Cooking and gardening should be taught in schools as part of efforts to promote healthy and sustainable food, UK MPs urged yesterday.

And new planning guidance should be used to ensure that communities have access to local food and land to grow their own fruit and vegetables to tackle a growing crisis around diets and the food system.

Meanwhile, a report from the Environmental Audit Committee urged the government to develop a joined-up strategy to tackle the UK’s unhealthy and environmentally damaging food chain.

Measures should include ensuring cooking and gardening are on the curriculum in all schools to give children skills that mean they are less reliant on processed food.

250 years of sandwiches

The British town of Sandwich yesterday staged a dramatic re-enactment of the moment when the town’s earl was said to have invented the sandwich, to mark the 250th anniversary of the bread-based meal.

Dressed in 18th-century costume, actors recreated the night when the John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich – a rapacious card-player – “called for a slice of beef between two toasted pieces of bread so that he could carry on gaming uninterrupted”.

Legend states that others began asking for “the same as Sandwich!” and thus named what was to become a classic foodstuff. But historians are sceptical of the claim, arguing that the sandwich belongs to a long line of bread-based snacks stretching back much further than the 18th century.

Loose moose stops traffic

A moose caused transport chaos in Oslo on Saturday when it ran on to a main highway then into a train tunnel, halting road and rail traffic, before it was shot dead.

The moose was shot inside the rail tunnel after a drama lasting more than two hours.

All trains to and from Norway’s capital were halted while authorities tried to find the moose in the complex network of tunnels.

Bronze age boat sailing fails

The crew of a half-sized replica of the Dover Bronze Age boat had to abort the vessel’s maiden voyage when it failed to stay afloat as it entered the water.

The vessel, Boat 1550 BC, was lowered into Dover Harbour, Kent, yesterday but immediately began to take on water, a spokesman for Canterbury Christ Church University, which is helping to co-ordinate the project, said.

The project, in which a team of specialist archaeologists built the vessel over three months on the Roman Lawns at Dover Museum, is supported by the EU and brings together seven partners from Britain, France and Belgium.

The replica was built just metres away from the underpass where the original 3,500-year-old Bronze Age Boat was discovered in 1992.

Gold for collecting dog poo

A city in northern Taiwan will run an innovative scheme to keep its streets clean by encouraging residents to collect dog poo for a chance to win gold.

Residents who collect canine waste in New Taipei City will be given one lottery ticket with a chance to win a top prize of a gold ingot worth $2,000.