REMEMBER the 'nudge' department?

Four years on from their celebrated arrival they're now consultants to, rather than part of, the government but what they do is still about making small changes to the context and structure of choice – especially in areas of health and financial responsibility.

Basically, nudgers look for ways to affect how we make decisions so we make better ones, for our own sake as well as the government’s.

Last week I heard one of the team talk about some of their initiatives, including how more people now pay their tax on time because the reminder letter has a direct link to the form rather than to the home page. This tiny change adds millions to the national coffers.

Supermarkets putting foods like cereal bars and nuts instead of chocolates and sweets along the impulse-purchase gauntlet at the check-out is another example of a nudge.

There’s evidence that these techniques do affect our choices but the nudge ideology is criticised for not addressing underlying causes of poor decisions.

This certainly seems relevant when it comes to how we feed ourselves.

With so much focus on this or that ingredient or eating pattern which is either miraculous or evil we might overlook the fact that essentially, all food is good because it has calories and we need this energy to survive. Ultimately we eat or perish.

Those of us lucky enough to be able to heed a growling stomach get to do this wonderful thing – eat. What a gift! The Californian journalist Michael Pollan – surely the most sensible food writer on the planet – thoroughly investigated the American way of eating (with its complicated production and transport systems we’re very familiar with on this side of the pond) and concluded with this advice: 'Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.'

In a news article many years ago, he also said this: “If you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.” At the Salisbury Food and Drink Festival the city centre will be chock full of people who make food, not food products. So nudge yourself: there the most difficult decision will be how many of the real foods you can manage to try in one day.