It should be pretty obvious I take a dim view of food fads. I struggle with the idea that, because all of a sudden we have the internet, good food advice down the ages has gone out of the window. I struggle with non-evidence-based advice being accepted as the gospel truth. I struggle with people with no expertise telling us, in their experience, that this food or that food will do us good. I struggle with idiotic blogs and stupid YouTube channels.

We live in an era when we don’t believe experts, where our own experience or our own analysis can be considered to have equal merit with the judgements of those who have often spent their whole lives researching a subject – not only that but having to have their results tested and tried by others time and again.

Experts know their field. They probably have more grasp of a subject than some millennial with a blog. So it comes to something when someone you admire, whom you respect, posts something that is totally out of order.

Food has an effect on our general health. This is true. A healthy, balanced diet will help us to perform our best as human beings. Obviously, those with dietary issues have to be a bit careful. But for the rest of us, moderation is the key. Get your fruit and veg into you. Eat less read meat. Eat a few pulses. Drink more water. Have a bit of fish in your diet. This is all good.

When it comes to bread, it’s obvious that real bread – made without any preservatives or unnecessary additives – is going to be better for you. There is evidence that sourdough bread is easier on the gut than yeasted bread. I can go along with this. We champion sourdough in West Cumbria. No problems.

Yet when a top Cumbrian baker makes claims that sourdough can help with cancer care, alarms bells ring. Really? Really?? I had to check twice I wasn’t misreading this. There is no scientific evidence-based research to back this up. Yet there it was on a baker’s Instagram account. Anyone with a serious illness will benefit from a good diet. But specifically sourdough? That’s a step too far.

There’s loads to support eating real bread and sourdough in particular but let’s not make claims we can’t back up, or our credibility goes out of the window.