Sheila Dillon
A look at the world through food
Sheila Dillon has been a food journalist for more than four decades. From New York, where she was an editor at Food Monitor magazine, she came to work on BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, first as a reporter, then producer and now presenter.
In her early days on the programme she produced groundbreaking editions on BSE–mad cow disease–& its connections to our cheap food policies, the rise of GM foods, the dodgy science behind ‘healthy’ margarine, the growth of the organic movement from muck and magic to multi-million pound business, and the birth of the WTO which triggered the globalisation of our food supply. All at a time when such subjects were not widely covered in the media….and certainly not by ‘food’ programmes.
Recent programmes on robots in the food business, the origins of the horsemeat fraud, the future of red meat, the glory of British pies, diet and cancer, and the inadequacies of medical training when doctors are faced every day with diet-induced diseases, carry on that tradition. She helped set up the BBC Food & Farming Awards: judging food producers, shops, campaigners, cooks in public organisations and policy makers not only for the quality of their food but the difference they make to their local communities and economies.
Food and Cancer
Some thoughts on a contentious subject
Food doesn’t figure in medical training. It’s just an irrelevance except as a matter of calories. So, if you’ve got cancer your average oncologist, your average specialist nurse, your average dietician will tell you not to worry about what you eat, just eat a ‘balanced diet’…… which, unfortunately for most of us, is bollocks. They mean well, but they don’t know what they do…….
Best of British
Where the 50s and 60s the low point of British eating ……Where the 50s and 60s the low point of British eating ……Where the 50s and 60s the low point of British eating ……Where the 50s and 60s the low point of British eating ……Where the 50s and 60s the low point of British eating ……
Food for Thought
Vanessa Kimball
One bite at a time, says Vanessa. We can change the world one bite at a time. A bit idealistic? Heard it all before? I mean, hey, what can any one person really do? The thing is…. we’ve been at the changing business for some time. As I was starting to write this, an email popped up with a special offer just for me: ‘All-you-can-eat-chicken-wings with a beer’ for £15. That’s the way we’re doing it—-one bite, one wing at a time. Billions of us, every day. Screwing our own lives, the planet, and our children’s future.
13 Foods that Shape Our World
by Alex Renton
The Food Programme set sail in September 1979 as a one-off series of 6 programmes on Radio 4. Journalist Derek Cooper, its first presenter, had lobbied the BBC for years to commission a series that would take food seriously. Finally Radio 4 agreed. Derek later told the story of how after the broadcasts started he went with his producer to see the network’s controller. They asked her if they could continue after the six she’d commissioned. She was startled: “But won’t you have said everything there is to say about food by then?”, she said. Derek persuaded her that there might be more to say and she reluctantly agreed they could carry on. Forty three years later it’s still carrying on.
Essay on Mad Cow Disease
by the artist Roger Hiorns
“Like a virus, but different–the BSE pathogen is coded by the host, so the cow’s immune system doesn’t detect it……It affects then destroys the cen-tral nervous system. Believe incubation period is 4 years.”
Adventures in Vegetarian Cuisine
Adventures in Vegetarian Cuisine
The Food Programme, BBC Radio 4
Can a new wave of chefs and food writers change mainstream cuisine armed only with vegetable, grain and pulse?
Can a new wave of chefs and food writers change mainstream cuisine armed only with vegetable, grain and pulse?