 Pwysig i'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd o'r ffordd. Rhaid i'n gwneud ers yn cyfrifio'r ddaf yn y bydd yng Nghymru, o'r ysgrifennu 180-grun o'r ystodol yng Nghymru. Ac mae'n bwysig i'r ffordd o'r ysgrifennu, oedd yna'n gael ar y bydd. Rhaid i'r ffordd o'r ysgrifennu yna y 19-th festival, bywch yn ei gwneud i siwrhio, defnyddio, i'w gwneud i'w cy hun i'w gweithio i ddweithio ar wahogol yma yw heddiw mewn gwybod yma. Rydym eich ddisgrifennu, a gweithio ddim yn ei ddweud i'r ddweud i'w gwneud. Ond, wrth gwrs, mae'n mynd i'w gallu storiodd iawn â'i adnoddau ac yn yr oedrycyd, ac i bawb i gweithio arweihau hwnna yw'n rhaid i'w siŵr pethau. Rydw i'n ffeindio'n gweld hwnna. Tynnu lle, daeth y gallwn i'n sicr tu am hwnna ymgyrch ar gyfer cais i ddeall. Ond mae wedi rhoi sefydlu'r ydw i'w gwrdd ar gymryd i gwaith Plosydynt yn gweithio'r lleu ei gweith ymwnohon. Dwi'n pethau i ni gweithio'r unithiag am y Ddiolch i Diolch i Aberdeun, If you're interested to continue to share your thoughts either here as the events on going or after, you can do so using the visit at Scottish Parliament Parly, so an account via Instagram, and I should also add at this point that the events being live streamed on the Scottish Parliament's online channel. I'm pleased to be joined today by Kimberly Wilson, Professor Paul Hagerty, Alana McDonald and Dr Lindsay McDonald. Kimberly will be known to many of you. She's a chartered psychologist with a master's degree in nutrition and is the author of How to Build a Healthy Brain and Unprocessed, How the Food We Eat is Fueling our Mental Health Crisis. Professor Hagerty is deputy director of the University of Aberdeen's Robert Institute on Nutrition and Health. Alana McDonald is a senior public health nutritional adviser at Food Standards Scotland and Dr Lindsay McDonald is the CEO of Magic Breakfast, a national charity working to remove hunger as a barrier to learning. For audience members to put questions directly to the panel shortly, however I'm keen to start with a couple of opening questions to our panel to get things started. I guess for me we've heard a lot in the media and on TV recently ultra processed food regimes have come to the fore, but I'd be keen first of all to understand what the exact difference is between processed and ultra processed foods. Thank you very much. Ultra processed foods are quite difficult to define actually. There are different bodies that have different classifications. The one that's most commonly used is the Nova classification and it's to do with the number of ingredients and foods, the artificial ingredients. The processes through which the food may be put, for example things like a modification etc. They tend to be highly palatable. The processing is done to increase properties around freezing, keeping and sometimes around palatability etc. Those are the main characteristics, but it's very difficult to pin it down and processed foods are basically have some of the same characteristics but not the full spectrum. How is a member of the public, would you know the difference? I try to think of them is this four things, which is generally ready to eat, ready to eat and where there isn't a domestic equivalent of either an ingredient or a process. So if you can't find dimethyl esters of fatty acids in Sainsbury's you're probably eating an ultra processed food. But again you do have to kind of use a bit of critical thinking and a bit of judgment and I suppose to understand that the fact that a food might fit into a category doesn't mean that it's dangerous per se, but really that we're thinking more about quantities and how much of a proportion of the diet overall that comprises as to potential health effects. That's even as a food professional, it can be really difficult. I think for us more generally in the diet we know that the Scottish diet is to hang calories, fat, sugar and salt and so if we were to move towards a healthy diet like depicted by the Eat Well Guide then that would really help us move towards achieving our dietary goals and so I think for us it's maybe just a bit more complex than thinking of processing or ultra processed in isolation. Actually I guess I'd be interested to hear from you what you think the impact of eating ultra processed food is on our mental health and really how much do we actually know about the science behind that. Sure, I suppose more broadly it's and the position that I come from in the book is understanding first of all that the brain is the hungriest organ in the body, so body, hungriest organ in the body. It has a very high demand for energy and it has a very high demand for nutrients and there are some specific nutrients that are essential for its development, fatty acids, iodine, choline so you must have those during brain development which actually goes on for quite a long time. And then there are nutrients that are required for its function so to synthesize your neurotransmitters essentially if you think about let's say serotonin is one people often are aware of you need to take an amino acid and turn it so tryptophan and turn it into serotonin and if you think of that as a factory or a conveyor belt all of the workers on that line are nutrients. They're things like vitamin C and phosphorus and you'll be vitamins so in order to have that synthesis working you need certain nutrients. The issue is that by definition the more you process a food the more you take things away generally so you when you process a whole grain you lose 80 90% of its magnesium magnesium is really important for lots of things. And so it's more the case that and what we know from the epidemiological evidence around the world is that the higher your intake of ultra processed foods the lower your intake and status of essential nutrients a vitamins a, b, three, six, nine, choline calcium all sorts of things. So it's really the higher intake of this very very common and increasingly dominant category of foods the lower your intake and availability of the nutrients that absolutely require for good brain function and I think that's really my starting point. So Kimberly's book is very interesting on this and as you said so these issues very clearly. All of these nutrients are really important for the brain omega-3 fatty acids, choline, et cetera. But it is quite difficult when it comes to the assessment of the benefit of that in relation to cognitive development et cetera and when bodies such as the scientific advisory committee on nutrition for example look at this kind of thing it's typically the cases they will state there is insufficient evidence. There's plenty of evidence out there, some of it really quite compelling but when a body is looking at these things they have to look at all the pluses and minuses and take everything into account and it's quite difficult to pin that down in terms of benefit. It would certainly be a good idea to have a proper diet such as you would get with the well plate for example natural foods and if you're in this space where you're consuming a lot of processed foods then as Kimberly says you're in a bit of a danger zone with respect to availability of many of these nutrients so that is the case but it's really quite difficult to pin that down. That's helpful, I don't know if this microphone's working either. You hear me? I can shout later. The other question I wanted maybe to ask yourself Lindsay to start off with was the role that health inequality plays in this and the kind of role of inequalities more generally when it comes to food choices. I think one thing I would just address at the beginning is how complicated we're recognising it is to identify and find healthy and nutritious food as adults and informed consumers. Imagine yourself to be a child or a young person living in the 13% of households in Scotland who currently experience food insecurity and I think it's really important what the title of the session is which is cheap food and mental health. The food system is so broken when actually the more affordable options to us, to families, to children and young people are those that don't support and enhance brain development and brain function when it's so important, it's critical for learning and for thriving mental health. In terms of that inequality it is very much a broken system. It is more affordable typically to pick something up that is full of all of the very complicated terms and not easily and readily identifiable that's not going to help that really sustained release of energy through the start of a school day for example. It is increasingly in different parts of the UK especially where you have healthy food deserts so actually it's difficult to even access or buy the food even if that was your choice or if you were able to access it. And I think in terms of inequality what I'd also want to highlight is just how stark that has become and you know the last couple of years especially before COVID in the UK there were 1.7 million children