Dear Vivienne,

I really didn’t want to write this letter. I have always liked your wacky ways, your russet hair, and your refusal to let age diminish your ability to enjoy fashion and look fabulous whilst doing it.

I am impressed and pleased that you are willing to use your fame to draw attention to issues that matter: you are a role model to many and what you say has impact. Recently, you joined a campaign outlining concerns over the use of genetically modified crops. Whilst I am not afraid of GM, I think the campaign is a worthy one.

Many argue that GM crops encourage the overuse of pesticides and herbicides, yet offer no solution to the problems of deforestation and desertification.

It is a debate worth having, so thank you for drawing my attention to it.

This week you marched to 10 Downing Street to deliver your petition to Government. But when challenged by a journalist over the fact that few can afford to eat organic food, you told them that people should simply “eat less.” I am sure you uttered those words unthinkingly and that now you regret them thoroughly. But I would like to take the opportunity to say that I don’t think yours was the best response to the question of how we should direct future food policy.

I am afraid, even with the best of intentions, your remark sounded flippant. I’m sure that most people want to feed themselves and their children a healthy and environmentally sustainable diet. This would be the case if we lived in an ideal world. But, as many have since pointed out, this is an option beyond most of us. Despite the environmental impact of eating intensively farmed foods I cannot blame people, suffering from one of the worst recessions in history, for choosing food richer folk would turn their noses up at.

When a bargain bucket, that can feed a family of four, costs less than two raw organic chicken fillets in my local supermarket, remarks like yours make me feel sad.

Many of us eat too much, but telling people that if they eat less they can afford that organic chicken is a glaringly simplistic equation. In Britain now we face the twin horrors of increasing food poverty and a lack of the basic cooking skills required to free us from the deep fried and nutritionally empty. People’s options have thus become narrower—ready meals and things that are pre-cooked and can be warmed in the oven. Given that food bank attendance has gone up over 200% over the last year, comments like the one you made make me worry that our society has become one of two halves.

If you didn’t know it already, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that food banks now request donations be kept to non-refrigerated items, because most of the people who come to them cannot afford to run a fridge. When you are poor and proud, you will wait until the gas and the lights have been cut off before you will accept a hand-out.

Buying the cheap and dirty makes sense to many of those living on marginal incomes: when you are poor, or a single mum on shift work with washing and homework and bills up to your arse, you are tired and looking for something that is filling, quick and cheap. Fast food and ready meals are viable options for those that struggle because they are high fat, filling and offer a good number of calories per buck.

This makes the cost of organic food a valid concern in the debate over the future of sustainable farming

Dismissing the question, as you did, only helps to ensure that organic food will continue to be something ‘nice’ for the people who can afford it, as opposed to a viable alternative to current farming trends.

Given that well grown food is often more nutritious then its cheaper counterparts, attitudes like this frighten me. From schools, to food, to healthcare, rich people now have access to a raft of benefits that the poor cannot afford. Given that malnutrition and IQ levels are linked, I think in future you should pay better attention to journalists who ask intelligent questions.

It was just one line said off the cuff, and I am making too much of it, but it hit a nerve because I fear it is what too many of us think.

Yours Sincerely,

Stephanie