesia for wealthier nations, but also now big food corporations. So it's a different kind of colonization. Even in wealthy nations, you look at the difference between the rich and the poor. We're about to get our first trillionaire. You know, the distance, the gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. Healthy food is twice as expensive as unhealthy food in the UK in a shopping basket. Can we really blame people for reaching for the cheaper things?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Malika Basu: Cost of living crisis, it's still happening. So, you know, there are all these other factors and then those communities globally, we there's all this research to show that we don't really care about farmers and when we care about them, we don't really know what they're doing, which is so sad because of course they're the bastions of food production, experts in nature. Um, we don't care about them here. So imagine how little we care about them when they're global, when our food is coming from far, when they're literally front in front of those pesticides that are liberally being sprayed on crops like oats, which are health foods.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Malika Basu: Right? So it's very those things are really, really joined up. Um, and massive case for the economy, of course. I mean, we can't the nation, this is literally the future of the nation.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Malika Basu: So, are you are you happy yet with why the food system might be failing, Rupy? Have I depressed you enough?
Dr Rupy: No, no, this is all really good stuff. I just want to ask about palm oil actually, because palm oil is something that we always look for in the ingredients list and we avoid as much as possible. What are the sustainability implications of palm oil? Um, and why is it something that people should be aware of?
Malika Basu: So palm oil is almost ubiquitous with ultra processed foods and it's in loads of different products like shampoo and soaps and
Dr Rupy: I don't think people know that.
Malika Basu: Oh, really? Oh, that's interesting. Yes, so they're they're in loads of different products. Um, it's essentially an indigenous ingredient. It was a cultural ingredient in Africa where it's still used, you know, it's the red oil that floats on food. Um, and I believe if I remember correctly, the Dutch took it to the East, um, when they colonized, they basically then commercialized the production of palm oil and that's how it sort of became an industrialized oil. So it is a cheap oil that is used in loads of things. Now, palm oil is quite tricky as well because there are nations and there are communities that depend on palm oil production. It is a cause of deforestation. So places like Indonesia, you know, orangutan populations are diminishing. There's been some real challenges to local diversity, um, nature and ecosystems. But we can't just remove it straight away.
Dr Rupy: Sure, yeah.
Malika Basu: Yeah, there has to be a method and a process and the farmers need to be incentivized for doing palm oil properly, you know, not raising the land, but also paid properly so the communities benefit. And we need to be a bit more judicious about how we use it. But generally, I don't think it's helpful to say I will not touch anything with palm oil in it because, you know, that has other implications for global farming populations.
Dr Rupy: Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Very well explained. Okay, so look, I think you've convinced everyone why we need to care, why our food system is broken. Um, I really hope there's some positive stuff coming, Malika, because
Malika Basu: Yes, yes, yes, definitely. Look, there's a lot of positive stuff coming. I think, you know, the reason we should care is did you know that food is actually 20 to 30% less nutritious than it used to be 50 to 70 years ago?
Dr Rupy: You told me this, but I was very shocked at this. Yeah.
Malika Basu: And actually, I think we had um, Prof Julia on recently and she was talking about the reduction in nutrient density of our food as a result of growing systems, the use of MPK, the nitrogen phosphate, um, potassium. Um, and the soil degradation essentially. So the lack of nutrients in our soil that are actually being delivered to the plants that we now consume. Um, but it is pretty shocking, isn't it?
Malika Basu: It is pretty shocking. We shop mostly at retailers, at the big grocery supermarkets. There's a lot of market concentration generally as well. So, you know, you've got a tiny handful of companies that do fertilizers, that do seeds, that do, you know, grains, um, which is which is complex. We're quite exposed to things like conflict, so the geopolitical situation. But we're also for us seeing things on packs that we have no idea what these things mean really. So let's say I put my reading glasses on and I actually managed to see what's on a pack. At least 90% of those things make no sense to me. Yes. And that is the other challenge. So we do need to care. And the really positive thing about all of this is that we can engage better with some of the great things that are happening.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Malika Basu: And great things are happening. So you look at organic food. It's a growing market.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: And guess what? Like there's evidence to show that it's actually lower socioeconomic groups that are buying more more organic food.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Malika Basu: Yes.