and young people at risk of starting their school day too hungry to learn. Last year that went up to 2.2 million and throughout 2023 that's been stagnant at 4 million children and young people starting their day with an empty tummy. So before we even think about what nutrients are getting and whether those are the best nutrients they possibly can be there are an outrageous number of children in the country at the moment who have empty tummies. And there's a real role for us to think about how do we make and rebalance the food system so that healthy food choices are the more affordable. And that is a cheap food option rather than allowing the complete imbalance of marketing investment and what retailers are putting in place to encourage consumption of the ultra and less healthy processed foods. That's a really interesting and insightful answer than if anyone else has anything to add. Just to really agree with what you've said Lindsay I think a lot of the discussion around cheap food it's often seen quite negatively but actually in today's economic climate cost of living cheap food isn't necessarily a bad thing. For many people struggling to get enough to eat in the first place but it's about rebalancing what that cheap food is and making sure that the healthier options are the more affordable they're more attractively marketed and promoted so that that becomes the easy choice for consumers. That leads in nicely to my next question which is given the price differential, the prevalence of ultra processed foods. How realistic do you think it is to talk about avoiding them? Is it something that people should be looking to do to cut them out altogether? Is that achievable for most people? I'm happy to come in with my thoughts. I think I completely recognise and understand the concern that's raised in relation to processed and ultra processed foods but they are here, they're widely available and perhaps in an ideal world we would want people to be cooking more from scratch and preparing healthy meals at home but sadly we don't live in an ideal world. Financial pressure is already mentioned, a lot of people don't have storage space to prepare and cook healthy meals and so I think it probably is a bit unrealistic to expect processed and ultra processed foods to be avoided completely but it's how can we make healthier choices within the processed food category? Can we look to lower fat sugar assault options and making changes in the context of our own lives because everyone has different priorities? I think the only thing I'd add to that is that some people might be surprised that the definition of ultra processed foods doesn't refer to nutrients at all. It's got nothing to do with that although the way that the foods are processed and made means that there's a lot of covariance with basically poor nutritional composition and very limited number of nutrients. But there are good ultra processed foods. I completely mentioned baked beans for example which is a perfectly reasonable product. Things like low fat yogurts, breads where they have nutrients added and there's actually a statutory requirement to add nutrients to bread. So there are quite a lot of foods that you would categorise as ultra processed for example some of the things that Alana and FSS might be interested in terms of food reformulation and improving the nutritional value of foods. They will be good ultra processed foods so it's really quite difficult to separate that out. If people wanted to cut back on ultra processed foods or change the diet, where would you start? What are the things that you'd be looking for first in your kitchen cover? Not brands or bits and pieces but what sort of things is it that you'd be looking at? Well, maybe others can come in here but basically as a start you would look at saturated fats, sugars etc and if they're high, if the traffic light's looking bad for that then that's a good place to start. We've referred to discretionary foods at FSS and I'm sure we all recognise that they're high calorie, high fat, sugar. We don't really need them as part of a healthy diet so confectionary cakes, biscuits, crisps, sugary drinks, those kind of things all fall under the banner of processed and ultra processed. They do make up quite a significant chunk of our diet, around 20% of calories and almost half of the sugars in our diet so I think that would be a really good place to start if you were looking to reduce your consumption of these types of foods. Magic Breakfast has done quite a lot of research looking at the impact on food choices and I suppose exposing children and young people quite often to new and healthier foods. One of the things that we've often heard when working with new schools is that children have maybe historically come in, picked up a soft drink or a packet of crisps before starting the day and having or knowing that there's food at school, a healthier breakfast option means that that's what they will choose on that day. So I think to your original question of how will people make a different choice, I think we have to change the context in the environment, it can't be entirely on individuals because as I said earlier the system is broken so you need to address the system to enable better and different choices and I think that needs to start as young as possible and give that wider exposure to different food items as well. We've done some really interesting research in southern London looking at introducing and how to introduce new food items to children who might say, you know, I'm not interested in hummus and tomatoes, thank you very much. And after, you know, kind of different approaches, maybe older peers having breakfast champions, lots of different methods that schools for instance can introduce our children and young people to different healthier food options that they can then carry on into later life as well. So it's a, I think, a long term and also a preventative mindset that we need to adopt to really address this holistically. And so turning back to mental health, we've kind of looked at the, maybe at the kind of negatives and what services, but what are the kind of positives in terms of mental health, gut health and eating a healthier diet? So it's complicated. So there are, the area of research, nutritional psychiatry, is very, very young and what it says at the moment is there is a range of different types of evidence. So whether that's from cell, preclinical in animal studies and a few new RCTs, so randomized controlled trials in humans, which, and we still need lots more. But the, there are lots of different areas of, of evidence. So for example, it seems that if people are able to sustain quite a high blood level, for example, of omega three fatty acids, they retain their overall brain volume or that's associated with a larger overall brain volume. This is important because your brain begins to shrink as you age. Terrifying. Your brain begins to shrink as you age, but people who have a higher blood level of the Bs omega three fatty acids seem to hold on to their, their brain volume, their connectivity and their brain function. So they seem to have a protection, some protection against neurocognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease, which in the UK or England and Wales is a leading cause of death. It's not cancer. It's not heart disease. It's dementia. Again, there is some evidence of particular nutrients for, again, the omega three fatty acids being supportive, omega three B vitamins, vitamin D being supportive alongside treatment for things like depression. But generally in terms of the overall epidemiological evidence and looking at large groups of people over many, many years and looking at their, their baseline and then over time, it seems that having a minimally processed, so largely Mediterranean style diet, but actually the diet that is most recommended by your nation. So if you're Norwegian, it's a Scandinavian diet. If you're in Japan, it's a Japanese diet, but largely a minimally processed diet that is low in added sugars, low in added fats and high in fiber, fruits and vegetables, fish, seafood, nuts, beans, legumes, that tends to be associated with reduced risk of later development of things like depression. We're still working out some of the associations between that, but that seems to be the most supportive and protective eating pattern for most people. Do you think that science is strong enough to drive policy at this stage? Probably not here in the UK, in Australia, where a lot of this research has started, they have changed. The Council of Psychiatrists of New Zealand and Australia have updated their treatment guidelines of mood disorders to include exercise and nutrition as essential components of treatment. And that's a recognition again of the fact that you're not a brain in a jar. Your brain is connected to what happens in your body and it is affected by things like metabolites of your gut microbiome and your immune