WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the fall out from the grenade lobbed into nutrition advice by the National Obesity Forum who argue against the latest dietary guidelines issued in March. They say that the advice issued since the 1980s on diet is possibly the most disastrous mistake made in the last century. They advocate less carbohydrates, more saturated fat and ditching diets and calorie counting saying that the evidence is that this is the safest advice.
YIPPEE!! More strength to their arm. You'd think they have been reading what we have been advocating for years. All my reading and experience supports what the Forum says. Further, they point to interference from the food processing industry who are dominating the debate with their profits in mind. This is denied of course but as I have said many times, it is no accident that the advent of obesity and the 'Western Diseases' coincides exactly with the rise of the food processors and supermarkets, both obsessed with shelf life and profit. I wish the forum well!

[Wendyf]

Good news! It's already being reported in a very negative way though....

[Tizer]

You know my views on fats and diet and you'd probably expect me to welcome the NOF report but I have some misgivings about it. Some of their statements are soundbites that will cause confusion and get mis-used out of context. For example implying that you can eat as many calories as you like and you won't get fat; that calories don't make you fat. Their adviser, Aseem Malhotra speaking on the radio recommended "eating until you feel full"; many people don't `feel full' and his advice would push them towards obesity. The way they're putting over the message is going to invite news media misinterpretation, hence the negative reporting.

[Stanley]

I agree about the flaws in the report, they should have modified some of the statements. I know what they were getting at and they're right but you need a bit more knowledge to interpret them. I would also have highlighted the widening of the diet to include foods that are rich in essential minerals and other micro-nutrients.
Did you see the report about the fast food outlet owner gaoled for six years for knowingly serving foods including peanuts?

[Tripps]

Seems this unfortunate person had such an intolerance to peanuts, and nuts in general that he wore gloves to serve packets of nuts in the pub he managed. I read that the offender replaced almonds in the sauce with cheaper peanuts. The note on the order slip and the box said 'no nuts'. I'm puzzled. I guess that meal would always have nuts of some sort in it? Had I got such an allergy - I would not eat anything that I had not made myself, or watched being made.

I read last year or so, that experiments at Addenbrookes in Cambridge had successfully desensitised some people from a bad reaction by very gradually introducing them to very small quantities of nuts. A quick google reveals Peanut allergy study

[Marilyn]

Any take-away is dodgy. The number of times I have explained my aversion to Garlic and carefully questioned food retailers. Sometimes they are completely oblivious to the Garlic content of their sauces and crumbs. Even when they do not add Garlic, the residual content in their cooking pans and utensils is enough to knock a buzzard off a dump truck!
I've bitten in to food that I have paid good money for, only to throw it straight in the nearest bin ( they look at you aghast and never offer a refund!). One Fish and Chip shop did suggest they could refry my chips to remove the Garlic Salt ( derrrr...making their oil garlic tinged for the rest of today's customers)
It is a real problem. In general, I think the general population are immune to the level of background Garlic in food.
I've found it in everything from sausage rolls to fish and chips, from salad dressings to bread.
People are finally understanding gluten intolerance and vegetarianism...but nuts, garlic and coriander go under their level of caring.

[Tripps]

"enough to knock a buzzard off a dump truck! "

Great expression. Reminds me of a track in my music collection by Pete Stampfel. He's a bit of an acquired taste. Buzzard on the gut wagon

[Tizer]

I liked Maz's buzzard phrase too, very appropriate. I sympathise with Maz about Garlic and agree with Tripps that "Had I got such an allergy - I would not eat anything that I had not made myself, or watched being made." I fact I `eat out' very little because I'm intolerant of so many herbs, spices etc. Notice I use the word intolerant, I don't claim to be allergic. But just like with nuts, I can't trust any meal that hasn't been made by me or Mrs Tiz to be free of the things that inflame my gut. I know a few small Cornish pasty makers who put little or no pepper in their product so I do get to eat out sometimes in Cornwall! If you ever find yourself on the Lizard Peninsula, go to Lizard village and into the side lane that leads to Church Cove. Look for the bright yellow house on the left with a big bright sign saying Ann's Pasties and treat yourself to the best pasties in Cornwall, probably the best in Britain. But always arrive early or you'll be at the end of a long queue and there are never any left over. It's interesting how often there are northern folk in the queue...but then they know a good pie when they taste one! Ann's Pasties

