Food News, with Amanda Killelea

PASSIONATE foodie Chris Johnson is a firm believer in the old saying "you are what you eat."

As the owner of the North West's only completely organic supermarket, he wants people to realise there are underlying implications concerning the food we eat every week and the "cheap and cheerful" shopping culture in this country.

More and more people are supporting organic farmers who work with nature to produce healthy, nutritious and economical food, without the use of pesticides and artificial fertilisers.

Chris and his wife Ros went organic 14 years ago and everybody thought they were absolutely mad.

Chris said: "People thought we were loonies.

"We went organic purely because organic food tastes nicer. But as I researched the subject more and more I began to realise the health aspect of organic food."

And so did scores of other people.

Chris and Ros's organic restaurant and shop in Ramsbottom became so popular that they extended and extended until finally they had to move the shop into a much bigger premises round the corner, and the North West's first organic supermarket was born.

Chris and Ros travel the world to find the best organic products for their shop and try to educate their customers on the benefits of safe food. But the Government is backing a process which Chris believes could be the start of the biggest food crisis since BSE - genetic engineering.

Genetic modification of food is being developed to give foods longer shelf lives, make crops resistant to insects, and make vegetables resistant to drought and frost - eventually saving the food industry millions of pounds.

Genetic modification allows genes to be swapped between species that could never breed naturally: a gene from a fish, for example, may be put into tomatoes and other plants to help them withstand cold.

Despite a public outcry and the reservations of Prince Charles about the long-term consequences of using genetic engineering in food, the Government is refusing to halt GM food development.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has genetically modified food served up for himself and his family at Number 10 - even though it is not served in the House of Commons.

Government ministers have voiced confidence that GM products now on sale are safe and have said that no new products will be allowed on to the supermarket shelves without rigorous safety checks.

So are these so-called "Frankenstein foods" safe? Chris Johnson isn't so sure.

Chris said: "I believe that we should not mess with nature - that is what organic food is all about.

"Scientists of genetic engineering say there is nothing to prove that the process isn't safe, but they don't know what the long-term implications are of what they are doing. "The frightening thing is that BSE started as a genetic problem, as did Aids, BSE started because we fed cows with dead cows and pumped them with drugs to achieve maximum growth rates, maximum milk production, and forced the animals to produce a far greater yield than was natural.

"Cleaning up the BSE crisis cost this country £4 billion.

"Aids started because people in Africa ate chimpanzees which carried the Aids virus. Humans weren't meant to eat chimp and our bodies cannot cope with the Aids virus. Now millions of people suffer from this dreadful disease.

"I believe swapping genes from one species to another that it wouldn't naturally breed with isn't natural and could be a recipe for disaster."

Chris says that genetic engineering isn't the only risk factor in the foods that we buy every week.

Supermarkets are packed full of foods that are treated with antibiotics to achieve greater growth rates, and pesticides which are used to achieve larger crops.

Chris said: "We are what we eat and in this country we are constantly trying to save money on the very staff of life - our food.

"This will have a tremendous impact on the nation's health and our environment.

"For example, one of the growth promoters fed to chickens so that they can go from egg to dinner table in a matter of weeks is an antibiotic used by doctors.

"But because this anitbiotic residue is in the foods that we eat, slowly but surely our bodies can become resistant to it, which means it will no longer work to treat illness." Experts estimate that three out of five processed foods on supermarket shelves now contain genetically modified ingredients, and thousands of products that we eat all the time contain pesticides and antibiotic residues.

And every year millions of pounds are spent trying to remove pesticides from our drinking water which are a result of their use in farming.

Chris said: "Genetic engineering and the use of antibiotics and pesticides in foods are all about cutting costs. There seems to be little thought about producing safe foods in a sustainable farming system. I believe we need to work hand-in-hand with nature rather than try to change it."

Chris's shop, Ramsbottom Organics, is based at Bridge Street, Ramsbottom. His restaurant, the Village Restaurant - which uses 95 per cent organic produce - is just around the corner at Market Place.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.