system and how much sleep you're getting and how much exercise you're getting. I don't think it's strong enough to say, certainly it's not strong enough to say, eat this way and you will be invincible against depression, but there seem to be associations between a more prudent way of eating and less severity or less risk of developing these very common mental health conditions. Do other panels have a view on that? Just to make a more general point, of course, and Kimberly is expertly outlined that in more detail, but I think that food obviously has such an important role in our health including how we feel. We don't just eat to survive, we eat for comfort, we use it to celebrate milestones, bring in family and friends together. I guess moving towards a more healthy diet, it doesn't mean not doing these things and cutting treats out altogether, but it is just about that food environment and helping to stem the tide of the less healthy foods to mean that we can actually eat healthier and in turn help us feel better as well. What I would add to that is that it is very difficult to get this evidence, as Kimberly has alluded to, and her book puts forward some of the most exciting evidence in this area and that's going to come through in terms of the informing recommendations in the future. But the difficulty is that there are two kinds of evidence that you typically get in this field and that's observational, what kind of diets do people have and what kind of outcomes do they have and randomised control trials. So that's the gold standard if you like because you take out all kinds of confounding and other effects that are very difficult to deal with in nutritional studies. And these studies are really only coming through now in terms of these large-scale studies done for sufficiently long periods of time, sufficiently powered. And I think we're on the cusp of some new evidence that is going to enable advisory bodies to make those recommendations. So we're in that equi-poised moment just now. Just to add, I think, to that point around the role that food can play to bring people together in that sense of community. There's also, I suppose, the absence of that, which, you know, and the mental health impact that has, you know, especially post-COVID, children and young people, their families are increasingly anxious and worried about food and about not having enough food at home. And so I think, you know, there is, as I say, that balance between making sure that, you know, food is accessible and affordable and actually that as a starting point for mental health is so important. And I suppose the protective factor that that community and that coming together, that healthy food can unlock is really, really important. We did some research this year with about 4,500 children and young people. And one of the things we were most struck by was the difference in gender and in age groups as well as to what was causing children and young people worry. And we found a real difference, for instance, amongst young girls who were not eating breakfast, not accessing food at the start of the day because of a concern around gaining weight, diet culture. And so, again, I think there's a need for us to think, obviously, in general, kind of social terms, but also really think about different communities and different groups and populations and how their experience and interactions with food can be positively affected and where they might be particularly damaging and detrimentally affected on their mental health. That's, again, a really interesting perspective. Do you think there are things that policy makers and food manufacturers should be doing now? Are there other things you think they could change that would make a difference to some of these issues? Or are we not? I feel like there are things they could be doing, but will they? And what is their incentive to do so? Because the reason that a lot of these foods are so heavily marketed is because they're very profitable. And when you can take, you know, if I take a sack of whole wheat and try to sell it just as it is, I can make one profit off it. If I take it and break it down into separate fractions and I've got wheat brown over here and white flour over here and brown oil over here, then I can sell it to lots of different markets and I can make a lot of money. And that is a much more kind of profitable proposition for a food industry. I think if, and if that is your incentive, which is to make money for your shareholders and to make profit, then adding things in that are going to make it more expensive, like adding in more fibres, adding, reducing the amount of processing, adding in other nutrients that might rebalance the nutritional profile of the overall population diet, there's no incentive at this stage to do that. And that's where policy really has to come in to drive the incentive to make these foods more nutritious. Because I absolutely agree that it's, you're not going to, nobody really has the time to go home and be cooking beans from scratch. We're very busy. People are working two, three jobs looking after families. Actually, what we need is a food environment that makes it much more conducive to make wholesome choices that are either on par in terms of accessibility in terms of the cost, the time it takes to cook, the energy it takes to cook, the palatine. There's no accessibility in the enjoyment around it. And I think that's very difficult to try to do on an individual basis. I think it really must come from industry. And I think industry isn't going to do that unless there are incentivised to do so by policy. To come in and maybe take the opportunity to say a few things that are ongoing at the moment to try and help improve that food environment. We know, for example, promotions of less healthy foods are really powerful, encouraging us to buy more of what we weren't intending to originally or just more of what we were. And so it's really exciting that there will be another consultation from the Scottish Government on restricting promotions. So I think it's really important to bear that in mind and see where that goes. Additionally, there's a lot of work on going in the out-of-home environment, which is where we buy from restaurants, cafes, takeaways and so on. There's work on going to develop a new framework for businesses to help them, encourage them to provide healthier options. And that would include reformulating existing menu offering to make it healthier, to make those healthy choices the default choice so that it's not just the healthy option of salad on one end and then everything else, which is potentially more palatable, attractive and cheaper. And I think just more generally there is a lot of work on going in terms of reformulation. It's one of the most important levers, I think, in terms of helping us achieve a healthy diet because it doesn't require us as individuals to make choices. It's done, it's there and it's available and benefits everyone in the products that are being sold. I was just going to, because it's always nice to be able to cite an actual specific example of a policy that has had an impact, which was the soft drinks industry levy. And essentially what that did was set out that sugar levels needed to be at a certain, you know, essentially lowered or you are going to pay a higher tax levy as the retailer, as the companies. And what was found over time is that the sales didn't drop, so the companies were happy. And most of, I think all but one actually full fat coke, all of the drinks that were originally in the highest level of sugar were dropped into a lower level because of reformulation. And I think again what was positive about the way that the government approached that was they took the funds raised and rather than letting it, you know, kind of just disperse into the general coffers, they were invested in other interventions that could drive health. So there were a lot of sports and play activities that were funded school food initiatives that were funded through that. And I think there's an opportunity, there's a group of charities at the moment looking at other opportunities for that type of levy again to try and address the high fat, salt and sugar food items, which ultimately seem to have a bit of a win-win and no detrimental impact on companies bottom lines either. So I think that's a good point maybe to open it up to you, the audience. And we're going to have a roaming mic. I think I've ended up stealing one of them due to some technical issue which probably related to me having switched it off in my pocket or something else knowing how these things go. But if you want to ask a question then it's a case of putting your hand in the air. I'm going to keep it up as I'm going to bring the microphone and I'm keen to kind of give everyone who wants to ask a question and participate the chance to sort of do so. It might be nice for the panellist if he tells us your name or first name so we know who