It's time to Make Broccoli Great Again
24 February 2025, 16:11
It starts with a simple question: if you could imbue a humble vegetable with as much spirit and verve as junk food gets; if you could persuade people of broccoli’s inherent 'rizz', would the country be healthier?
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Britain has become a wheezing, bloated island of guzzlers. Chronic diseases are rising, obesity levels have been soaring, particularly in children, and the urgent need for a dietary overhaul has never been more apparent.
The frontline of the fight against this enormous wave of gelatinous, sugary excess seems to be the jabs that suppress appetite. But that alone is not enough.
Britain has been persuaded by armies of celebrities and all manner of advertising trickery to want to gorge on food that isn’t food: lab-created chemicals in a wrapper, promoted largely to children.
There is a grotesque double standard at play here. The very celebrities and sports stars who promote the E-numbered monstrosities are the same people who would not be seen dead chomping on or downing those concoctions. If those children were told their heroes actually eat healthily, would the child want to emulate that?
The challenge is not just to eat better but to want to eat better.
It’s not cool to eat broccoli. It’s not endorsed by a footballer or a singer, you can’t get kudos for it, it’s not a societal status symbol: broccoli doesn’t have a YouTube channel.
This though is where I think a big change can be made. Because shorn of the vested interests and money-making imperative, backing broccoli with enough guile and spirit could see this humble brassica reappear on dinner tables across the nation.
Can we start a movement that truly makes broccoli great again?
Our plan is to help sell 10,000 tonnes of broccoli every month, boosting - literally - the very fibre of the nation and supporting British farmers.
It will need to look good, taste good and be backed in such huge volume that a movement will be born.
So let us begin to turn the tide on the wave of junk food and set about giving broccoli a glow up.
A guerrilla movement to subvert the prime movers against proper food.
For it is time to Make Broccoli Great Again.
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You can listen to Tom Swarbrick at Drive Monday to Friday from 4-6pm on Global Player.
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