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Where does your food come from? The supermarket or a local farm, you might think, or maybe you even grow your own. But really the answer is fossil fuels – and thanks to the ongoing Iran war, you are going to start noticing that.

Some of the hydrogen atoms in your food actually derive from the natural gas used to make nitrogen fertilisers, for example. Many of the sulphur atoms will also come from fossil fuels – that’s what sulphur fertilisers are made from. Diesel almost certainly powered the tractors of the farmers who grew your food and the trucks and ships that transported it to you. The pesticides that the farmers used were made from fossil fuels, as was the plastic packaging that the food came in. The list could go on. It is estimated that go into producing, processing, transporting and storing food.

In a sense, you are eating fossils fuels. This means any sudden spike in oil prices hits food prices, too. In fact, if the Iran war drags on, this could become the worst food shock in the modern era. We will all pay higher prices, but those with the least will be hit hardest.

There are solutions. Turning less food into biofuels would help limit food shock. Unfortunately, governments are starting to do the opposite. This will make little difference to fuel prices, but will make food much more expensive.

Abandoning intensive farming isn’t an option, as a grow-your-own organic revolution cannot feed the world. But we can end farming’s dependence on fossil fuels and prevent this from happening again – indeed, this has to be done anyway to help slash the massive greenhouse gas emissions from farming.

We already know how to make fertilisers from electricity – that is how they were . All that is needed is government support and a plentiful supply of renewable electricity. But, at the moment, there is no electricity to spare because it is all going into data centres for artificial intelligence. As we start to feel the pain of this food shock, we may want to rethink our priorities.