we're speaking to about beyond that. We're just looking for short questions. There's no spy questions that can't be asked so have a think. Thank you. My name's Peter. Thank you very much for the explanation of what ultra processed foods are because I've read about them so much and it sounds as if it's simple and it's so great that you've explained that it's difficult. Now I've got the microphone. Can I be wicked and ask three questions? Lindsay mentioned that soft drinks lemonade have had reduced sugar but they've been replaced with a spartame and so I never buy lemonade anymore because it's got a spartame in because I think that's worse than sugar. My second question was Paul Haggerty was talking about freezing as being a processing and obviously cooking is processing so if I make a vegetable lasagna at home is having cooked it made it worse than raw ingredients and if I then have some make two days worth and freeze half of it does that make it even worse. My third question was for Kimberly. She started her introduction by saying there were four choices or something or others about, perhaps you don't remember, about the definition. Ready to eat, ready to heat and no domestic equipment of an ingredient or a process. There was a nice quick answer to one of the questions so I'm going to allow the panellists to answer the other two. I don't know if someone wants to come in first on the soft drinks. It's something that I've picked up on certainly in the news and some stuff from the World Health Organisation in recent weeks. To me is another example where things are quite confusing. If you're not an expert in nutrition and probably again it's complicated in different views but interested if it's something that anyone feels has got enough expertise to speak on. I think what I'd say in relation to sweeteners is that there has been a lot of attention and, you know, there has been a lot of attention, sorry. It's quite worrying when you read some of the information that's coming out. However, I think we need to remember also that in the UK that these are thoroughly safety assessed and that, you know, with current consumption I don't think we need to be too worried about the safety of those. However, I think that's where choice comes in. Businesses can choose to offer artificially sweetened products to consumers like yourself. That's your choice to be able to do that. And for some people that choice is that they don't want to. For others it may be that sweetened drinks or products can, you know, form a part of their healthy diet goals, help them reduce calories and so on. So the question is about freezing, I think, and your food preparation at home. So this is one of the good things about ultraprocessing, I suppose. Some of it is done for very good reasons, like emulsification of things, ice creams, et cetera, and it's going to affect how they freeze. And then you've got things like pasteurisation, which is to do with food safety, et cetera. So these are all processing type activities that would build up the evidence for ultraprocess foods. But certainly anything that you would do at home unless you've got a laboratory at home would not be in that category of ultraprocess no matter how many times you freeze it. Thank you. There you go. And we've got a couple more hands up. I think the closest to the wall had her hand up first, but I'm happy to. Hello everyone. Thanks very much for actually tabling this topic as part of this festival. I think it's absolutely crucial and deserves more attention than it's given at the moment. So I welcome that. Thank you. I guess we've heard about the importance, I think, across the panel. There's an agreement about the importance of stemming the tide of UPFs, as we're calling them. We've also heard about the huge marketing budgets that are underpinning that industry. I guess my question is, how do you explain the massive, in my view, lack of coherent and deliberate investment in fostering a healthy food environment through shared, joyful, collective, community based experiences of eating healthily? I'll pick on someone if no one wants to. I don't know if I'm going to answer your question, but I will give you my thoughts. I think you're completely right. For so long, there's been a focus on changing consumer behaviour, and it's all down to individual choice. But it's really hard when you're faced with an abundance of processed, ultra-processed, high-fat, salt, sugar foods. I think, particularly in recent years, this shift towards improving the food environment. What surrounds us shapes us. That's ultimately what drives our decision making when we're out shopping, when we're out buying food for ourselves and others. I think that what I would say is that actions that are going to improve the food environment are the ones that need to be progressed. Things like forthcoming promotional restrictions, advertising policy reformulation and all of those things working together. Ultimately, I think that what's going to help us achieve our dietary goals and a healthier diet overall. I don't know that I've fully answered your question. I'm going to speculate, but I think a few things play a role, I think, compared to other, certainly continental European countries. It hasn't been as much of a kind of valuing and a valorising of the food culture, the incumbent food culture, as there is perhaps, for example, in France, where they are very protective over their cheeses and their breads and their very strong standards. What's allowed to be called a food from a particular province. Historically, part of that has to do with the impact of the industrial revolution, which is that so much of the industrial revolution happened on British soil. That really shifted the meaning of food. Mealtimes came about fuelling work activity and less about fuelling communal engagement family time. We don't have the long Italian lunches, that kind of thing. Building upon that has been more of the British and American or kind of neoliberal politics of deregulating industry and allowing industry to come in and make an enormous amount of money. Again, I'm allowed to name a company because its name is so specific to... Is it up to you? I'll take the flag. There are a lot of these kind of deliverable meal companies are predicated on the basis that millennials cannot cook. We lost our cookery classes back in the early 2000s and many of us cannot cook. So they will tell you that cooking is a waste of time, it's laborious, it's difficult, it's complicated. Don't cook, just eat, and it sells you a solution to a problem of food preparation. So I think it's a combination of different things, a loss of protection and a valuing of the incumbent food culture, the influx and the deregulation of industry, and then just companies capitalising on a loss of a life skill which is being able to cook. I'm playing devil's advocate or not, I've got a strong view massive, but I just wonder how much... I think it's difficult for people to make choices for themselves when they're only faced with certain options, but how much are these companies just feeding a kind of demand for convenience? Do you think there's a balance in there or do you think it's all in one direction? Where's the... I think it's possible for a company to generate a demand. Walkers... Sorry, I'm going to get in a lot of trouble. But I just saw an ad today in an announcement in an industry publication that said that Walkers Max Crisp are joining forces with Pizza Hut to produce a new brand of crisp, two new flavours of crisp. And what they say in the press release is that this GenZ are looking for more intensely flavoured foods. And this is really important because actually when we think about food choice, your food choices begin to be shaped in utero from the foods that your mother is eating because by the end of the first trimester you're swallowing a litre a day-ish of amniotic fluid with broken down molecules of food particles in there. And so you're starting to build tastes. And the tastes that you begin to build in early childhood tend to be the ones that you prefer through life. So the foods that you begin to eat and the intensity of the flavours that you begin to be exposed to early in life become the ones that you prefer because we begin to eat habitually through our lives. They become the ones that you eat. So if you start feeding a young person a very intensely flavoured crisp that you cannot replicate the flavour profile of at home, you're never going to get a home cooked lasagna as delicious as it might be to taste of barbecued chicken with that intense additional flavour enhancer sensation. What it does is to shift the preference. If I've grown up tasting and enjoying intense flavours, I'm going to have a reduced preference for the moderately palatable foods and textures of home cooked meals. And so I think there's a way in which especially they're allowed to advertise to young people and children and the yogurts with all of the fun