[Stanley]

What puzzled me was the fact that Ground Almonds were not seen as a danger. Is it just peanuts that can cause the allergic response to 'nuts'?
As far as I know I have no allergies or intolerances apart from sweet things not agreeing with me as I get older even though I like them. Are people like me simply lucky or are we a product of the way we were fed when young. Things like having to eat what was put in front of you during rationing. Or is it that we weren't sensitized to certain foods by the modifications introduced by food processors? My mind goes to Japanese friends who are allergic to dairy products.....
It's a puzzle but I thank God I don't have to worry about these things and sympathise with those who have the problem....

[Tizer]

Allergies are very specific. Peanut allergy is specific for peanuts. But that doesn't mean that you can't have multiple allergies.

Japanese and many other folk around the world are lactose intolerant and therefore don't drink milk. It's not an allergy but simply the inability to digest lactose which then ferments in the large bowel and causes pain, gas and `the runs'.

[Stanley]

I am so lucky!!

[LizG]

I liked Maz's buzzard phrase too, very appropriate. I sympathise with Maz about Garlic and agree with Tripps that "Had I got such an allergy - I would not eat anything that I had not made myself, or watched being made." I fact I `eat out' very little because I'm intolerant of so many herbs, spices etc. Notice I use the word intolerant, I don't claim to be allergic. But just like with nuts, I can't trust any meal that hasn't been made by me or Mrs Tiz to be free of the things that inflame my gut.

I agree. On the way home from a few days away we stopped in a cafe for lunch. There was nothing on the menu I could eat (and travel another 2 hours to home). I sat and watched Den eat lunch and then opened a single packet of cooked brown rice and added a small tin of salmon in water. I ate it in the car. I always carry stand by food. Nothing with numbers for me.

[Marilyn]

Hubby would so love me to make "good old fashioned rice pudding with Nutmeg like his mother used to make".
Sorry I can't- Nutmeg bringing up dreadful childhood memories for me. One foster mother I had in my childhood added Nutmeg and Salt to everything from breakfast cereal to mashed potato. I used to beg her not to put Nutmeg and Salt on my weetbix/cornflakes but all of a sudden out would come the hand sweeping both onto what I was eating. Ugggh!
I cannot eat salty food or Nutmeg.
She laced everything with the stuff.
I think that is why I am so accommodating with feeding "fussy" kids.

[Tizer]

I'm sorry to hear other people are unable to eat many of the food products and meals served up nowadays but at least it gives me some comfort to know I'm not alone in having this trouble. I've always thought there must be many others who put up with the problem. You don't hear much about it until you mention you're own problem then suddenly you find there are others admitting they suffer too. There are also those who have intolerances but force down the foods because they don't want to be seen as the odd one out. They then have to put up with the consequences or take drugs to try to avoid them.

Maz's `Nutmeg & Salt' experience is mind-boggling but then I guess there have always been those who enjoy making others suffer. My experience was awful as a young child - my grandma forced me to eat bread lathered with sweetened condensed milk!

[Stanley]

Steady on! Condensed milk butties were a standby during the war (And same for Tate and Lyle's Golden syrup as well), I loved them. Nutmeg only bit me once when I put too much in an apple pie and later that evening noticed my heart was racing! Powerful stuff is Nutmeg!
Poor Liz..... Brown rice and tuna..... But I'll agree about E numbers... I know some of them are quite natural and harmless but I avoid them like the plague.
Tiz is right, you don't realise what other people have to put up with. I'll repeat it, I am very lucky!

[PanBiker]

I am very lucky too, I have three perceived and not tested for 30 years allergies that I developed in my late 20's. I might be OK with them now. Coffee, cold corned beef and fancy foreign chocolate, at the time the doc reckoned it was the preservatives that caused the violent migraine, hot and cold sweats, shaking and nausea. Symptoms were so nasty I have done without, I have a yen for trying coffee again though.

Connie onnie, fantastic, makes belting rice pudding, with a little nutmeg on the top of course. Good on toast with butter as. We have a tin in the cupboard, always wondered why it was not in a jar, Sally hates it, oh well.

