One in five of us suffers from some food intolerance or allergy, apparently. Cases of food poisoning are on the rise (except for salmonella enteridites). Organic food is more likely to give you health problems than a factory farmed or genetically modified food (at least that's what GM supporters claim). What is going on? Why in this day and age ­ when refrigeration is more efficient, packaging is more sterile and we spray everything with anti-bacterial sprays ­ should we be getting all these problems? This is clearly something the Food Standards Agency ­ if it ever gets off the ground properly ­ should look at. In the meantime, I will give them a few "amateur" pointers, all of them associated with the dreadful decline in our natural immune systems. l Our new diet of too many processed foods and ready meals surely doesn't help, as each contains too many preservatives and too much salt and sugars l Could we be digesting cocktails of chemicals from the residues sprayed on our "fresh" fruit and veg, the result of intensive farming? l Maybe the cocktail of antibiotics fed on a regular basis to our animals could be the answer, even though farmers are not allowed to administer them 30 days before slaughter l Perhaps our doctors have been too trigger-happy with the prescription of antibiotics for ailments that require other treatment l Or is it that "fresh" fruit and veg are not so fresh and have, therefore, lost all their nutrients, having been stored for too long before reaching the supermarket shelves? l Controversially, there's always the chance that our homes are too squeaky clean because of guidelines on health and hygiene, so our bodies fail to digest enough bacteria for our immune systems to fight All in all, the way we eat, live and farm should be a subject for serious concern. {{NEWS }}