characters are down at toddler eye level. If you're allowed to inculcate that preference for delicious intense flavours early on, then I think you build a demand for that 30 year old who then wants a very intensely flavoured crisp. I should say this point that other crisps are available and plain crisps are also available. I think first and then we'll come to those. I guess I thought of an agreement with what Kimberly was saying. The argument of demand and supply often gets raised and these are only available because people want them, people want to buy them. But I don't necessarily agree. I don't know that anyone had asked for giant packets of confectionery and crisps. I don't know if anyone asked to have food to be able to be delivered within 30 minutes. All these promotions encourage us to buy more and so I don't think it is as simple as supply and demand. I think as Kimberly mentioned the industry is complicit in creating that supply, that demand even. I think the other thing that we have to keep in mind is socio-economic stratification and just the complete inability to make a choice in the whole straight strata of society. We're hearing about many families struggling with no cooking facilities at all and really what do you do under those circumstances that you do the best you can. So there is the industry push but there is also the pool for consumers and sometimes that pool is not of their own choice. Lindsay, on that point I guess you mentioned earlier about food deserts and we'll come back to the next lady's question about food deserts. I just wondered what exactly you kind of mean by that and what you'd be talking about. I mean essentially if you think about a child's walk from their home to their school look at what the shops and the high streets chains that are available to them on the way there and then if you go into an off licence or a small convenience store how much fresh food, fresh fruit is actually available to be purchased. So even if you wanted to make healthier food choices in certain parts of the country you can't and you need to have a car to get to the larger shopping centres to be able to buy that. So there's a real, exactly to Paul's point, there's a real stratification and a growing widening inequality that we risk exacerbating through this conversation if we don't think as well about the implications on those who are on lower income and really think that is a more comprehensive approach as we've all talked about. So it's lots of different levers that need to be pulled in different areas but I think starting young is really crucial for lots of different reasons and providing those choices in schools for instance providing unhealthy food options in spaces like schools and hospitals and state institutions is absolutely unjustifiable. It's just creating even more challenges, more costs, more implications to all of us as a whole. Thank you for that and then I think we had another question here. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'd like to delve a bit more on the question about sweeteners if I may. So with the question first on the science but also on the policy side I'm quite surprised that we haven't really heard much about gut microbiome so far in this discussion. So I guess on the science side of it my question would be isn't there more that we should be discussing here when we're looking at the link between ultra processed foods and physical and mental health? It's not just as I understand it but I'm not an expert, it's not just about the lack of nutrients but also ultra processed foods tend to have a lot of ingredients that are messing up, sorry, not very polite language with our gut microbiome in a way that we're only starting to understand. And so that from a science perspective but then that leads me to the question is reformulation really the answer? Because we just end up swapping one not great ingredient with another sugar with sweeteners and then adding more and more of those artificial ingredients or enzymes or emulsifiers et cetera which we don't fully understand yet but seem to be really doing us a lot of harm. So perhaps we need to go beyond that and really tackle head on the challenge of ultra processed foods and not just accept that we will continue eating them forever and just make them slightly less bad. Thank you. So with the microbiome I think you're talking about two unknowns there. The first one is how the diet affects the microbiome. Not unknown but it's still being explored and the second one is how the microbiome affects the function in the body. Now it definitely does but the precise way it does that is very complicated and not fully understood yet. And if you wanted to have an effect then the read through from the nutrient mix through to the effect operating through the microbiome that pathway of causality is really not fully established yet. So we don't know about that I'm afraid. On the reformulation point I think it's a fair point to raise because absolutely when we're talking about reducing sugar that often means adding artificial sweeteners but I guess in terms of just more generally with reformulation it's not necessarily just about adding in artificial sweeteners and other things we're also talking about cutting portion sizes adding in the beneficial things like fruit and vegetables for example. So I guess it's just thinking a bit more holistically and making sure that it's not all about taking away that there are some things that we'd also like to see added to food. I'm guessing you're thinking about a lot of the animal studies on the effect of emulsifiers on a gut microbiome so just to answer that part of your question. And I think the issue is in terms of what people are able to say is that a lot of that is preclinical animal data. So there's preclinical animal data that indicates and again the quantities the amounts there are perhaps two main emulsifiers of concern that have been associated in quite large quantities, quite large doses in the mouse studies with increased inflammatory responses in the colon. In terms of the amounts that are in the average person's food it's generally regarded as safe and there are ongoing studies at the moment to look at the impact of emulsifiers on human gut microbiome or gut integrity. And I guess while we wait a judgment can't really be made to say it's definitely doing harm. The prudent approach or a kind of preventative approach or a cautious approach might be if you personally wanted to limit your intake of those foods you would need to look at the back of the packet and look for the list of emulsifiers and that's sometimes quite a long list. That can be quite tricky but it's likely to be a while before there's any kind of public facing statement on any relationship between emulsifiers in industrial foods and their impact on the microbiome and then what that might mean for mental health, broader health more generally. Looking at both cheap food and mental health the cause and the effect Scots and to different extents communities across the UK are facing real lack of government action on both we're seeing chronic under investment in mental health services record waiting times especially in child and adolescent mental health services. We have Scotland's newish now good food nation bill. It's something but wasn't really welcomed by many in that sector. It excluded the right to food in favour of it being included in another bill at a future date. Whilst we have more action on school lunches than the rest of the UK we still have less than the government committed to we have almost no action on school breakfast. My question for the panel is looking at Oliver and the politicians of the world what should their priorities be now to make changes sooner rather than looking at long term consultations waiting decades for data. What should they be trying to do now to make a better future for people here in Scotland and the wider UK? Thank you very much for that question and I'll resist the temptation to comment on it. It was the hard thing about sharing rather than answering the questions and again I'm happy to. I don't know if you wanted to start. I think as I've probably said a few times it really has to start with children and young people. I think that is the most effective progressive preventative way for us to ultimately make savings and create a more vibrant and positive and healthier future for everyone. As you mentioned school food environment is an obvious space to make a real impact, a real difference on every young Scot ensuring that healthy food and the presence of food as I said at the very beginning there's a value to nutrition and nutrients and quality and health of food. But we have a horrifying number of children who are sat with empty tummies in classrooms and what does that mean for their education for their future life chances? We're not setting children up to succeed and I think delivering on those promises around free school lunches and on free