Dr Rupy: There you go.
Malika Basu: Organic market trends.
Dr Rupy: Is is the price of organic food coming down at all? Do do we have any of that?
Malika Basu: A little bit. The actual distance between organic and conventional is is closing. And that's partly because the cost of food has gone up. I know, right? So what I give you with one hand, I take with the other hand. So but look, it is closing, but I think what's happening is that organic food was very much um confused and synonymous with health food. And there is more growing recognition now about the fact that it is actually a soil health issue. So if our soil is unhealthy because it's been pumped with these unnatural chemicals and ingredients, pesticides, herbicides, then the crops are less nutritious. One of the defining features also of the industrial system is we get 75 of 75% of our food from 12 crops and five animals. What organic farming does is it really diversifies that. You have, you know, smaller farmers, more passionate producers, they're then producing, you know, fruit and veg that you wouldn't normally see. So one of the things I did recently was just sign up to a veg box. And that's been brilliant because it's taken the thinking out for me. I don't have to go into a supermarket and think, oh, well, what's in season now or wait for it to be pulled out in a special section. I just get a box every other week.
Dr Rupy: Totally.
Malika Basu: And I mean, I've eaten a lot of chard in the last two weeks. And I can't say I'm excited about turnip. Yes. But it's one way of connecting ourselves. So the organic food thing is very exciting, very positive. And there are all these young brands and entrepreneurs who are doing some great things with organic produce because they see the value of farming right, fishing right, you know, which is super exciting. Regenerative agriculture.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Why don't we talk about what regenerative agriculture actually means? Because I think I have some sense of an idea, but I probably got some things wrong.
Malika Basu: Sure. Um, so given the way we have been farming uh in recent years in wealthier nations, there is a big movement to set that right. So this is called broadly nature-friendly farming. And um, one of the movements within that is regenerative agriculture. It started, so I would argue that, you know, all the global majority farming used to be regenerative before all this industrializing happened. But it's a new movement that is very much led by North American farmers that has grown significantly in the UK. Um, there's a festival, a farmer's festival called Groundswell that I'm quite involved in here. And I speak there and run sessions for them. It started as a few hundred farmers literally in a field and now it's like thousands of people. I think it was 8,000 at last count.
Dr Rupy: 8,000 really? Wow.
Malika Basu: Yes. And it's, you know, not only farmers and, you know, suppliers to farmers. So I love the tractors. There's me like taking selfies and stuff. But also nutritionists and, you know, commentators and food writers, which just makes it incredibly exciting. But what that means is that if you think about sustainable, sustainable is we've got something now, we need it to continue to the future. Yes. Now, we've already done a lot of damage, so that is not good enough to be sustainable. Regenerative is then putting something back in. So you're not just taking out.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Malika Basu: Yeah, but you're also replenishing while you're at it. So some of the key signature signs of that is fertile and healthy soil. You might have soil with earthworms in it. You might have chirping birds and buzzing bees, crickets and insects that you can hear. So it's the sign that basically what you're doing is actually in sync and replenishing and nourishing the environment around it. There is one more piece to it, which is agroecology. And lots of people favour agroecology because regenerative can sometimes be used as greenwashing.
Dr Rupy: Oh, really?
Malika Basu: Because of course, if you think of lots of food companies, you know, they're going to have to be regenerative because if they don't look after the soil, then where are their raw materials coming from? So you'll see things like responsible corn, regenerative oats coming up in in products, but it's kind of like they sort of need to do that if they don't want to obliterate their futures. Um, but agroecology is much more farming in tune with nature. Um, it is harder, I would say to gloss over. It is also probably tougher to get right because you're more kind of exposed to the elements. Um, it it is much more natural. So it's not for everybody, but these are all kind of stages and levels of doing things properly. And what excites me as someone who knows nothing about farming and kills every plant they touch is that there are people who are way more clued up about this stuff, really getting involved and interested and it feels exciting.
