Food has always been about pleasure - the idea behind Leon is that you can have something that is both lovely and good for you. But since we opened Leon, I have become more aware of the politics of food and the systematic problems in the way in which we produce what we eat.

The biggest single global issue facing us – bigger than the energy crisis and much bigger than terrorism - is food security. The global population is forecast to increase from six billion to nine billion by 2050. At the same time, India and China are continuing to eat more meat and global warming is putting enormous pressure on production.

We got a taste of what might happen last year when the harvest failed in Australia and there were real problems of food supply in Indonesia as a result. We in the West won’t really notice because we will just pay more for our food, but developed world may eat the Third World into starvation. There are parallels with the Irish potato famine, when no one in England really noticed that Ireland was starving because it was far enough away, stirring Jonathan Swift to write his satire: ‘Let them eat their babies!’.

So what is to be done? One suggested solution is that we continue down the ideological path of the Green Revolution. In the Fifties, the Western world realised that unless we changed the way in which we produced food, we wouldn’t be able to feed ourselves. The great achievement was that for the first time ever in history, we increased the capacity to produce food without encroaching on virgin land. In the past, in order to grow more you had to take over more land (typically forest). During the Green Revolution - through the use of nitrate fertilisers and oil – we were able to increase productivity without using more land.

At the same time, the ideas of the Industrial Revolution were increasingly being used in the food world, resulting in a massive industrialisation of food production and cooking, which created incredibly cheap food and meant we could all be fed. However, the nutritional quality of the food that was being produced was declining. Illnesses like heart disease became prevalent in the Western world for the first time.

For nitrates, proponents of this approach argue, read genetically modified (GM) food. Unfortunately – as of yet - there is no evidence that GM increases yields.

I believe that consumer behaviour in the West is going to have to change quite radically if we are to address this problem. Quite simply, the problem is not that we do not farm efficiently enough, but that we do not eat efficiently enough. We eat too much meat, which uses 10 calories of fuel to create one calorie of food.

In this respect, I like the fact that being vegetarian, or simply eating less meat, is beginning to be seen as less ‘worthy’ than it was. I really think that this is the most important thing that needs to happen and I’m glad that ideas like ‘meat-free Monday’ are gaining an audience. I remember when I worked with the chef Bruno Loubet and someone would order something vegetarian, he would ask ‘Vegetarian!?’ in this charming, mock-horrified way. That attitude was really prevalent until quite recently in the food world, but I think it is beginning to change.

Vegetarian food doesn’t mean you need to use meat substitutes, you can make wonderful food simply with vegetables. It sounds so removed from the deep issue of food insecurity, but actually that’s how these things start to change.

Companies like Leon can make a contribution in communication. Hopefully, we can influence decision makers, and the people who eat with us by keeping our house in order and talking about what is important in the food world. In this way, I think we can make a real difference.

This article is based on an interview by Rob Lyons.

Henry Dimbleby is co-founder and CEO of the restaurant chain, Leon.