school breakfast is a clear priority that can really unlock lots of wider benefits and also prevent that mental health challenge that you've touched on as well. I can start young and go from there. I'm taking notes at this point. I'll write that down. Anyone else? I totally understand the point being made about the frustration of waiting for data etc but actually there are more than enough recommendations, scientific recommendations out there just now that are not being implemented. So there's very good implementation for example in sugar and that's having an effect but also there are strong recommendations in relation to dietary fibre and the more could be done with that kind of thing and thinking about how to implement it. The other thing that comes through from Lindsay's comments and some other comments here is the importance of early years. If you're thinking about cognition it's in utero, it's in the first year of life and it's right up to adolescence actually that you're thinking about brain development. So you have the time period, you have recommendations out there in terms of what kind of nutritional strategies we should have and that can all be implemented now while we're waiting for the evidence and ultra process foods etc. So the same work can be done for example on dietary fibre work. That would be Alana's area with the implementation of good policies to promote the increase in dietary fibre. Fibre is definitely a real concern. I think that only 6 per cent of people in Scotland are meeting the dietary goal for fibre and it is so important for our health. To sound like a broken record there's definitely so much to do in our food environment and as I mentioned earlier there's lots I'm already under way and I completely take the point. It's frustrating at how long it takes but it is important when developing these policies that are being taken forward by others in government that it is done right that we consult with relevant stakeholders and we gather all of that evidence to make sure that when the policy is implemented that it's done so properly. One of the things that has helped me when these consultations announced was finding out that we were all told to my young age that it's good that we can do five pieces of food each a day and then 20 years on in the first family is something like only one in five adults. I would say that I do that myself but there's lots of policy things out there but I guess it's what you do to make them work. What are the policies I've done wrong and in any of these things that we're doing. I'm not sure I can answer that. The difficulty is waiting or expecting education to be the thing that shifts the dial and we know that intuitively people think that education which is just telling people what to do is going to be the most effective way of creating change when we know that actually in terms of the evidence is one of the least effective strategies to implement. The ones that work and if you hear frustration in my voice it's for the English Westminster government. The ones that work are the ones that shift the environment because we absolutely know that our environment shapes our decision making so it would be around things like if I have a pound in my pocket and the fruit salad costs a pound 50 but a chocolate bar costs 35 pence or whatever. That's going to shape the decisions that I make where things are placed in the supermarket shapes the decisions that I make how often that it's promoted to me will shape the decision that I make. So I think the difficulty and the failure is following the intuitive route which is just to use education and hope that that's going to create a population cultural level shift when it absolutely won't and we know that for sure. But being a bit reticent and again I'm thinking about Westminster and a bit reticent to implement the things that we know will work because that really I think my personal position incurs kind of steps on the toes of industry. And I think what it will take really if we want to create an overall cultural shift is genuinely bold leadership that says I want to create a legacy of a healthier nation even if that makes me a little bit unpopular with industry. And I'm not sure certainly in Westminster that we have very many politicians willing to put their neck on that line. I take another question from the audience. Hi, I wondered what the panel thought on the UK Government's recent sort of pronouncement. They would provide weekly injections for the treatment of obesity with GLP1 analogs using the treatment of tight two diabetes at a potential cost of millions rather than providing maybe control in the food production companies who produce unhealthy foods. I'm happy if someone feels able to answer but I don't know enough about it myself to know whether it falls or something. Obesity is a major problem. It's a major health problem and it needs to be tackled and there are these new drugs which will be injections that seem to be very effective. But definitely you should be looking upstream to fix this problem because it's not practical to be using these drugs on the scale that's actually required to address obesity. So nutrition and the things that we've been hearing about earlier that's got to be the major plank of how we deal with things like obesity. And socio-economics also comes into this again. There's a strong stratification of socio-economics with almost everything that goes wrong with people. So all of these things we have to take into account but these drugs are not going to solve a problem. They'll solve a problem but not obesity. One of the things I have to be very careful about as a psychologist is when someone comes to me is to not make the individual responsible for the harms that were done to them by the environment. So if someone comes to me and they're saying I'm very, very depressed and things are very, very difficult and it's not my job but the problem is say a terrible, terrible work environment. It's not my job just to make them more resilient to go back to a terrible situation. I'm not making you strong to bear harm. And I worry that this particular approach to overweight and obesity is doing that. It's saying I'm going to make the individual responsible for the harms that have been done to you by the environment and hope again that an individual response is going to change, make a cultural shift and I just think it's not going to work. And that will be another tragedy because the individual who thinks it's their responsibility or that they've done it to themselves or that it's some sort of moral failing is going to feel that they've doubly failed because now the drugs don't work either. My question just built on the one from over there. I really just ask how we can incentivise politicians to prioritise public health over an industry profit because right now it seems that industry profit is being put above the needs of public health. There was a report released earlier this week that shows that obesity costs Scotland £5 billion a year and that's likely to grow as rates of obesity keep to increase. And also, although much of the legislation that Alan has mentioned is welcome, it has been delayed and pushed back several times both at the Scottish Government level and at Westminster. So it's really just how we can prioritise what can we do to make public health a main priority over an industry profit. I mean, it's not an answer. I share your question, I suppose, and I don't understand how we're not already in a situation where there are enough red flashing lights on the dashboard to make action obvious and absolutely required. Tooth decay and tooth removals is the highest treatment that's happening currently in the NHS for children. Imputations due to diabetes is a growing cause and requirement that's putting pressure again on the NHS. And it feels as though that alongside the climate crisis which we haven't even touched on and obviously has another huge implication with our food system which is very broken. I share your frustration and curiosity as to how this isn't enough to make politicians act and echo Kimberly's point around bold leadership being needed. I think one bit that I went to an event a few weeks ago hosted by an organisation which, if you're interested in food, I would definitely recommend you look at their work, The Food Foundation. And they publish an annual report called the Broken Plate Report. And the one thing that inspired and reassured me from a very depressing event, I must say in terms of the report's findings, was the fact that we're in this situation because of the innovation that happened after the Second World War in particular. And that point around the Industrial Revolution, that need to create and find cheap calories essentially to energise and fuel the workforce. And there was a response by industry, there was a response by government to actually make sure that the country was fed and fueled. And we have that innovation within us and