THE Advertising Standards Authority's criticism of a Worldwide Fund for Nature advertisement highlighting the use of chemicals in the production of food serves to illustrate the wide gulf between the food industry and the public.

The ASA judgment ruled that the advertisment wrongly implied that all man-made chemicals may cause health problems. It said the advertisement could prove "unduly alarming" to mothers with young children or those considering having a baby.

The advert was headlined "Who cares where toxic chemicals end up?". Alongside the picture of a foetus was the wording: "The womb should be the safest place on earth. But today our bodies are contaminated with over 300 man-made chemicals, to which our great-grandparents were never exposed."

Alarmist stuff, the ASA has ruled, and rightly so. Such irresponsible campaigning simply feeds the growing collective neurosis about what we eat. Report after report suggests that one food or another does us harm or, alternatively, is the secret of long, disease-free, life. Too many people spend too much time fretting about what they eat. It is surely counter productive.

Ganging up on the agro-chemical industry has been a favourite pastime of certain charities for many years. Mistakes are made, such as organo-phosphorus dips, and vigilance has to be maintained by the relevant health watchdogs, but the suggestion that all man-made chemicals are harmful per se is manifestly absurd.

The switch to organic methods of food production will continue, for all sorts of reasons entirely separate from any health benefits, but the world will still need food produced with the aid of science. We need to keep perspective on the issue. The criticism of the WWF advertisement is well deserved