Welcome from the editor: let’s talk

Welcome and thank you for joining me this weekend.

With all the social media platforms currently active, we can safely say we live in the era of communication.
News and stories are disseminated before the ink has dried on the paper. But are we truly communicating or are we mainly arguing and trying to prove our view point? And if the masses don’t like what is being communicated, is the communicator going to be ‘cancelled’? Sure, we live in the era of communication, but are we communicating to start a dialogue or a lynching?

As an editor and journalist, communication is of course my business and whilst I wholeheartedly embrace the ability to share stories swiftly, which social media and the web afford us to do, I am also deeply concerned about ‘fake news’ and ‘cancel culture’. It seems to me that communication comes at a high price these days, namely censorship, which is exactly what cancel culture is.

I was watching an interview with musician and artist Nick Cave recently in which he talked about cancel culture and how, if individuals get ‘cancelled’ and are no longer allowed to make mistakes, they also stop learning from them and stop improving and evolving. I thought he made a valid point.

Communication should be about opening up a dialogue, not silencing it.

Environmental and food distribution and shortage issues are affecting everybody worldwide, more so some regions, due to their geopolitical situations. Africa‘s food system is in need of some urgent changes. There are key players working hard to keep the dialogue alive and expanding it, asking for changes to be implemented to improve food security in the continent. We delve into it in An insecure future: how can Africa strengthen its fragile food system?

For years the menopause was considered a taboo subject not to be discussed openly, despite it being a very natural life passage. Recently this has changed, and the subject is being talked about much more in the media. Dr Sarah Berry, Reader in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London and Chief Scientist at the health science company ZOE, joins us on the Food Matters Live podcast to discuss Nutrition and the menopause – can diet affect the symptoms?

Among the cost of living crisis, there’s been some positive news this week, in the UK and worldwide. Read the latest in A week in news: food and drink headlines from 10-14 October.

In this week’s popular reads, The beauty of food waste: turning fruit scraps into skincare looks at how a university professor is turning discarded produce into something beautiful, and if you’ve ever wondered why (and which) some alcoholic beverages aren’t suitable for those following a plant-based diet, The ultimate vegan alcohol guide tells you everything you need to know about drinks made with animal-derived ingredients, and the cruelty-free options on the market.