If Food is the New Religion I'm an Atheist

If Food is the New Religion… I’m an Atheist.

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Religion, historically, was the saviour from a life of eternal pain. Today, food brings the same utopian promises of paradise on earth, a life free of disease, the ability to alleviate the suffering of the environment and the animals within it. Whichever devotional path to dietary enlightenment that you choose, bear one thing in mind; like every religion on earth, there are always extremeists waiting around the corner, ready to spoil it for the rest of us.

2017 wasn’t kind to clean eating, the diet beloved of bloggers and Instagram influencers, who revelled in it’s snap-happy aesthetic and took delight in revealing the latest South American plant extract which purported to cure anxiety, or even cancer.

The spurious health claims that abounded were roundly dismessed by a tranche of media criticism, starting with Ruby Tandoh exposing its toxicity January, a follow-up to her tirade against clean eating on…