In defence of food

Yum. Food (she says sounding like Homer Simpson). I love food so much I carry it as a spare tyre around my middle. Just the one though, since I'm now back at the weight I've always been. I'm the same now as I was when I was 20 and I wanted to lose that extra bit then too.

I've been reading Jane's blog posts about dropping four stone (not four actual stones, 56lb) and it reminded me of Michael Pollan's rules in his book In Defence of Food.

I read it and then gave up dieting (apart from a brief and foolish foray in to the Dukan diet which was awful. I just don't like meat enough to do that one). Pollan says (on an ad for the book I clipped from a magazine and stuck to my fridge):

FORGET THE DIET AND FALL IN LOVE WITH FOOD AGAIN

The ad also conveniently lists his The Rules of the Real Food Revolution. My comments in italics:

 1. Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food. Quorn, for example. What the heck is Quorn anyway? Ugh. 

 2. Eat a wide diversity of species. Pizza is NOT a species. Don't eat anything that's on the 'at risk of extinction' list though.

 3. Pay more, eat less. This absolutely applies to ALL types of meat. Eat good meat or none at all. Free range chicken is more expensive but it's worth it.

4. Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce. I don't think this means avoiding Szechuan pepper and chorizo. It means things like butylated hydroxytoluene.

5. Shop at the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle. The cakes, chocolate and junk are in the middle. Run in, grab some Green and Black's 85% plain chocolate, run back out to the vegetables, pulses and nuts.

6. Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. This means the likes of Twinkies. Sugar doesn't rot (except your teeth). Honey doesn't rot either but I think that's an exception to the rule (in my world). Does chocolate rot? I've never managed to keep it long enough to find out...

7. Avoid food products that carry health claims. I can't think of any examples -  slimming tea? In the UK this sort of thing is quite strictly regulated. I assume it doesn't include blueberries and other such fruit although I'm deeply suspicious of goji berries...

8. Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does. Or, in other words, you don't need chocolate just because the car needs petrol and sandwiches from that sort of a place are just plain wrong.

Grow your own if you can. This year's winter salads (half of them) pictured today.

9. Cook and, if you can, grow some of your own food.  Cook from scratch. Cheap, easy, more delicious. Home made doesn't require additives to keep it 'fresh'. If you've made it you know what's in it (and you've only got yourself to blame!)

10. Eat meals only at tables, with other people and always with pleasure. The BEST bit. Families that eat together stay together. The table in front of the TV doesn't count (except on Saturdays with home made pizza and the X Factor - or is that just us?!)

Sound advice from Mr Pollan. Eat good food, not rubbish. Simple. (Oh and move more - run! - but that's a whole other blog post.)

The Truth About Food?

I watched Dispatches, The Truth About Food, last night on Channel Four and ended up shouting at the television. Not an uncommon occurrence admittedly, but the faux science used by Jane Moore made me completely mad.

Ms Moore, with her best 'serious' face on, had three families eating a certain way for a fortnight while her team analysed the food for fat, salt and sugar content.

One family ate only premium ready meals, another ate only food from the supermarket 'value' ranges, the third ate food cooked from scratch.

Ms Moore was outraged by a pie, from Waitrose, which contained more fat than a portion of fish and chips. It was also higher in fat than the 'value' version, so she concluded it was 'better' to eat the value one. It was a chicken pie. Leaving aside the arguments about cheap chicken, surely the fat content of the Waitrose pie was explained by the fact that the ingredients included things like butter and double cream. It was a premium product, not a 'healthy' product. Something produced to be a yummy treat, not something to be eaten every day.

The other pie (probably stuffed full of battery chicken from Thailand - oops, I said I wouldn't mention that bit today) was presumably packed out with cheap fillers. Frankenstein alternatives to proper, natural food, like butter and cream. Modified starch, for example, which appears on so many things (gravy granules, custards, pies) is a scientifically altered cheap filler used to thicken. It's gloopy stuff, like wallpaper paste. I'd rather eat less of the other pie. There's some debate over the role of saturated fat in heart disease anyway. The blame has transferred to homocystiene which, when present at high levels in the blood, can cause heart disease. Even fit people have it.

But back to Ms Moore, wearing her serious face, frightening us about our food, but not giving any clear alternatives. At the end the families were presented with plates full of the fat (represented by lard), salt and sugar they had eaten. It all seemed to be much the same, although the 'premium' products family had eaten the most fat. But they would have done, these 'premium' products are expensive treats, not healthy alternatives. It didn't seem to tell us anything about their diets, just a plateful of lard which made them all go 'ugh'.

Yes, we all eat too much fat, salt and sugar, but I don't think last night's Dispatches programme did anything to foster a healthier approach to eating. It was just sensationalised scaremongering. All it did, surely, was make people switch off and think, "So, it's all crap, why bother. Pass me a chicken pie."