Dr Rupy: That's awesome. That's so cool. I mean, if there's anything like, you know, the growth of that um event that you do is to to to go by, then clearly a lot more people. I mean, we're definitely getting asked a lot more about farming and region and all that kind of stuff. We've done a couple of pods on it in the past, but we've definitely seen a resurgence in people asking us about it. So, yeah, and it definitely has a health effect. Yeah.
Malika Basu: And you can't again, it's because you can't separate those things, you know, health, health of people, health of planet, very joined up. Beans we should talk about.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: I mean, you know, I don't understand all this stuff about beans being gassy, causing flatulence or pain because I couldn't live without the darn things, you know? I mean, dal and rice, let's go. It's like comfort food 101.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah.
Malika Basu: Um, so there's a big movement because beans are falling off the diet. And the more wealthy a nation gets, there is evidence to show the more they eat meat and the wrong kind of meat. We'll talk about meat in a minute. Um, but also beans are seen as, you know, food of the poor, cheap food, um, and they kind of fall off. So this move to the western diet happens effectively.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: Which is not the best diet as we know. So there is a big movement to reintroduce that globally, but also in the UK, beans are grown here.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: Like fava beans, they're actually grown here.
Dr Rupy: Tons, isn't it?
Malika Basu: But they go to the Middle East to feed cows.
Dr Rupy: Oh, they go to they we ship them across. I didn't realize we ship them across.
Malika Basu: Yeah, we ship them to the Middle East for ful medames and like the things. I know. It's a tragedy and travesty. Beans have this incredible superpower. They take nitrogen out of the air and fix it into the soil. So they naturally fertilize soil. They're also cheap, they're easy, they're affordable. They act as um for crop rotation as well. So they actually nourish the nourish the soil in between others. Um, and so it is a massive superfood basically. So there's some brands like Bold Bean Co, they're doing great things with this. Hodmedod, of course, is what started it. Josiah, Josiah Meldrum and Nick Saltmarsh. But you know, that is very exciting that we are talking about beans in a way that is really global and exciting. My big thing, of course, is, you know, the global majority voices are often missing from these discussions. So if you think about, you know, the most exciting cuisines of the world, beans are foundational to them.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely.
Malika Basu: Mexican cuisine.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: You know, there's a great campaign actually, I don't know if you've heard of called Broad in Mind. Have you heard about that?
Dr Rupy: Broad in mind?
Malika Basu: Broad N, like the letter, and then mind.
Dr Rupy: No.
Malika Basu: So, um, it's a it's an academic called Dr. Nadia Radzmen, if I remember correctly, she's Malaysian, works at University of Cambridge. And she is looking at the link between um broad beans and mental health.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Malika Basu: Yes, there is a link between those two things. I've written about it for good food. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Oh, very cool.
Malika Basu: Um, but you know, there's all these things, this potential that we we haven't even uncovered, you know, the
Dr Rupy: And I know your big thing is, you know, looking at traditional diets and the wisdom of uh our recipes and how, you know, these are truly not just nutritious and healthful for the consumer, but also for the planet as well, right? And so if we lean into some of that wisdom that we lost as a result of colonization or big food or whatever it might be, then this is actually going to serve us as we start thinking about the the global climate issues and food food system issues.
Malika Basu: I think you're 100% right. Absolutely. And the biggest big tick to what you've just said is that the EAT-Lancet body of scientific advisors have just revisited their planetary health diet, which they published in 2019. It was incredibly controversial at the time. You know, there's been research to show that the meat and dairy lobby actually organized themselves to um trash the recommendations. There was a leak showing that. But they've just done an update and they went and researched all the traditional diets around the world or a lot of them. And they found that traditional diets are already planet friendly. So if we ate like we were eating culturally, and this is where the whole culture, identity, global majority piece comes in, then that is naturally a better diet. The problem, of course, is that the world is moving towards the western diet.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Malika Basu: You know, and that's again where things become complicated. But if you look at what the PHD recommends, it's all the stuff you talk about. You know, I'm like, Rupy's been saying this for 200 years.
