Food habits in Britain.

It is probably true to say that, within months of birth, everyone in the world will have his own personal food preferences. These will be based on foods which have been made familiar to him either because they grow where he lives or because they can be transported there at reasonable cost, but his ultimate choice will be based on many additional personal and cultural factors. Among these are the foods which his parents prefer, any allergies or other health considerations perhaps including nutrition, and a vast number of social expectations, traditions and taboos. Comparatively few people, however, can afford to indulge their tastes, and we find, for example, countries in Asia where rice consumption averages 100-150 kg/person per year (FAO, 1971), sufficient to provide more than 90% of the energy in the diets of most people. In Europe, there is now more scope for individual preferences to be expressed, but it is still possible to discern major national differences in dietary habits. The cuisine in each region was developed many centuries ago from local foods, such as olive (OZeo europa) oil and wine in Mediterranean countries, milk and meat in the grassier regions of the north, and fish in countries with extensive coastlines. Wheat, the basic cereal of European diets, can be supplemented by rice in Spain and Portugal, but is often displaced by oats and rye in Scotland and Scandinavia where the growing Season is short. As trade developed, exotic foods were introduced and became comparatively important in Britain with her access to the resources of her Empire. Some foods, notably the potato, were successfully naturalized (and would have provided ascorbic acid which was otherwise likely to be in short supply in a diet consisting largely of bread, meat and ale), but others remained expensive luxuries especially out of Season until the development in the last century of steamships and railways for fast transportation and canning and mechanical refrigeration for food preservation. Table I shows, for very broad groups of foods, how the total supplies in the United Kingdom compare with those in three of our Common Market partners in the most recent year for which this is possible (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, 1976). Although the energy value is close to 13-5 MJ (3200 kcal)/person per d for almost every country in Europe, the relative contributions of different foods show considerable variations even at this level. Thus, the United Kingdom (with Eire) continues to drink more than twice as much whole liquid milk as elsewhere, and lamb continues to be an important meat. In contrast, cheese and wine are comparatively unimportant and the amounts of fruit and vegetables other