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because they’re relevant. But they don’t have very good cadences – or associations. It was a balancing act.” Prior to becoming a full-time author, Bee spent many years as an academic, and her rigorous approach to constructing an argument and finding the evidence to back it up is plain to see on every page. When Bee wrote her first book, The Hive , the research came before the writing. “I just locked myself in the University Library for about six months – I read every book on honey; ate every jar of honey I could find, and then wrote – and there’s a lot to be said for that – but you’ve got to still stay open to ideas. Especially with food, where trends are changing all the time.” The book’s parade of research is garnished with testimonies by individuals of all backgrounds: from world-leading scientists to 18-year-old Deliveroo riders. These conversations are presented as beautifully-drawn vignettes with a strong sense of place, where Bee is often sharing a meal or cup of coffee with an individual, and help to give a human face to the theory or science being presented. A good example comes alongside the mention of Huel, Soylent and other meal-replacement shakes. We meet writer and editor Dan Wang, who – in conversation with Bee – raises the totally valid argument of using these drinks not as replacements for food in general, but when desirable food cannot be acquired: as replacements for not eating. Why waste time, money or calories on unrewarding and un-nutritious meals? “Dan was riled, he told me, that so many critiques of Soylent came from people who had ‘excellent access to food’.” Bee writes. “He resented the implication that everyone should be eating ‘Alice Waters-
the ‘nutrition transition’ [the shifts in diet described by Bee as what happens when “a country becomes richer and more open to global markets: its population inexorably begins to eat differently, consuming more oil and meat and sugar and snack foods, and fewer wholegrains and pulses”] and this was all news to me – but it’s such a great concept, and explains so much.” Once Bee had discovered the nutrition transition and the work of Barry Popkin, an American food science researcher who developed the concept, the book’s potential horizons opened up, requiring some judicious redrafting. “During the editing process the bits that we were losing were the lighter bits – there are still lighter bits in there – but it felt like the more I read about things like the rise of diet-related ill health in Brazil or Mexico, even though you don’t want to be heavy on the subject of food, even though you don’t want to be fearmongering, because food is still a pleasure and it’s wonderful and I think people moralise too much – it is genuinely horrifying how junk food is being pushed on poor families door- to-door in the remotest parts of the Amazonian basin. That’s bad – we can say that’s bad!”
The book continued to evolve as Bee carried out her research. “I had the title from the beginning: we went through phases where both editors thought it should have a different title, but then we came back to that title. Books always evolve with research: if you knew before you did the research what the interesting thing was going to be, then you wouldn’t bother doing the research, would you?” “I remember when I was writing Consider The Fork , and a section of the book on fire, which ends with the microwave – I was cycling along, and suddenly I just pictured children around a microwave like hunter gatherers around a flame. I really liked that concept, and I thought ‘that’s going to be my final sentence’ – that was a wonderful, rare writing moment that wasn’t a horrible moment of self doubt,” Bee laughs. “I feel occasionally – as with music – when you know what the final cadence is, you’re OK. And I do think a lot of writing is cadences and rhythms: and that’s almost the hardest thing about non-fiction: a lot of the rhythms of the book were frustrating because in an ideal world I wouldn’t even be using words like ‘obesity’ or ‘type two diabetes’, but you have to have them there,
“Food is still a pleasure and it’s wonderful and I think people moralise too much”
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