Dr Rupy: I mean, to be fair, it is pretty bloody obvious, isn't it? Because if you think about the current diet and exactly how you've explained it at the start of this pod about how we get avocados from halfway around the world and sweet corn here and stuff. I mean, of course it's not going to be sustainable. The amount of fish and meat that we consume, of course it's not going to be sustainable. So traditional diets were diets of means. They were diets of like what's local, what is actually going to be sustaining over a long period of time. They they couldn't we just didn't have the luxury of like air air freighting in a whole bunch of food. So it's definitely going to be the best diet from a planetary point of view.
Malika Basu: 100%. But also, you know, there's lots of things we can't grow here.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: You know, we couldn't grow a star anise. I don't know why I've chosen star anise for this, by the way. This is a terribly random, sorry. Um, but you know, there are lots of things we can't grow here and our global palettes and our plates are better for this wide variety of ingredients and tastes and flavours that we enjoy. But we should grow what we can here and we should enjoy what we already get and then look to what else can we have from where that, you know, might benefit other communities and actually, you know, we can be global in a good way. So the PHD has, you know, it's landed quite well. It's, you know, a little bit of meat and dairy are included. It's up the nuts a bit, I think, almonds are a bit extra. Um, but it is all the stuff you talk about, which is get your whole grains in, get your fruits and vegetables in, you know, eat a diverse range of things. Meat is again an interesting one because the conversations about meat are very polarized. So you I heard a chef talking about he hates vegan food, you know, meat is the best form of food ever and, you know, yes, but all meat isn't equal in the same way that all um plant-based alt proteins are not equal. There is a huge range of quality in the meat that we access. Inequity has a lot to do with it as well, but you know, processed meat is a genuine challenge, especially for teenage boys, apparently, is what the stats say. That would be my son.
Dr Rupy: Oh, really? There's a teenage boys which is specific to them.
Malika Basu: This is it's it's problematic. But you know, then you've got this big range where actually when you look after animals well, they're an essential part of good agriculture. You know, they have a lot of role to play and you know, there are these silver pastoral systems, blah, blah, blah. Generally, the the advice is that we do need to eat a lot less meat than we do at the moment, but it's the sort of meat that we actually reach out for. The same thing happens with these plant-based alt proteins. Now, we think it's something really new, but actually Buddhist Buddhist monks in China were creating meat alternatives in the sixth century. Did you know that?
Dr Rupy: No.
Malika Basu: Well, now you do.
Dr Rupy: Tell me about this.
Malika Basu: They were using mushroom, wheat gluten, they were using all of this to create tastes of meat.
Dr Rupy: No way.
Malika Basu: Yes, Fuchsia Dunlop has done a lot of writing on this. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Malika Basu: It's fascinating stuff.
Dr Rupy: So they were the original Beyond Meat.
Malika Basu: They were the original Beyond Meat. And so there are all these exciting things happening. I think it's exciting because, you know, we need to embrace technology if it works for good, but do it cautiously. But you know, things like these, you know, products, I had a fake sausage the other day and it wasn't half bad to be honest.
Dr Rupy: A fig sausage?
Malika Basu: Fake sausage.
Dr Rupy: Oh, fake sausage. I was thinking, wow, they've found a really novel way of using figs.
Malika Basu: Fake sausage. Just your mind to go straight to a fruit. Um, but you know, dairy is again, even in that category of, you know, plant-based protein, there is a huge range. You've got beans on one side, you've got really highly ultra processed products on one side, but you've also got a mid-range that if you look at the labels, it's not half bad. And my son when, you know, he went vegetarian for a couple of years, he's he we eat meat but very mindfully now. And you know, if I'd had that sausage when he was vegetarian, I would have 100% served it and quite happily. So all of those things have a little role to play and yeah, hopefully things are on the up.
Dr Rupy: That's awesome. Okay, well, you you haven't satisfied my my love of salmon with any any alternatives, unfortunately. I don't think tinned fish is going to quite cut it for me when it comes to salmon, but I'll definitely be Are there any other fish that are more sustainable?
