If the Government had any lingering doubts about the obstacles it faces in rebuilding confidence in British food, and beef in particular, they were swiftly dispelled last weekend. Big meat eaters cancer warning' screamed the Daily Mail's banner headline, and as the eager tv stations latched onto the story the industry was hurled back towards the chasm of despair which opened when BSE reared its head last year. This time the issue arises from an apparent leak of a forthcoming report of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA) which is set to issue "an official warning" to eat less red meat. Certainly the stuff juicy tabloid headlines are made of and, at first sight, a serious potentialproblem for an already punch drunk trade. Yet if eating red meat is as hazardous as Whitehall's learned scientific advisers reportedly believe, we Brits should be almost the healthiest across the industrialised world. Reports that COMA will recommend limiting daily intake of cooked red meat to just 140 grams as a safeguard against stomach cancer have the side effect of highlighting how little beef, lamb and pigmeat is eaten in this country. Allowing for shrinkage during cooking, the suggested maximum intake is equivalent to roughly 200g of raw red meat per day, or 73kg annually. That seems right for your average German, though restrictive from the viewpoint of an American, an Australian or even an Argentinian. Yet it is probably almost 50% above average UK consumption. Precise reliable statistics are hard to come by: MLC economists offer an estimate of 43.9kg for the UK, and 63.6kg as the EU average, but warn these are not strictly comparable because the figure for this country includes some significant processed imports, notably good old corned beef. Logically, this means retailers can assure anxious shoppers that the COMA health warning is largely irrelevevant here. But in practice red meat consumers will see it as a threat of being killed by the Big C if CJD or E.coli does not get them first. So as the talking about the proposed Food Standards Agency's powers hots up, the need for an effective publicity machine to put statistics into perspective has never been more obvious. Clive Beddall, Editor{{OPINION }}

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