[Tizer]

Those symptoms from coffee and high-cocoa-content chocolate were probably due to the caffeine, rather than being allergies. The caffeine blocks the enzyme that breaks down adrenalin in your body, so you get an accumulation of adrenalin in the bloodstream. I get similar responses and gave up coffee in the 1980s when I realised what it was doing to me, and I eat only small amounts of dark chocolate (but like it!). I don't know of anything in cold corned beef that would do that to you unless it was deteriorating.

[PanBiker]

Instant coffee in the main Tiz, corned beef definitely not off. I can eat it in any shape or form cooked. I may try a sip of decent ground coffee at some point. I can drink copious quantities of tea which also has caffeine so that was not deemed to be the problem. Didn't have any allergy tests as I could live without any of them. No reoccurred since and I have had foreign chocolate on occasion. Allergies can come and go. Finlay had a violent reaction to egg from being a baby, he is developing a tolerance as he gets older.

[Stanley]

I'll brew you some ground coffee Ian any time you like!
My mother always put nutmeg on rice pudding and in apple pies as well.... We had it all through the war, God knows where she got it from.

[Tizer]

In general, tea has less caffeine than coffee. I can drink a lot of tea with no effects. As well as caffeine, chocolate contains theobromine which has similar effects. It's all further complicated by there being other food components that can have the effects. Any chemical that is close in molecular structure to adrenalin will have the potential to block the enzyme and cause accumulation of the hormone, monoamine oxidase. If it were not for having this enzyme we'd be permanently going around pop-eyed, trembling and unable to function properly!

I avoid `shellfish' other than the basic small prawns. I've had puffing up of my face and a feeling of getting very hot and breathing fast even with large prawns. I think the allergy problem with shellfish comes not from the flesh of the animal but the food that it filters out from the seawater, the phytoplankton and zooplankton. Some of these have powerful nervous system poisons, the worst result being known as paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP).

[Stanley]

I once enquired of a tea importer which teas had the least caffeine and he told me that the higher a tea is grown, the less caffeine. He reckoned high grown Darjeeling had the least.
I'm not a big fan of shellfish and once had a nasty experience in Doncaster after eating cockles and drinking brandy..... Made worse by the fact there was no bathroom in the house and me and my mate Slim were fighting over the only jerry......

[PanBiker]

[quote="Stanley"]I'll brew you some ground coffee Ian any time you like!
/quote]

No problem with access to proper coffee Stanley, Sally brews some everyday and I love the smell. Never got round to testing myself for tolerance though, I need to try by sipping a teaspoonful at at time to see if I feel dodgy.

This only hit me in my late 20's. Worst manifestation was drinking a cup at my bosses ex wife's house at the top of Wheatley Lane Rd at Barrowford. I drank it just before leaving, I set off back in the van and had to pull over at the junction at the bottom a few minutes later as I could not see where I was going, flashing lights, banging head, shaking uncontrollably, sweating and nauseous. I staggered over into the park and sat on a bench for half an hour until the symptoms subsided.

[Stanley]

Hard Luck Ian! As I say so often, I must be very lucky! It takes a massive overdose of a drug or chemical to upset me (Like too much Nutmeg!). Perhaps that was why I survived Botulism, the Quacks told me it should have killed me.

[Tizer]

Ian, those symptoms sound a lot more serious than the impression I got from your earlier post, but I can imagine the effects. I never got it that bad but I didn't drink brewed coffee, only instant. What made me give up coffee (when I was in my early thirties) was a day in the company library when the librarian gave me a plastic cup of the stuff, probably from a machine. After drinking it I couldn't concentrate on the report I was writing and I jumped every time someone spoke to me or made a noise. I was trembling, tense, and my head felt as if it would burst (no pain, just tension - I've never suffered migraine). Another bad time was when I'd drunk coffee and eaten a cheese sandwich late in the evening and I couldn't sleep afterwards, just spent the night wide awake and nerves jangling. It's a horrible feeling and makes you scared that you might have an epileptic fit or something similar.

[Whyperion]

Some coffee makes me sick, even the Sainsbury's De-Caffinated Stuff, I do like the odd, mild, filter coffee but it has to be fairly milky