The typical Briton is giving up fish and chips in favour of Thai takeaways and choosing locally grown food over expensive organic produce, but still failing to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, according to The Independent on Sunday yesterday.

For the first time, the Government has produced a wide-ranging assessment of British eating, using food diaries, surveys and official industry statistics.

It appears that we prefer locally grown produce to organic and free-range food. This is probably understandable as we become ever more cost conscious. However one of the more worrying statistics in the Government report tells us that more than 200,000 people in the nation's poorest homes often go an entire day without food.

Thai food is becoming the biggest growth area in the £30.5bn a year eating-out food sector, which includes food-serving pubs, restaurants and takeaways. We spend £7.6bn annually on fast food, including fish and chips, pizza, burgers and Thai, Chinese and Indian takeaway. But the figures reveal that the traditional British fish and chip supper accounts for only 3 per cent of food cooked outside the home.

The report comes as ministers prepare a campaign urging us to "Buy British" as a way of helping the UK through recession. From tomorrow, local food producers will be encouraged to bid for more public sector contracts, while Food minister Jane Kennedy will pledge that the Government will do all it can to promote British food within European free market laws.

Before the advent of large supermarkets, greengrocers and butchers selling local produce were easy to find. These have now disappeared in favour of convenience stores that only sell tinned produce, making it harder for people without their own transport to purchase fresh items. And as more and more families consist of two breadwinners, we are turning to takeaway food as a quick and easy meal solution.

Maybe now is the time to re-evaluate our eating habits. How could the Government persuade you to "Buy British"?

Christmas draws ever closer, and as the recession continues to bite, this seems like a good opportunity to ask our readers to do their bit and share a bit of festive cheer.

For many of us the high cost of food will no doubt be causing some concern. How do we provide the family and guests with the meals they crave on a reduced budget?

There must be many of you out there who have some helpful tips to share with us. So come on all you chefs, both professional and amateur, we'd all love to read your Christmas recipes and other cost cutting ideas!

Improve, in conjunction with IFST and DEFRA, held an event recently to establish what actions needed to be in place to ensure that there is an adequate supply of skilled food science and technologists in the UK. The afternoon session consisted of a series of workshops to identify and discuss how industry stakeholders can work closer and better together to ensure the required supply of food science and technologists in the UK.

Although the workshops identified many issues within the sector, the most common response was that both industry and education must work closer together to identify what is required to address the skills shortages. The objective of this closer working would be to become more proactive and creative about the provision and quality of courses, but to also increase the awareness and perception of the opportunities available in the sector with school children and students at all levels and stages. At the core of this outcome, is the involvement of the careers service and advisors, subject teachers and parents in understanding the opportunities and options available to FST graduates/qualified people.

After identifying the problems, the workshops focussed on possible short, medium and long-term solutions. As well as tackling educational awareness, solutions put forward included raising the profile of the industry through media events and making food factory clothing more stylish and functional. You can read full details of the findings here.

Everyone is in accord that more needs to be done to raise the profile of the food industry, but will the proposed measures be enough? What attracted you to a career in FST and how would you encourage more people to follow in your footsteps?

Statistics from the UK's largest free to use discount and voucher code website have revealed that sales related to online supermarket shopping have outstripped electronic and gadget related online sales for the first time since internet retail was established.

It appears that we are turning to online supermarket sites to hunt for bargains on essential items such as bread and milk, as well as exclusive offers and discounts on home delivery.

4238 people from across the UK took part in the research which revealed that Tesco leads the way when it comes to the most popular online supermarket website with 44.2% of people saying they shopped at the retail giant leaving ASDA trailing with just 23.2% and Sainsbury's with only 11.7% of market share.

Apart from the obvious convenience and time saving factors, what other benefits can you derive from shopping online? Unless an item is out of stock, you'll get everything that was on your list AND you won't buy all of those extra things you hadn't planned on buying.

Do you do your grocery shopping online? Are you completely satisfied with the service you receive? We'd love to hear your experiences...