For God’s sake, stop stockpiling – coronavirus should teach us to be less wasteful

Off television duties for the next seven days, I’m in a remote bit of Norfolk, surrounded by mud and builders. Handwashing seems pointless when everything is encrusted with brown slime. My new (second-hand) car needed seat covers, but before I managed to order them, every surface has been covered in mud and dog hair. I think I’ll go for a deep clean, along with the car.

I am determined to Keep Calm and Carry On. You will not see me in Beccles wearing a gas mask or a bag over my head. Up to my arrival here earlier this week, I was travelling on public transport in central London, spurning a face mask, walking through crowded streets and shopping. Eating in restaurants, going to the cinema – my life continued as normal. But watching the news every night since leaving the city is infecting me with virus anxiety. It’s almost as bad as the real thing. My chances of getting infected are relatively small – even though I am over 70, I am super fit, not a senile shuffler. Along with my normal reading, I’ve added the Eastern Daily Press, anxiously scanning for outbreaks in the locality. Today got off to a good start with “no cases have been confirmed so far in Norfolk”. Hang out the flags!

Nevertheless, the C-word gradually implants itself in your brain. All this advice (online, in print, on TV and radio) about how to get through the impending plague is not helpful, it’s counterproductive. I know how to make my own hand sanitiser using cheap vodka and aloe vera gel. I can always stop recycling newspapers and use them as toilet paper when supplies can’t get through. I know I have to stand a metre away from anyone and wear gloves if I am handing out medals. But I want to continue working and getting on with life, not hiding behind closed doors.

Subconsciously, I’ve reverted to 1945 – switching to a wartime diet, turning any ageing root vegetables lurking in the bottom of the fridge into a brown mush I call “winter soup”. It seems appropriate for the growing sense of gloom. Armed with a jumbo bottle of hand spray, I’m ready for anything – except a trip to a supermarket. That’s where you’re most likely to catch coronavirus as bands of mums and their snuffling kids, accompanied by anxious elderly men clutching survival lists, dither and spend five times as long in the place as they would normally. It’s like being on the dodgems with every single driver out of control, trolleys packed to the top with “essentials” – which turn out to be garlic-flavoured chopped tomatoes, tinned baked beans frozen pizza bases, and cereal. An infectious virus presents an opportunity to revert to comfort eating big time.

My partner had stocked up for coronavirus with five jumbo bars of Turkish Delight and salted caramel chocolate (for TV watching), an economy pack of raw liver for the dog (which leaked over the chocolate) a month’s supply of Pringles and a packet of asparagus. Oh, and a cauliflower for a student cheesy bake. The man in the queue front of me at Morrisons also had a novel approach to potential lockdown: purchasing six bottles of hand sanitiser, two bottles of bleach and two big jars of Nutella. It’s all very well for the government to tell people to self-isolate for two weeks, but what do families feed themselves, assuming that not everyone is confined to bed?

To prevent shortages, as workers and supply chains will inevitably be affected by this virus, we need some practical guidance in sensible stockpiling – after all, most modern shoppers have not lived through the Second World War and so have limited experience of how to turn turnips into cakes, or make potatoes taste like goose or fish and form the basis of every main meal. Why not bring back rationing? Not just of food, but of toilet rolls, cleaning products and junk food. It could deal with obesity by nudging the population towards a healthier diet, as well as curbing panic-buying and preventing food riots over cans of pilchards or frozen chocolate cakes.

My first memories as a small child are of walking to a place in west London where mum got her ration book and food stamps. We ate a very simple diet of limited meat (cheap cuts), and all vegetables were prepared from scratch. Fruit was tinned, and so was marmalade. Today’s clean eaters would be appalled by the length of time cabbage was boiled and meat incinerated, but we were all healthy and very thin. No fatties in my family albums from the 1950s!

Coronavirus is already impacting on how we shop, which was unhealthy and wasteful in the first place. Now we are hoarding in a most selfish and stupid way, without using this medical emergency as a chance to learn how to purchase and prepare food more resourcefully. It doesn’t mean we have to recreate a wartime cookbook. Spare me meat loaves and Marmite fritters, but for some people, Spam is the food of the gods. Yesterday, on Radio 3, one listener phoned in a request for a classical track and added that he was “looking forward to his lunch of Spam and onions”. I wouldn’t go that far, but let’s stop stockpiling and prepare for rationing!