Traditional Glastonbury festival fare.
Photograph: Martin Godwin/Guardian.Food at festivals has changed beyond recognition. I'm not talking about food festivals - that's tomorrow, and besides, you'd hope they would have some gastronomic delights on offer - but arts and music festivals.
Long gone, it seems, are the days where the festival reveller arrives at the catering area to find a choice of anaemic hotdogs with slippery onions or cheese 'crepes' so thin you can barely tell where the paper bag ends and lunch begins.
For instance, John Gilbertson, a former fisherman who operated a seafood company and smokehouse on Skye for 30 years, now runs the Isle of Skye Music Festival, resulting, I'm told, in a range of seafood that Rick Stein would have been proud of.
Likewise, our very own Hay festival had a decent smattering of health-conscious cafes and restaurants this year, with representation from the likes of Extreme Organics, Chilean organic wine producers and 'fine dining' catering companies.
I've never been to Glastonbury but I imagine it's always had its fair share of alfalfa beans and lentil stew on offer alongside the burgers. However, it has apparently upped the stakes this year with a partnership between the Soil Association, Greenpeace, and Riverford Organic Vegetables, culminating in the first ever Climate-friendly organic food guide for Glastonbury (pdf).
That's right: it's climate-friendly organic food and drink that's all the rage at festivals now - fresh, local and, crucially, in season.
This is, of course, a very good thing. And the folk behind the guide are doing their best to promote green eating - as Michael Green, Soil Association policy officer, points out: "A good dose of organic fruit and veg is an excellent way to survive the rigours of Glastonbury, or to aid recovery afterwards."
Guy Watson of Riverford is also doing his best to get into the festival spirit: "Get radical. Don't believe supermarket green-wash; you won't find the solution to our woes in supermarket aisles of anonymous, well-traveled, over-packaged food. Get connected. Get yourself a veg box and get cooking."
Well, quite. He'll be signing the festivalgoers up to Riverford organic vegetable boxes for when they get home, a business move just slightly at odds with his radical pronouncements. But, since he runs a farm that seems to put the environment first, fair play to him.
The thing is, despite the impressively healthy, organic, environmental options on offer at Hay, listening to our mini food podcast from the festival, it sounded like the literarti were subsisting almost exclusively on crisps and ice cream, burgers, bacon and lots and lots of coffee.
And here's what I'm wondering. If even the Hay festivalgoers were eschewing the organic hand cooked parsnips and sheeps' milk sorbets in favour of bacon burgers, what are the Glastonbury goers going to make of it? Isn't dodgy food part of the whole festival experience? Do people want to seek out healthy food at these events?
