Gordon Ramsay, nouveau environmentalist

On Friday morning I heard Gordon Ramsay talk on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 about banning out of season fruit and vegetable imports. He also suggested fining chefs who use out of season produce. Mr Ramsay, who is a highly successful chef and businessman, thinks that it is terribly important to have a new law prohibiting out of season produce – so important that he spoke with Mr Gordon Brown about it.

Mr Ramsay says there should be stringent laws passed by parliament to prevent restaurants serving out of season produce.

Mr Ramsay claims that his idea would be better for the planet than what exists now. He also claims that such legislation would be better for English cooking. I do not know enough about cooking to know whether legislation would help cooking in this country.

I do, however, know that the effect of unseasonal fruit and vegetables being carried to our shores in carbon emission terms nestles below the bottom of any list of proposed legislation to curb emissions. Any environmentalist with the ear of the Prime Minister would not waste time making such a suggestion.

Mr Ramsay fails to take into account a number of important matters; flying aircraft are probably slowing down the rate of global warming by depositing high level particulates in their vapour trails which cause global dimming and many poor indigenous farmers in the southern hemisphere can and do improve their environments and feed themselves and their families by growing food that the northern hemisphere wants when it wants it.

Mr Ramsay is unclear on several points of his suggestion; how far should food travel? Should food grown in Cornwall be used in London when it is less carbon intensive to bring it in from France? Should we give up entirely on food that we do not produce here, like bananas? Will Mr Ramsay adhere to his own suggestion by banning foreign wine from all his restaurants offering patrons only English wine? Finally, why does the BBC give airspace to this nonsense?

It seems that Mr Ramsay has a new television series to plug – let me guess, it is not on the BBC - but there is nothing like getting the media organisation that is funded by the taxpayer to help swell Mr Ramsay’s already rather full coffers by giving him valuable time to talk nonsense about a serious subject.

I could be doing Mr Ramsay an injustice. It is perfectly possible that he has suddenly seen the environmental light but this was the best idea he could come up with and that all flown in produce and wines on all the menus of all his restaurants all around the world, substituting them for locally grown items but I rather doubt it.

I seem to recall that this nouveau environmentalist (now so worried about the carbon footprint of flown-in produce) appearing on the TV show “Top Gear” a couple of years ago and saying that his cars were then a Ferrari F430 and a Range Rover Sport Supercharged. Perhaps Mr Ramsay has sold them and now uses cars with very small engines so really reducing his rather larger than normal personal environmental impact. If so, no doubt he or one of his friends will inform us by posting a response.

The real point here is not about Mr Ramsay or the BBC. The more the media gives space to nonsensical ill thought out environmental bullying the more eco weary and eco cynical we shall all become, and in the long run that will be very dangerous.