WALK into any bookshop and you can almost listen to the shelves groan under the weight of books extolling the virtues of the in-vogue ‘clean eating’ phenomenon.

While some of the books are rather evangelical and some of the advice a little questionable (a sprinkling of bee pollen anyone?), the underlying message is sound, if simple: Avoid processed food.

This might sound obvious but it is a mantra that I try to keep to and one that runs through my own business.

It really isn’t that hard to ‘eat clean’, it might take a little more time to prepare your food but is so much tastier, cheaper and often more filling. Fast food? You can cook a fillet of fish in seven minutes, faster than you can microwave a ready-meal.

Additives and preservatives are endemic in food. To be fair, they are nothing new. Ever since the dawn of trade people have tried to bulk out and preserve food, some honestly, some not!

Take our daily bread for instance, in the 17th and 18th centuries it was not uncommon for ‘fillers’ to be used to bulk out the flour, including chalk, alum and even bone ashes.

While food regulations are a relatively modern innovation there to protect us, the best protection is your own vigilance. By baking and cooking for yourself you can regulate and see exactly what is going into your food.

Returning to the humble loaf of bread the basic ingredients should comprise flour, water, yeast and salt. So why then does a commercial loaf contain up to 15 ingredients?

What, for instance, exactly are ‘mono and diacetyl tartaric esters of mono and diglycerides of fatty acids (E472e)’?

And do I want to be eating them and feeding them to my children? In actual fact they are used to produce a softer, spongier loaf and are in there along with all of the other additives including preservatives and also enzymes (which don’t have to be legally listed as an ingredient) which will keep it going for a week before it goes mouldy. Real bread will also last a week, but it doesn’t go mouldy, it just goes stale.

As you’ll have guessed I’m a great supporter of cooking from scratch both in my family meals and my business catering at Room Forty Afternoon Teas where I make and bake everything, including the preserves. I source all my meats from Phil Rowles, my nearby butcher, who also gets me my free range eggs from High Legh Farm.

Encouragingly I’m not alone in my crusade, there are a growing number of small businesses joining the real food revolution including new coffee shop Sarnies, opening two shops in Grappenhall and Great Sankey.

They intend to only buy freshly made bread (from Sexton bakery in Lymm) and use as many local producers for their menu.

We’re also looking forward to the imminent opening of Rigby’s Fine Fresh Foods in Sankey Street which will incorporate their traditional fruit and veg along with a delicatessen and fresh food takeaway including healthy smoothies.

What’s better than supporting Warrington producers? Making it yourself of course.

It only takes 45 minutes to make a loaf of soda bread, probably not much longer than it would take you to go to the shop to buy one.

Why not give it a try for Father’s Day, or come on one of our courses, we’d love to show you the basics.