I hope somebody will galvanise and mobilise us collectively to take that next leap forward that we need to fix what we've set ourselves up with. I guess just off the back of that, do you think it's inevitable that kind of moving away from these ultra-processed foods is going to put the cost of food up? Do you think there's a cost for the individual if you were to go down that route just when you're talking through the history? Is that inevitable or do you think there are ways of addressing it without seeing cost go up for individuals? I mean, I don't personally believe that it has to be inevitable. I think the state has a role that it can play, companies have a role that they can play, them combining can make that not inevitable. And I hope that they do think about that point because, you know, as we've continuously touched on, the situation is most are already for those on the lowest incomes and those who are the most vulnerable and the youngest. And if we don't think carefully about next steps, we could just widen that gulf even further. So I work in the charity sector, so I obviously don't think that anything's inevitable. There's always optimism and something that can be done. I think the government gets stuck on a very short term thinking because we know, for example, with the question around free school meals. I don't think there's a question around free school meals. I think we should just feed children. I don't think it's that complicated. But there's a question about who should have access to free school meals. But what we know is that when you expand the availability of free school meals, within 20 years you have four times the return on your investment in terms of increased GDP because children who are able to eat, get better grades in school, they're better able to concentrate, get better grades in school, they get better jobs. They make more contributions to the public purse. There's less of a demand on the NHS. There's less sick leave. So actually, in terms of the long term vision, investments early on that might cost the government a little bit more are cost saving sensible fiscal investments later on down the line. But we have this very short term thinking, which says, well, it's going to be expensive within my electoral term, which will make me unpopular, and therefore it's not something I'm incentivised to do. So again, it needs somebody who has a longer term vision to, well, not even to make the case because the evidence is there, but to take it up as a personal campaign and push it through. Mennon said, agree with Lindsay, I don't think it has to be inevitable that it's more expensive if you were to reduce ultra processed foods, but it does require collaboration beyond just food policy. I think, you know, it's expensive to cook food. There's energy costs, you need to have access to transport potentially, so I think it's just thinking of it more holistically and people working together to mean that the solutions can actually be implemented. And I was just going to just build on Kimberly's point to say, I think again now more than ever with the cost of living rising cost of food in particular. Actually, there's probably a window of opportunity for politicians to say we're going to expand the likes of school food breakfast lunch, and that will put money back into the pockets of families. And so there might actually be a moment now where there is a short term kind of economic return for families, as well as that longer term evidence base as well. We've got another question here. Are there anyone else? We've still got another 10 minutes or so for questions. You've got something you're thinking of now is the chance to put your hands up. Thank you. I'm thinking on the positive note and following up what we're talking about here. Positive examples from other countries, we won't be the only country that's struggling with this. And you're talking, for example, by reframing the whole thing from cost to investment. What's happening in other countries that we might look to? And how likely would we be looking to other countries or rich other countries we would want to look to? The food standards around free school meals in Portugal are fantastic, really. I mean, children will still complain about their school meal. But the standards say that there must be a soup, there's a vegetable soup, there must be a portion of fruit, there is, I think, like brown rice or pasta, and there must be a salad. And so the food standards mean that even if children complain, they're still getting a nutritious meal. So we could certainly improve the standards. And when I think about prison food, because I worked in prisons for a while, the standards around prison foods are absolutely laughable. All it says is that food should be nutritious, which is a bland, empty statement that you can fill with whatever you like, and reasonably presented, which, again, is a bland, empty statement that you can fill with whatever you like. And so what that means is that the private profit driven companies that have the contracts to provide these meals can do what they like without ever having to have the provision, the nutritional quality of the provision analysed, assessed, and then questioned. So I think standards would drive a lot of change without having to make an enormous amount of huge changes to lots and lots of legislation. And I think in terms of school food, Portugal are a really good example. One that I would cite as well in thinking about the role of companies in the states, they actually have quite a wide provision of breakfast and they've enabled that through technology. And so there's actually quite a straightforward platform that companies are able to donate healthy, nutritious, as per standards, food items to be then delivered to schools across the country. So I think there are different lessons to be taken absolutely from different countries to help us build and find an approach that works for the UK. Thank you for that. I mean, I've, as I just said, sort of a side of me in the Parliament, here does lots of kind of work like that of going to visit other countries around the world, other European countries, you know, to look at these sort of things and round the school meals aspect. The Education Committee were out in Finland and Sweden, and I went on a visit with that, and it was interesting there. We are free school meals are provided as standards, hearing the young people there, hearing their reaction to the idea that in schools in Scotland people can walk out of the school gate and go and buy whatever they like from a shop. It was a kind of mixed reaction where some of the kids were thought that would be great and wouldn't it be wonderful to have all that choice and others who were horrified at the thought that people had for lunch sort of every day of the week. So that's an interesting question. We've got a couple of questions from here, and just when we come to the next round, if anyone's got one, it would be good to see hands up to know how to manage the last of the time. Hi, I'm keen to understand we've kind of talked about the economic inequalities that are driving the kind of drive for cheap food. Interest is to know how you see the kind of solution to that in terms of encouraging people to not eat cheap food and eat healthier food, but doing it in a way that doesn't stigmatise it in that sense. So I'm keen to understand your thoughts around that. I think for me it's about creating choice that you can have and purchase healthier food. So the least affluent kind of families and communities spend about 50% of their income on food. The most affluent families spend 11%. So your choice is immediately taken away in that context. So I think going back to what we've already touched on, but I think finding ways to make healthy food affordable is really crucial. And as you say, I think avoiding and ensuring that stigma doesn't come into it is really important as well in thinking about that. I think the key on this one is to wear with all the ability to make the choice. There's no reason to think that people that come from deprived backgrounds don't understand these issues just as well as everyone else, but they're just not able to make the choices. And, you know, if you don't have cooking facilities, et cetera, then it's virtually impossible for you. So I think there has to be some creative thinking around that while we try to sort out societal problems about inequalities. Do you have any further audience questions? It's a question, I think, probably for Kimberly on the mental health side of things. I'm just thinking about how food actually affects our mental health. I'm wondering, is it about the sort of social shared experience and connection that food brings? Or is it the fact that you tend to feel better when you've eaten well physically? Or is it physiological or all of the above? It's everything. Which is one of the most beautiful things about food and the psychology of food is