Worrying about all this worrying

9:47am Thursday 27th March 2008

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SOME people would have it that modern life is rubbish, but this doesn't seem right to me. What we can agree on is that modern life is confusing.

Food seems a good place to start. Food used to be simple, now it is a puzzle, a Rubik's cube of a problem in which it is almost impossible to line up all the correct sides, from carbon footprints to Government-approved food values.

On the nutritional side, food no longer seems merely to be eaten as fuel and occasionally enjoyed, instead it is a maze of concerns, instructions and worries. Can anything be consumed these days without a side dish of anxiety? My own philosophy is to eat sensibly and healthily, apart from when you don't, and to remember the little-bit-of-what-you-fancy adage, especially with regard to red wine and dark chocolate.

Also, the one about eating an apple a day (but not three, as one of the Cole teens is prone to doing). English apples are local and tasty, and good for the environment because they haven't come half-way round the world. Simple, isn't it? Er, no - because it depends when you are eating that daily apple.

English apples are seasonal, yet we eat them for most of the year. We can only do this because they are stored, and at a certain point in the year - ten months, apparently - the fuel expended on storing the apples is greater than the carbon cost of shipping them from, say, New Zealand or Chile.

The classic case concerns beans from Kenya.

This simple, good, healthy vegetable presents an array of arguments. The obvious one is that such beans are an environmental no-no because they are flown so far to reach our supermarkets. Ethically-minded shoppers turned against these beans because of the distance travelled and the fuel consumed.

So ditch the expensive beans from Kenya. Only it isn't that easy, because nothing is these days. Such beans are now considered to be acceptable, because the energy used in flying them in is still less than growing similar beans in this country.

Kenyan beans are produced in a sustainable manner - and, to add to the moral confusion, help support farmers in a poor corner of the world.

Chickpeas are standard fare for veggies everywhere and those who shun meat sometimes like to claim the moral high ground (such an observation obviously doesn't apply to Mrs Julian on Thursday). Yet tinned chickpeas are said to be harmful because of energy involved in cooking them. Chickpeas dried in the sun call on much less energy - except when you bung them on the gas hob at home.

One food expert in the papers at the weekend recommended shunning meat, milk, butter and cheese (heavens, that doesn't leave a lot on the plate).

The logic? Such food comes from sheep and cattle, which produce harmful methane, otherwise known as farts. The only thing is, if we all switch to eating beans, won't we be producing harmful methane in vast quantities ourselves? Told you it was complicated.

And I haven't even touched on whether or not pregnant women should be allowed alcohol (up to them, I'd guess, but it is a tricky one). Or whether biofuels are a safe alternative to petrol and diesel (the Government's chief environmental officer now says biofuels could do more harm than good).

Will the worrying ever end?

THE stem cell debate truly is complicated.

Still, it is a useful rule that if assorted Catholic leaders are lining up to condemn something, then there must be some good in it.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which is so exercising the Catholic hierarchy, and sending them into paroxysms of florid overstatement about Frankenstein, would allow scientists to use hybrid-embryos, whereby animal eggs are combined with human eggs.

According to scientists, who will of course have their own agenda, 99 per cent of the genetic make-up of an animal is removed from an egg before the insertion of human DNA. Stem cells can then be harvested for research into Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, motor neurone disease and muscular dystrophy, as well as cancer, diabetes and strokes.

Complicated, certainly - but I can't really see the problem with that one.