Found mostly in green plants and fish oils, omega-3s are a superfood vital to brain function, vision and anti-inflammatory action. Although we also need omega-6s (which perform complementary roles in the body), the latter are overabundant in our industrial diet. Since both types of fat compete to be absorbed by the body, a surfeit of omega-6s

Back in the 1960s, however, in the absence of a shared language, my father and Helle resorted to a more ancient form of communication: the giving and receiving of food. Through the rituals of hospitality, they forged a bond more powerful than words.

The story begins with food itself, moving out to the body, the home, society, city and country, nature and time.

Padding around our heated homes surrounded by computers, dishwashers and microwaves while barking commands at Alexa to play our favourite music, the tacit assumption is that we ought to be happy, yet for a plethora of reasons – stress at work, money worries or a pervading sense of loneliness – we can often feel the opposite.

Although taste buds determine the basics of flavour, smell is the sense that delivers it in its full technicolour glory. Before we eat, volatiles (airborne molecules) from food are picked up by olfactory cells at the top of our nose, sending signals to the brain telling it that food is on its way – which is why the mere smell of baking can make us

Learning to share food well is critical to our upbringing, not just so that we don’t steal all the cake, but because it teaches us the self-restraint and mutual trust necessary to live as civilised beings.

Many of our greatest challenges – climate change, mass extinction, deforestation, soil erosion, water depletion, declining fish stocks, pollution, antibiotic resistance and diet-related disease – stem from our failure to value food.

the Indian Centre for Science and the Environment reckoned that, if you factored everything in, the true cost of an industrial burger would be in the region of $200, not the $2 we usually pay.6

In an ideal world, we’d all cook from scratch using fresh ingredients and buy our food directly from trusted local producers and transparent supply chains, circumventing the industrial system altogether.