Malika Basu: 100%. So trout actually is some of yeah, some of the land-based um pond trout is quite good and they're branded. So look out for some nice trout. Um, some people actually think trout tastes better as well.
Dr Rupy: I some people feel it's like a stronger taste than the salmon. I I quite like trout personally.
Malika Basu: I really like trout, you know, and um, I have a Cornish fishmonger every Saturday in my local farmer's market. So I just go and I just chat with them and I'm like, what have you got? What have you got from the local waters?
Dr Rupy: Gotcha.
Malika Basu: And and that's quite a nice way to buy fish. Um, I also
Dr Rupy: So if I go to my fancy fishmongers, even the salmon that they're flogging me is not the good stuff.
Malika Basu: It's sadly not. Sadly, it's all coming from a farm. All the salmon here. Um, look out for local varieties like, you know, hake and coley, like some of those white fish varieties. So I'm not suggesting everyone go to a fishmonger, but I'm saying a fishmonger is a really good way to learn. And then one of the things you can do as well, which I do a fair bit is in a supermarket, you'll get a bag that's MSC or ASC certified.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Malika Basu: So labels are a big thing and I've got a section on them in the book so people can be more smart about what they mean. But MSC is basically Marine Stewardship Council, so that's more oceans and seas. ASC is aquaculture, so that's farms.
Dr Rupy: Got it.
Malika Basu: And you know, all farms aren't made equal, all caught wild caught fish isn't made equal. The labels are not foolproof and fail safe, but they are a very good filter. So if you're if you're buying packs with those stamps on them, even other labels like fair trade, you know, if you're rainforest alliance, that's a really good lever to put your shopping through and just to be mindful about.
Dr Rupy: Okay. So MSC, ASC, and there's a whole bunch of other labels as well that you talk about in your book.
Malika Basu: Yeah. And by the way, don't get me wrong, I do eat salmon. I've just dramatically reduced how much of it I eat and I tend to buy the organic stuff.
Dr Rupy: To be fair, even when I was in um, I was in Australia a couple of years ago, um, visiting Rochelle's family, my wife's family. And uh, her dad and his business partner, they're in um, they're in the food industry. They they they do a lot of work within um, it it's very sustainable. It's actually using the excesses of things like abattoirs and fishmongers and all the rest of it, um, and repurposing those into materials that can be utilized. And I cooked a piece of salmon on a on a cedar wood plank, you know, the technique where you put it on a barbecue and it's like it's incredible for those of us that eat salmon. Um, and he wouldn't he wouldn't eat salmon regularly, but because I made it so deliciously, he uh he ate some. But he was like, salmon's very dirty. And I remember that was the first time I heard someone talk about how there's something fishy about salmon. And now you've you've basically reignited that.
Malika Basu: Yeah, and you know, it's I didn't know that about Rochelle's family, by the way. I think it's wonderful that they're doing that because if we're going to use an animal, we should use an animal properly. You know, if you're going to eat an animal, eat it, use the skin, you know, do the lot. Um, I went to the Algarve on holiday in January this year and I went out with my friend who I was staying with and her friends, we went to this amazing swanky sushi place. And the first thing they said is we will not touch salmon.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Malika Basu: Yeah, they were like, we will only eat the sushi you've made with local fish. And they will actually, but also why are they selling salmon in like a coastal town that has a fresh catch of the day every day?
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: You know, I've heard that in COP recently, the environmental event, um, which happened in Belem in Brazil, there were salmon carcasses just lying, just lying on the ground.
Dr Rupy: Really?
Malika Basu: And it's like, why are you guys eating salmon? It's just an industrial food product that's been commercialized around the world, you know? So yeah, best I hope they don't get upset with me. It's a good way to look at it. Look at the whole food system.
Dr Rupy: Your invite to COP's been cancelled, Malika, I'm sorry. Uh, okay, okay, fine. So we've got some some key things that we can do, judgment free, eat more plants, especially the beans, the vegetables, the region.
