WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Stanley]

I heard the lady as well Wendy and agree, she talks sense and understands the connection between animal husbandry and good land management, she even used the term mixed farming! I shall have to find the article I wrote for the Food Magazine many years ago on that very subject, long before the present fad campaign started.
(I found it, written in 2004 and called 'What's The Beef?' I've bumped it, it still makes sense 15 years later.)
My policy of a little bit of everything seems to be suiting me. The only food group I avoid is cereals and straight carbs (even though I occasionally fall off the wagon!). It seems to suit me!

[Tizer]

`Hummus recall extended over salmonella scare' LINK
`A recall of hummus from UK supermarkets - sparked by a salmonella scare last week - has been extended. The recall has been made by dip maker Zorba Delicacies, which supplies several supermarkets including Aldi, Morrisons, Lidl, Asda and Sainsbury's. The first recall covered goods with use-by dates of up to 7 November, but has now been extended to 17 November. The full list of hummus products subject to the recall can be found on the Food Standards Agency's website. The recall also includes products sold by John Lewis, Iceland, Booker, Spar, Safeway and The Real Deli. A Nando's branded product is also affected...'.

[Stanley]

Which confirms my constant harping on about food processors. Buy chick peas and make your own!! Here's a LINK to some dead easy recipes. Cheaper and better!

[Whyperion]

Been advised on another thread that "Consult Wendy about diabetes diet". I am cooking and getting food for a 72 year old Jewish Lad who is a bit overweight too, got him onto more veggies and fresh meat and fish with some ideas - its a bit of a change from his binges on KitKats and Diet Cokes. Any ideas welcome as I am finding it difficult to get variety of stuff he likes or will try that dont have high salt or sugar contents.

[Stanley]

I found THIS report on the sugar content of popular chocolate drinks shocking. 23 spoonfuls to a cup in some cases. That's more than my total annual added sugar consumption. In fact it's possibly two years worth. One wonders what planet the consumers are on!

[Tizer]

It's a mind boggling amount in one drink, more like choc flavoured syrup. But people are their own worst enemy, they go for the sweetest drinks.

[Stanley]

Many, many years ago a friend of mine told me that granulated sugar was "Pure, white and deadly, just like cocaine" and I think she was in front of the curve. I refuse to have it in the house, I get enough sugar in my diet of fruit and veggies. How long does it take to get this message across to the general public? Should we be starting in schools. How about shock horror pics like the ones on my pipe tobacco on packets of sugar and goods above a certain level?

Later... I note a medical man is advocating the alerting of children at school about the dangers of 'high cholesterol' and recommending that they start taking statins young to avert any problems. Apart from my suspicion of simple analogies like high cholesterol = heart disease, are we really sure that life-long ingestion of statins is a good thing?
But above all, I deplore the move to give young children another danger to worry about. They have enough on their plate with global warming, smoking, drugs and obesity. Are we robbing them of childhood?

[PanBiker]

The reports I heard said 25 - 30 year old's, hardly children.

[Tizer]

`'Check your cholesterol from age 25'' LINK
The researchers are not recommending statins for young people but believe they should have the choice. I think checking cholesterol level at an early age is sensible because then it would identify anyone with familial hypercholesterolaemia who could then be given dietary advice and, if serious enough, be told the options for medicine. If others are detected with high chol but not familial they could be warned about having a good diet. No need for drugs.

[PanBiker]

We got up to the smell of fresh baked bread this morning. I constructed it in the bread maker last night and put it on the timer so it started the process at 5.30am this morning. A standard loaf but I shoved the remains of our Chia seed stock into the pan with the flour and added about 5g of Sunflower seeds to the dispenser for later in the mixing cycle. I though that I had some pumpkin seeds as well but was mistaken. It looks to have come out OK, we'll test it at lunchtime.

[Whyperion]

I found THIS report on the sugar content of popular chocolate drinks shocking. 23 spoonfuls to a cup in some cases. That's more than my total annual added sugar consumption. In fact it's possibly two years worth. One wonders what planet the consumers are on!

I think the sugar industry is hiding behind 'Caramel'. which is basically boiled sugar inwater solution. There are non-sugar alternatives but again the chemicals in them effectively mimic the effect of sugar on the body so maybe no saving grace there.

A decent hot chocolate ( I have need in this cold weather ). will have some sugar I think ( Lyons and Cadburys chocolate powders have some - I have tried cocoa powder- but it is bitter and I find will not melt into milk as well as drinking chocolate powder does. Flavouring can be done with orange oil if you like)

[Stanley]

I realised later that you are all correct. I misheard the report and it was the over 25s but at the same time the man said that children at school should be informed of the dangers and I think that's what threw me. Sorry about taht but my misgivings about young children being constantly warned is not good. I understand why but it could be too much gloom too soon.
What should be taught in every school is nutrition. The key to attacking obesity lies there in early education. I have never forgotten Mrs Ackroyd when I was four years old, "Peas beans and lentils are flesh forming foods". Thank God my mother taught us to take an interest in food and cooking and in a strange way, war-time rationing gave us all a bonus, you had to cook well to survive!

