Ruth Watson: It's time for Scotland to eat well and dump the meal deal

The National

23-06-2025

In Asia, bento boxes are prepared with care, offering a selection of rice, protein, vegetables. Hawker stalls offer a range of freshly cooked meals, sometimes served on a banana leaf – recyclable tableware doesn't get better than that.
In Europe, the 'gastronomic meal of the French' – a festive multi-course meal emphasising the art of eating and drinking well, bringing people together for special occasions – is now listed by Unesco as something which is part of the 'intangible cultural heritage of humanity'. And we have the meal deal.
As a nation, we do need to think about what's going in our mouths. Only 22% adults in Scotland eat the recommended five or more portions of fruit and veg a day.
Most only eat 3.3 portions of fruit and vegetables on a typical day. This figure has not changed much for 20 years, despite the 'five a day' messaging. As for fibre? Again, our ultra-processed modern diets are slowing things down. Fewer than 10% of adults in Scotland eat the recommended 30g of roughage in a day.
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Last year saw the launch of the Scottish Eatwell Guide. It aims to get people talking about the kind of food and drink they eat, as well as where it comes from.
The guide points to oats, barley, and beremeal for local sources of wholegrain, which help keep you full for longer, as well as having cholesterol-busting components.
Our taste for tatties is no bad thing either. Potatoes have a surprising amount of nutrients and keeping the skin on adds both to the fibre and the vitamins in our daily diet.
As for proteins, venison from our hills has a remarkable nutrition profile, while Scotch Beef and Scotch Lamb are famous across the world for the quality of the meat on the plate, and our farmers are working hard to come up with local vegetarian protein options, including fava, or field, beans (pairs well with Chianti, apparently …).
This cousin of the broad bean has been grown here since the Iron Age but fell out of favour once people could afford to eat meat more often, something which seems to be the case with many of our traditional foods.
The team at the Gaia Foundation's Seed Sovereignty programme have found a broad bean called 'Scottish' which is available from a few seed suppliers in New Zealand, but from UK, or even European catalogues.
These broad beans were brought to New Zealand in the 1860s by Scottish settlers and have been kept alive by keen farmers and gardeners since. The Seed Sovereignty Programme is working with a New Zealand seed company to repatriate the 'Scottish' broad bean back to Scotland.
Edinburgh nutritionist Dr Laura Wyness was a Scottish Food Tourism Ambassador when she had her lightbulb moment. She told me: 'There are different versions of the UK Eatwell guide – there's the vegan version, there's the vegetarian version, the African Caribbean version and the South Asian version, and I thought, 'why is there not a Scottish version of the Eatwell Guide?', because we are quite distinct in the food that we have in Scotland and what we produce.'
Wyness teamed up with Nutrition Scotland and worked with Scotland Food and Drink, while liaising with Food Standards Scotland, Public Health Scotland and the Scottish Government to make sure food messaging was both healthy and relatable. The idea seems to be working.
'The people who have been downloading it from the Nutrition Scotland website are mainly people working in educational settings such as teachers and community education workers,' Wyness said.
'We're now planning a study with Robert Gordon University that will look into how the Scottish Eatwell Guide is used as an educational tool in community settings.'
She went on: 'I think a lot of people are interested in finding out more about where our food comes from and how it's produced because sustainability is at the forefront of people's minds.
'A lot of people want to eat more locally to support local communities and local businesses, so there's that kind of building awareness about local food and how it actually fits into a healthy, balanced diet.
Scotland's National Chef, Gary Maclean, and some leading Scottish food brands are supporting the Scottish Eatwell Guide (if you have a Scottish food and drink business and would like to be involved, Wyness and the team at Nutrition Scotland would love to hear from you).
Wyness hopes the Scottish Eatwell Guide can help us have different conversations about the food we eat and serve. 'I think the perception of the Scottish diet is that it is fairly unhealthy, you know, the pies and the tablet and things like that we're kind of quite well known for,' she said.
'People always talk about the Mediterranean diet being healthy, but actually the Scottish diet can be really healthy using what we have locally, such as the whole grains, and the root vegetables, salad, the berries, the game and seafood …'
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Wyness added: 'I got one response which really struck me. It was from someone who was giving us feedback on the Scottish Eatwell Guide. She said, 'It removes the worry that if I visit Scotland I won't be feeling well at the end of the trip after eating unhealthily, that, actually, I'll be feeling great after eating a healthy Scottish diet'.'
That comment got me thinking about the power we all have to be ambassadors for Scotland, for our communities, for our own wellbeing. Agents of our own image, with pride in our food culture and heritage, and a wee bit healthier, too.
Findings from the Scotland Visitor Survey 2023 showed that almost half of visitors (46%) took part in at least one food and drink activity during their trip last year, with nearly one-fifth of long-haul visitors now naming food and drink as the reason for choosing Scotland as a destination.
A spokesperson for VisitScotland told me: 'More and more visitors are seeking out local produce when they're on holiday. It's a global trend driven by a desire for authentic travel and influenced by television and social media. It's the same for Scotland.
'UK visitors rate it as a top activity while half of visitors from our biggest international market, North America, say it's an important part of their visit. We know Scotland's food and drink is exceptional and it's through memorable tourism experiences that we can build our reputation on the global stage.'
The humble field bean fell out of favour once people could afford to eat more meat. It often seems to be the case that we associate our traditional foods with the humdrum, or the humble.
Generations which had known extreme poverty and hardship wanted to embrace plenty and not be reminded of the peasant fare our forebears relied upon. However, in losing our food traditions, we are losing part of ourselves. Modern, ready food is making us sicker and often costs way more.
We don't need to spend hours in the kitchen to make good food. Perhaps it is time to eat well, Scotland, and dump the meal deal.
Ruth Watson is the founder of the Keep Scotland the Brand campaign