that it's so multifaceted. It's also one of the complicated things about food and food choice and our relationship with food. So it will start with very simple physiological things and a notion in psychology we call valence, which is your internal sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness. On a very, very simple level, hunger is unpleasant and contributes to poorer mood states, as well as a chronically increased release of cortisol and perceived stress, whereas having a full tummy is pleasant and associated with feeling better. There are hedonic responses, so the response to particular nutrients. We have an inbuilt preference for things like sweet flavours and fatty flavours and salty flavours. So when we eat those foods, and this is an evolutionary adaptation, which is food should be rewarding because if it's not, you won't be incentivised to go out and search for it and hunt for it and fight bees for the honey and all of that stuff. So we evolved to find food rewarding and enjoyable so that we're incentivised to go and eat it. So there is a way in which eating is pleasurable and it should be. We have, for thinking psychologically, that your early food experience is encapsulated, your early relationships are based around that early food experience, so feeding, which is not just the ingestion of food, you know, of milk, but also being held, being looked at, being sunned to, being patted, and that starts to build your sense of relationships and identity, and that is formed around an eating experience that, for a newborn, happens several times a day. And then we have the evidence base that says that actually eating together helps to build bonds and we think it goes in that direction. So it's not just that you tend to eat with people that you already like, but that process of eating together helps to deepen the quality of your relationship with that person. So all of these things, depending on your definition of mental health or psychological wellbeing, will play a role. So not being hungry, having adequate access to nutrition because it helps your brain and body have what it needs to feel good and to go forward into the world, having an opportunity to meet, relate, engage and be companions. That's where we get the phrase from. It's the people we share bread with, common pan. So your companions, the people that you eat with, all of those things are associated with better overall wellbeing. Super. We've probably got time for our last question if there is one. Thank you. Just going off of what you said, would Parliament be more efficient if our MSPs were forced to eat together? I'm not signing after this as well. So we'll come to the book signing in a second because that is in the script. MSPs do eat together. I would put that to the panellist but I think it's a harder question for them to answer but they do but not all the time. I guess it's back to some of the points we were hearing earlier on the amount of time people have and the nature of the day here means that it's quite difficult to stop for lunch or to make healthy choices and probably our politicians in this sense of the nation in that I don't suspect many politicians do manage to stick to the healthiest possible diet. But if anyone else wants to comment on how important I am, I've just now got visions of us all sat round. It's not normally like this in the garden lobby and through and due to the time after the event I've wandered through the building because I think you can explore that you don't normally get to go into on public tours and things but we don't normally have that kind of cafe culture kind of set up. That's something that's part of this three days. It's a good question to sort of end on and with that I was going to give each of the panellists really a chance to either add anything they think we've missed in the conversation today or to sort of sum up what they think are the key takeaways but not the just-eat click-a-button type ones are. So sorry, we've gone to the first year. I mean I think for me the main point that I've taken from today is the importance of helping to change that food environment. Life is really difficult right now especially with cost of living and so all of these changes that can be made to make it easier for people to choose healthier options and make it more affordable, more incentivising then I think that's the most important thing that we can do. That's all good. I think for me it's just to reiterate that point that there are lots of people in our communities with no food or inability to prepare food and so thinking in that kind of really holistic destigmatising way as we shape policy is really important and to remember those amongst us particularly children and young people who can't necessarily even make the choices themselves and creating ways and systems that enable them to take and live healthier lives I think is really important. I think for me it is important to separate good and bad ultra-process foods and not to completely demonise industry that makes these things. When we see aid efforts in the TV every night usually you see kids eating something called plumping up which is an ultra-process food which is saving millions of lives all over the world. So there are necessary ultra-process foods and there are unnecessary ultra-process foods and we have to be careful about that distinction. And also we know what it is in the nutritional content of ultra-process foods which is negative we already all of that information but what we really don't know things about the processing the nanoparticles, the micro-encalculation, the micelles, et cetera these are the things that we need to understand more about. I will answer your question as my roundup, I am not sure I mean if you already eat together then that's fine. I wonder though certainly for Westminster whether they would benefit from either cooking for each other or even better cooking for a soup kitchen or something like that because I think one of the issues that we have is a lack of real engagement between the people making the laws and the people who are affected by them and I think there is a huge amount of humility that comes from cooking something for someone I think it's a great act of love and compassion and I think it would help them to see that food isn't just incidental because I think that's one of the issues is that food becomes so ubiquitous that we take it for granted and I think what we need across the board is a greater appreciation and I would say even reverence for food you need to wait for the June strawberry because it's delicious and it's better than a crunchy strawberry that you can get in January we need a reverence for food so that we can understand it's not just this incidental thing that we can do whatever we like with and just deal with the consequences but it's something that we should care about love and protect and that cooking and eating together and for other people is therefore an act of union I guess Thank you very much to all of our audience members for asking those questions and making the event so interesting and informative and to teach for our panellists for answering the kind of come to the end of the event and I would like to just thank you all again for coming and to thank Kimberly, Paul, Alana and Lindsay for giving us their time sharing their expertise with us and to thank the University of Aberdeen for partnering with the Parliament to put on this event I, as an MSP, find it really exciting to see members of the public getting the chance to come in and not just watch what's happening here but to actually put the questions in to participate so thank you for coming and now for the audience member who asked I can let you know that Kimberly has kindly agreed following the event down at the festival cafe bar to sign copies of her book which are also available from the festival politics pop-up shop and as I can see other books are available but I'm confident that you will be excited to get a hold of the copy if you don't have one already after today and finally can I also encourage everyone to fill in the survey that you'll receive automatically if you've booked via event right or there are some paper copies somewhere on the way out this feedback helps improve events in the future and make sure that we're getting things right and again just to highlight that there are a lot of other opportunities for you to get involved in the festival of politics events here including 25 years of devolution at 6pm women of colour in politics and challenging racism at 6.15pm and tomorrow Michael Portillo is due to take part in a panel event similar to this on the future of Scotland's arts and culture so these are all things you can get involved in and it's worth taking an interest and we're generally in the events and opportunities that the Parliament put on throughout the year so thank you again for joining us and if you'd now join me in giving our panelists a final round for applause