Malika Basu: Yeah, I think, look, it's, you know, some of this stuff, Rupy, if I'm honest with you, it's very immense. You know, it took me, as you can imagine,
Dr Rupy: It's overwhelming for a lot of people, yeah.
Malika Basu: It's really overwhelming. And I am immersed in this sort of stuff. I have been for a while. I've been writing planet-friendly features for Good Food magazine for almost a year now. But you know, even for me, I studied the Cambridge Institute for sustainable leadership food production. So it's called sustainable food production and processing. They have a course. And I studied that and even after that, it was like an absolute minefield to, you know, go and navigate and figure things out. But you know, we can do some really simple things within our means and it starts by just being mindful and understanding some of this. If we understand this stuff, we can't be bamboozled. You know, we're already come at coming at it from a point and a perspective where we're much more educated. And then we're aware of what's happening around us. When we read the news and the national media, it's actually making sense. So I write a substack where I break these things down and even on my podcast, you've been on it with nutrition communications, you know, understanding some of these really basic things. And then you can start to think about, well, how can I be better then? If I'm a good cook, could I teach someone how to cook because there's no food education in this in this country after the age of 14? Or I can't be seasonal and local 100% of the time. I mean, that would be impossible with our cooking. But could I eat a bit more seasonally and support some local businesses while I'm at it? What about supermarkets? Yeah, I love a supermarket and I shop at a supermarket. But could I actually choose a supermarket that is committing to some of this stuff that cares? Could I be more aware of their initiatives? Because here's the other thing is that I hear a lot of bad mouthing of supermarkets. But whether we like it or not, they are a reality of our shopping habits and our lives. Lots of them are doing things that are better to engage us, but they find consumers don't engage. They get irritated when we put healthy things out and you know, you gamify things and they just go to another retailer. So it is for us fundamentally to, you know, take an interest, I think.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Malika, uh, I'm so excited about your book, In Good Taste. When is it out again?
Malika Basu: So it is out on the 22nd of January and available to pre-order before that.
Dr Rupy: Amazing. And uh, you haven't narrated it, have you? Because I I really want you to read this book out so I can listen to it on Spotify or Audible or whatever.
Malika Basu: That's going to be next, I think. So, um, we definitely need to do an audio book because so many people
Dr Rupy: Oh my god, it would be amazing. Amazing.
Malika Basu: You reckon?
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Malika Basu: But then I can't insert any jokes, you see.
Dr Rupy: You could just add some extra ones for the audio book version.
Malika Basu: I'll just improv. Yeah, totally.
Dr Rupy: Like, oh, that's a great joke.
Malika Basu: I would like to, I think. And one of the things I want to do with my children is we've agreed that we're going to read a chapter a week. So we're going to read it, so I'm going to read it to them.
Dr Rupy: Brilliant.
Malika Basu: And they've agreed and long may the enthusiasm last.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. It's great.
Malika Basu: I will see.
Dr Rupy: That's great. Honestly, Malika, you're brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and gosh, you've done a lot of work for this book. Like wow, the the stats are just rolling off your tongue. It's brilliant.
Malika Basu: I mean, it's a lot to be honest. I've really pushed myself out of the comfort zone for this one.
Dr Rupy: Clearly.
Malika Basu: I'm passionate about it. I feel really strongly about this stuff. And you know, if how can you be a foodie or a super foodie without caring about the impact your food has? Then you're just a mindless glutton.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I completely agree.
Malika Basu: Those things don't add up. Like if you're a true foodie or a super foodie, then you care about how it's impacting society, communities, the environment, all of that stuff comes together. These are not separate.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Absolutely. Good. Thank you so much. I'm so proud of you as well. I'm so proud of that I get to call you a friend and you know, that you're in my life and you're being able to educate me and the audience. It's brilliant. So appreciate you coming coming on.
Malika Basu: Thank you for having me, Rupy. And I'm very, very grateful for the friendship. You are the GOAT, as they say.
Dr Rupy: You can tell you got teenagers.
