How to munch through the crunch?

[How is the credit crunch affecting the nation's eating habits? Friction TV took to the streets to find out. Watch the video here.]

There's an interesting range of opinions in this video, and I would say erring on the side of gloom. There's not a lot to be cheerful about with the credit crunch. If you're feeling it in your pocket and your weekly budget, that's obviously tough.

But at the same time we can't go on living on this kind of 'carbon credit', and if the credit crunch encourages more people to think about the option of growing your own then that's definitely a silver lining.

It was good to see the feature on Yahoo! Finance (which ran on the front page earlier) on the money you can save. Some people who grow their own don't do it to save money, but it's clear that you can, if you go about it the right way.

The thing that worries me a little bit is the notion that if you have less money to spend on food, you eat less healthily. I wonder if that's really true?

If you're prepared to go back to basics and do some cooking then the cheaper ingredients are sometimes the healthier ones - fresh fruits and veg, basic pulses, grains, potatoes and so on. And you can make very, very good and healthy meals with them.

It's the heavily processed meals, and ready meals, which have the mark-up and are more expensive, which are less healthy.

I've no doubt that there are a few people out there who think, 'It's alright for him - money's not an issue', and fair play to them. There's no answer to that really. I can't say the weekly budget is a big issue for me - it would be hypocritical if I did.