Why Our Food Choices Have Become Boring

Variety is more than the spice of life – it’s essential

Food shopping is dull. Just think about the increasing homogeneity and uniformity of what’s on offer. Pick up a mango, for instance, and it’s likely to be the Tommy Atkins variety. All of our bananas come from a sole cultivar, the Cavendish. Look at the grapes displayed in the supermarket and odds-on they’ll be Thompson seedless.

This problem extends far beyond our fruit bowls. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations reports that, out of more than 6,000 plant species potentially cultivated for food, only nine account for 66 per cent of total crop production.

It’s the same story with animal-based foods. Around 90 per cent of our milk, for example, comes from one breed of cow: Holstein Friesian. This is symptomatic of the fact that the world’s livestock production is based on about 40 animal species, with only a handful providing the vast majority of meat, milk and eggs that feed us.