[Tizer]

I understand why but it could be too much gloom too soon.

Youngsters already have a more immediate cause of gloom - the prospect of continuing climate change. They're very clued up these days and have more nous than we give them credit for.

[Stanley]

Yes, I understand that and I know I am arguing a hopeless case but I regret the way what I regard as childhood is stolen for kids today. Lots to be said for innocence. Today we read of what they can access on social media and the web.... One example, I know I was older than 11 years when I 'discovered' where babies came from. (I know this because I remember where I was at the time, I can still see the rows of hooks in the cloakroom at the Grammar School...)

[Wendyf]

A critical look at the recent BBC programme about eating meat.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/environment/ ... 9LPdVC8baQ

[Stanley]

Good article Wendy, I love the graphic of the cow! Just one thing, I asked Tiz about the methane 'fact' that it is absorbed and doesn't linger like CO2, he said that's true but actually changes into CO2 and other gases so the argument isn't quite as good as it appears. But on the whole I approve of the tone.

[plaques]

On my first visit to Canada and the US my friend advised me that the steak won't taste the same as back home. Sure enough it didn't. All down to the way cattle are fed and reared he said, That was over 20 years ago and I doubt that things have improved over time. Keep Trump's American crap out of this country and maintain the British / EU standards that we have got.

[Tizer]

I agree with Wendy's article on the proportion of greenhouse gases from agriculture. I was surprised when the BBC programme claimed it was more than transport. I can't see how they can claim that. Estimating the climate change effects of agriculture is fraught with difficulty and the arguments will go on forever!

[Tripps]

the steak won't taste the same as back home

I remember when you could get frozen Brazilian sirloin steaks in packs of five from Tesco. They were excellent (and reasonably priced). Maybe we'll get them again when we're free of the EU.

[Stanley]

I remember those steaks well David and agree with you but of course we know now that many of the cattle are being farmed on reclaimed forest lands and that's not good.
I shall continue to support local butchers selling locally produced meat for as long as I can. The vilification of grass fed meat (like my mutton) and the people who produce it is, as far as I can see, driven by townies and politicians who have completely lost touch with the land. The overall effect is that we drive down farm gate prices for everything more and more and in the end it will turn round and bite us. We found that out in WW2 but all those lessons have been forgotten. In today's uncertain world we should be nurturing our farms and home grown food, instead we are allowing the big food interests and middle men, particularly the slaughter houses to drive down returns. The bottom line is that we treat home grown food shamefully and eventually the pigeons will come home to roost!

[Stanley]

See THIS Guardian article on food labelling. Labelling food and drinks with how much walking or running is needed to burn them off could help tackle the obesity crisis according to new recommendations based on research supervised by Prof Amanda Daley of Loughborough University, first author of the research. “We are not saying get rid of current labelling, we’d say add this to it.”
Some of the figures they give are real show stoppers. This could be a good idea.

[Tizer]

I agree and it should be extended to restaurants and coffee shops etc (I wonder how much running the 13 tsp sugar latte would get?)
NB. I wouldn't drink something with that much sugar in it. I still remember as a postgrad my supervisor doing a bit of analysis as a sideline when he was involved in a project with the new sports science lecturer. The sporty man wanted his urine analysed at specific points during a long marathon run round and round the track and he drank large quantities of sugar solution. It was horrible. His pee turned a dark colour and threw out a sediment. But worse, the osmotic pressure of the sugar solution going into his bowels stopped the uptake of water and he got diarrohea...but insisted on continuing the run. Urgh!

[Stanley]

Lovely! A very good case for eschewing extreme diets and exercise. A bacon butty and a morning walk does you no harm at all.

[Stanley]

Not a bad time of year for having a look at THIS BBC report on malnutrition and obesity affecting poor countries.. Not a bad time to recognise that while this report is about poor countries it's advice applies to us as well. It's been known for a long time that malnutrition, the eating of the wrong foods, is common across all income levels. The culprits are the ones that OG has been stressing for years.
So don't make overeating worse by doing it on the wrong foods!

[PanBiker]

I did a bit of hand baking yesterday. I made six small loaves in a combination tray that we have. They are a bit bigger than the small Hovis baby loaves that you used to be able to get, about 150g each so the equivalent of about two slices of bread each. I made a standard bread mix with butter rather than oil or just water. I added about 75g, half sunflower and half pumpkin seeds to the dry mix before adding the liquid and mixing and the first knead. 500g flour and the 75g of seeds made just enough dough for the six loaves. I baked them for about 30 minutes in the centre of a hot oven. We had one last night as a tester, (it passed) and I kept two back for today, the other three I froze individually.