This year has been a very, very good year for the hard-working people who grow, produce and cook the best food in Ireland. The warm glow of success surrounding our creative food culture in the private sector, however, contrasts with a gloom in the public sphere, where the malaise of obesity and food poverty are persistent, where asylum seekers are not allowed to cook their own food in many direct provision centres, and where food is often treated as a problem, rather than as a source of delight and good health.

But there is much we can learn from the lessons of the past year to give us reasons to be cheerful in 2015.

Restaurant health food

Go to dinner at three of the country’s hottest restaurants – Loam in Galway; Ox in Belfast; Forest Avenue in Dublin – and what you will be served is top-flight gastronomy that would be unrecognisable to a restaurant-goer from 20 years ago. The cooking in these restaurants is vegetable-centric, with meat proteins playing a pivotal, but supporting, role. In effect, you are eating health food.

And you will find the same focus on wellbeing in more everyday destinations such as Galway’s 37 West, or Gasta Good ’n’ Healthy in Limerick, or the Happy Pear in Greystones.

Irish restaurateurs have twigged that people want to eat well, have their appetite satisfied, then get up from the table feeling as if they have hardly eaten at all. As Gill Carroll of 37 West puts it: “Healthy is the new sexy.”

Mental health The discoveries over the

past few years as to the ways in which the health of our biome affects the overall state of our health have been startling. But the hypothesis that the biome also affects our mental health may unveil even more startling discoveries in 2015. The message, one way or the other, is simple: eating for a healthy biome also means eating for a healthy you, every which way.

Wild Atlantic Way menus

The WAW has been a thundering success in its first year, and one logical way for the route from Kinsale to Derry to develop organically is in specialising in west coast, WAW menus.

Travellers want to eat Kerry foods in Dingle and Burren foods in Ballyvaughan, and when they get to Donegal they want to enjoy the WAW cocktail in McGrory’s in Culdaff, so that touring the WAW offers changing tastes as well as changing vistas. And there is a clear lesson from the WAW for everyone in Irish tourism: celebrate the local, and work together.

Food officers Local authorities have

arts officers, environmental officers, officers of every type, yet almost none of our local authorities or county councils have a dedicated food officer. Why there hasn’t been a rush of councils following the example of Co Mayo in creating the post of food officer, given the huge success of the county in branding itself as a major food and tourism destination over the past few years, is inexplicable.

2015 will surely see the arrival of a phalanx of dedicated food officers, co-ordinating markets, organising festivals and supporting artisan industries, in every county council.

Crafty drinking

The craft beer revolution has seen a switch from crazy drinking to crafty drinking, as people realise that a hand-made beer is for sipping and appreciating, not skulling. But if we want to change the nightly chaos of our hospital A&E departments, we need a lot more people to realise that crazy drinking is totally uncool, and that crafty drinking is where it’s at.

Beating obesity If we want to beat obesity as a public scourge, then we have got to teach people to cook food from scratch. The success of private cookery schools throughout the country shows how hungry people are for cookery skills, but we have got to get those skills learnt when people are young. So, let’s adapt the 12 skills method

that Chez Panisse chef Cal Peternell demonstrates in his book Twelve Recipes. When you can navigate your way from toast to cake, via roast chicken, eggs, pasta, vegetables and more, then you are in control of your cooking, your diet, your health and your life. And you are also a real cook.

A tax on sugar

Let’s follow the example of Berkeley, California, and impose a tax on sugared drinks. The tax will be calibrated according to the sugar content of the drink or the food product, so the more sugar the manufacturer uses, the higher the tax liability, and the more expensive the product.

Our Government needs to start treating sugar and sugar-like products the way it treats tobacco: as something harmful to our health that must be regulated for the common good.

It goes without saying, of course, that the tandem strategy in tackling sugar consumption is to stop food advertising to children. This won’t be easy – advertisers have swiftly moved from television to social media in their pursuit of our kids – but, sure, Leo Varadkar loves a challenge.

John McKenna is author of Where to Eat and Stay on the Wild Atlantic Way: guides.ie