Why Does Food Make Me Feel So Guilty?

It's the avocados. It's always the fucking avocados. I'm stood, for the umpteenth week in a row, in the vegetable aisle at the supermarket, one green knobbly giver of health in each hand. Am I really going to pay a pound more just because these bozos are telling me the guy in my right hand is organic?

I think not. But then the voices start… Really? It's only a pound. Just a pound to support responsible farming and reject a system that is slowly strangling our earth. Don't be a dick, just pay the extra pound.

And they win. Those organic bastard avocados win and they're in the basket, coming home with me to drain my finances and feel my seething resentment as I squeeze their mushy flesh.

The avocados are my Mr Burns Ketchup-Catsup moment, a modern development whereby, in a world where we are offered so much choice, the clear boundaries between Bad Food and Good Food have blurred. Bourgeois food guilt is creating neuroses our grandparents would be ashamed of.

For many years food guilt has, especially if you own of those great things called a vagina, been associated with weight. If you eat a donut you've been "naughty". You have "bad days". If you binge on some cake you should absolve your sins by eating nothing but dust with a side of oxygen for the following month.

This new food guilt is not about sugar or fat, but about measuring the goodness of your food and, in turn, you. How well was your chicken treated? Was that soil organic? How many trucks hit the road to get those blueberries to you? You know full well there's a farmer's market at the weekend, why are you going to the supermarket on a Wednesday, you luddite? WHAT? You're seriously going to eat peanut butter containing palm oil, you disgusting orangutan murderer?

The list goes on. In my head, at least.

Food in the first world is no longer survival, it's lifestyle. From the time you're at school making fun of the weird kid with the soggy sandwiches, to boasting about finding the cutest little place that does chia seed puddings near your office, we're finding new ways to socially trial food and project ourselves through it.

Don't think you can escape the system, either. So you're not into healthy stuff? Prefer a puffed-up beige and brown Meateor from Domino's to that hippy shit? You're probably a Bro-Eater, but you're still telling the world who you are by your food.

Guilt about eating the ethically "right" thing is a minefield thanks to an explosion in the choice we are afforded. Organic, free-range, food miles, worker conditions, pesticide use, additives, pollutions and food waste are buzzwords that have crept into national eating conscious over the years, although it seems to be organic and free-range which continue to get people wringing their hands and twisting their knickers in the national press.

The organic UK food market is currently worth £1.79 billion in sales and more people are now buying free-range than cage eggs, the latter being great news for fans of common sense everywhere, and are sure signs that the idea of eating food produced with care and attention is strangely catching on.

Organic food's environmental benefits are proven, and it's not just the hemp-wearing Holland & Barrett brigade that know it tastes better. I personally just want to know what's in my food, where it's come from and to eat some beef that wasn't bred in a fucked-up bovine version of The Human Centipede (don't Google that if you don't already know what that is. Just don't. Maybe ask someone—just don't Google it).

If you've ever spent more time than you should manhandling avocados at the supermarket, you'll know that organic food costs more than conventional produce, mostly to compensate for the fact that organic produce doesn't benefit from the same economies of scale as regular food, or put simply, people have to be paid to handle your food, not the Food Terminator 4000.

In an ideal world, with my endless reams of money, I'd swan around Whole Foods filling my basket with totally pointless crap, but for the same reason I'm not 5'10" like Cindy Crawford, this isn't my ideal world. It's a world where limited budgets have come into sharper focus thanks to a global recession and UK households are spending 8.5 percent less on food, with fresh foods particularly hit.

Food guilt becomes a reality because while we know full well what we should be eating, it's just not always possible. But does it say more about a nation's attitude to food that we're willing to forgo healthy food choices when shit hits the financial fan?

Every payday, catch me talking up the virtues of only buying organic. I'll swear by it. But as the third week creeps in, I'll be heading into Lidl's wearing massive shades, swearing I'll do better next week, but giving my roughly two-thirds-cheaper shopping bill an approving nod.

This new breed of food guilt is very much a first world problem, but serious measure should be given to how we are safeguarding for food production in the future as current projections show that by 2050, agricultural production must increase by 60 percent to meet global food demand, and I personally don't want to be eating 60 percent less, so let's really sort this one out, guys.

I don't want to be held ransom by those goddamn avocados each week, but I've realised I'm not going to stop feeling guilty about my food choices any time soon. Because, actually, that guilt isn't all bad. It's informing positive choices and helping, even in some very, very small way, those who want to be so demanding as to actually eat in the future.

So don't be a dick. Pay the extra pound.