Sometimes, facts hit you like a smack in the mouth. That 'one in four British house-holds no longer has a table that everyone can eat around' is one of them. That '57 per cent of British men have little interest in food' or '50 per cent of shoppers say they don't care where their food comes from' are equally shocking, tragic and ultimately revealing.

The facts above are just a small selection from a must-read new book, Bad Food Britain: How a Nation Ruined its Appetite by Joanna Blythman. This is not a depressing read, banging on about how awful the Brits are, but a measured though none the less shocking look at how, despite our seemingly never-ending appetite for TV cookery, newspaper columns and recipe books, the huge majority of people couldn't give a damn what they eat as long as it's cheap .

What appears to be all sunshine and roses - or should that be focaccia and estate-bottled olive oil ? - is hiding the real facts about the eating habits of a country whose population is heading towards a seemingly unstoppable culinary crisis. Yes, our supermarkets support a welcome display of organic and fair -trade foods, there is half-decent coffee available on every corner and most cities can now support several superlative restaurants, but that doesn't explain that fact that 40 per cent of people entering hospital in this country are malnourished. Only the other day I noticed a soft-drinks machine in the waiting room of a swanky new London hospital. What the hell is that doing there? It wasn't so much that 5.3 million Britons watched the ground- breaking Jamie's School Dinners that should have surprised us. It is that 55 million of us found something more interesting to do.

In this issue, Joanna Blythman steps into Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's column for a closer look at how Brits are really eating. Like her book, it 's fascinating reading.