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Good Morning Fifteen months on from what is generally referred to as the ‘horsemeat scandal’, a new Report, published this week, recommends the introduction of a food police unit to carry out random checks on what we are eating. Written by food security expert Professor Chris Elliot, the document recommends unannounced audits and zero tolerance for offenders. Consumers, the report says, need to trust the food we eat. Food is a strange thing, isn’t it? In the west we rather take it for granted. And what we do with it continues to capture the imagination in terms of recipes, publications, videos and an increasing plethora of food-oriented TV programmes. Twice as many people watched the Great British Bake Off this week than England’s drab victory over Norway! But if the horsemeat scandal did anything for the way in which I personally approach the issue of food, what I buy and how – it has certainly caused me to look more closely at pre-prepared food in all supermarkets and to ask the kind of questions that perhaps I wouldn’t have asked before: What is this? Where is it from? Can it really be that colour or shape and live up to the clever packaging, what it says on the tin? Norman Wirzba, who has written widely on connections between food, faith and wellbeing suggests that we should look beyond the physical act of consumption and start asking questions about the stories behind the food....what’s really going on to get that food to us? Of course, most food production inevitably raises pertinent moral questions about its effects on creation, its origin, and the people who produce it. It is certainly not surprising that in many world religions, food plays a prominent (often symbolic) role, not only in how faith is expressed but how we as human persons relate both to creation and to each another. In the Christian tradition, for instance, food is regarded as a gift from God and the fruits of the earth are frequently referred to in the books of the Bible as symbols of God’s goodness which we should not take for granted. The Christian believes that we really should be grateful for what we are about to receive and stop for a moment to think about where the food has come from, who reared it and prepared it – and now serves it to us? Many of you will head for the supermarket later today. It’s never too late for us to start asking those questions about the stories behind our food.