A healthy rebellion
Ask me to do something and I will probably do it.
Tell me to do something and I'll probably ignore you.
Nag me to do something and I will [not so politely] tell you to fuck off.
That has always been my philosophy and it has stood me in good stead.
The problem [for you, and not for me] is that if you nag incessantly I will not only tell you to fuck off, but will in all likelihood go out of my way to do the exact opposite of what you want. Call me stubborn if you like, but that is my personality and that's the way I like it.
One of the areas where I have rebelled is the whole business of food. It started off with that cute sounding Five a Day bollox. I'm not even sure what the Five is and I don't care. No one, but no one tells me how much of anything I should eat a day. So fuck off on that one.
Now they're wiffling on about "healthy food". As far as I am concerned all food is healthy in that it keeps me fuelled up, and what I put in my tank is no one's concern but mine. Lately for example I have noticed my sugar and salt intake is on the increase. I go to stick a spoon of sugar in my tea and I get a mental image of some fucking Nanny nagging me about sugar, so I add an extra spoon out of sheer defiance. Tonight I have planned a good fry-up of sausages, rashers, black pudding, mushrooms, a couple of eggs, beans and a slice of fried bread to soak up the egg yolk. I shall fry the lot in a grand pan of oil, partly because that's the way I like it and partly because I have been nagged that it's "not healthy". The very words "healthy option" or "healthy alternative" immediately ring my Nanny State alarm bells and I instantly head for the "unhealthy" alternative.
I came across an article today.
Now this is the perfect example of a person I despise. She has not only been suckered into this "health" kick but is sufficiently worked up about it to complain to the gubmint and the meeja, for fuck's sake!
Now I grant that the food doesn't look very appetising [I’m not one for pies or chunky chips] but I would point out that she was damn lucky that the child even had a bed, that it was only for one fucking night and she was damn lucky her sprog got fed at all. If she wants fucking five star gourmet cooking for her spawn is she prepared to pay for it? This is the epitome of the drone that the Nanny State has created – spouting out about "balanced meals" and "good nutrition", and whinging on radio when she gets half a chance.
Incidentally, before anyone starts, I had my six-month MOT test down with Doc the other day. Weight normal. Heart and lungs normal. Cholesterol text book on the nose. Blood pressure fine. In fact every test came back well into the green. The only test that nudged into the amber was a slight deficiency in Vitamin D, which has fuck all to do with diet or "lifestyle".
So there is the answer.
If you want to stay fit and healthy, do the exact opposite of what Nanny "recommends".
I think it's an Island mentality. We are exactly the same with respect to being told, nagged etc in Wales, Scotland and England.
I'd say it was more of a human mentality. We are the one section of society that Nanny wants to suppress.
Dear Grandad
No food is unhealthy. No food is unhealthiest of all.
DP
Heh! Spot on.
Two things I noticed at once about that article.
(1) "Ms Hoey is stylist to Kathryn Thomas, Rachel Stevens and Una Foden on hit RTE series 'The Voice'", and there's a big picture of aforementioned Thomas in the article.
(2) "The problem was that there was not a single vegetable on the plate".
I doubt you need formal qualifications to pick clothes for TV dimwits for a living, but if she's too thick to know spuds are a vegetable I'd also suspect she's too illiterate to have given the paper that story. On the other hand, a paper where the hacks are so lazy they rely on briefings from TV company PR staff for their hard news isn't worth the paper it's printed on either.
Of course, if this is a state hospital it's also ironic to see Nanny State getting a ticking off from braindead fashionista who think taking all these state-subsidised health food warnings seriously puts them above us proles.
Christ on a bike, a bag of frozen chips probably has more brain-cells than these vegetables!
Being a stylist in a hit RTE series [hit series = more than ten viewers] of course qualifies her as a dietitian and puts her and her opinions above the rest of us mere mortals.
If I want information on nourishment I'll ask my Doc. If I want someone to cut my hair I'll visit a "stylist". I wouldn't expect Doc to know anything about style, so why would a stylist know anything about food? I don't half feel sorry for that kid.
Jayzus but she doesn't half fancy herself….
Disgraceful!!
Heh! (Like!)
As most people are only in hospital for a short time, surely the priority must be to give them food they will actually eat rather than meeting some politically correct dietary guidelines.
Absolutely. Give me a steak and chips and I'll demolish it. Give me a plate of organic vegetarian mince and I would rather starve. Which is ultimately better for my health?
Meat pie and chips – yummy, but not every day thanks. For dessert today I had a thick slice of apple tart ( yanks call it pie). It tasted so good that I then had a second slice + a glass of red wine. That's what I call a balanced diet. I think I'll go out and shoot wild duck, or poach salmon from the local river maybe.
I prefer my chips a bit slimmer [and a bit browner] but apart from that I'd eat that plateful without a second thought. If I had to live on it for a month, I would get a bit tired of it, but fuckit – it's food.
And alcohol is very definitely part of a well balanced diet.
When you're talking about alcohol as part of a balanced diet, does that mean you have to have even, and not odd, numbers of drinks?
Mind you, if I've had a few and stagger about equally to left and right I'd call that 'balanced' too.
Wine aids digestion of lunch or dinner. I know this from experience and I don't need any New Research Findings to back up my thesis. Parents in Germany, France and Italy encourage their children aged 10 upwards to sip sometimes diluted glasses of red table wine at weekend family evening meals. I favour such model family values.
Alcohol has been part of the human diet for thousands of years. And it's not just humans either. Now suddenly there is no safe level!
I find that walking is quite similar to cycling – the faster you go the less chance of falling over. There must be some gyroscopic effect or something.
Are there any animals with an uneven number of legs? Any birds with an uneven number of wings? Uneven is unnatural.
Fish and chips! Give me fish and chips! If there's something I miss the most over here is there's no such thing as real traditional fish and chips–especially wrapped in a newspaper. But I'll take a classic "steak and eggs" breakfast with fried potatoes from a local "greasy spoon" (diner) any morning of the week.
"Lately for example I have noticed my sugar and salt intake is on the increase."
That's only because your tongue is old. Takes more to stimulate it these days. I swear I have to use a full quarter of a tall salt cellar on my (butter soaked) morning eggs before I can taste anything at all. I don't suppose that's a healthy?
Eggs aren't eggs without a lash of salt.
Sadly the traditional fish and chips in newspaper is a relic of the past. Now they all seem to serve up in plastic yokes that just produce a lot of litter. Ah, the memories of the warm newspaper with the vinegar leaking through, and a nice crispy serving of cod and chips!
Ah, jeeez. You just had to describe classic fish and chips didn't you? The last time I had real newspaper wrapped fish and chips was in Faslane, Scotland back in the early 80's when my boat (submarine) paid a visit there after cruising under the Arctic ice pack for about 70 days. I took a taxi from the base, bought my wonderful fish and chips and ate in the taxi at the gates of the base (which was locked down for a drill) while the driver recited Robert Burns in the original Gaelic(?). A rare treat indeed. I actually think I was the only one who in the taxi that understood anything he said. My father used to sing/tell auld Gaelic bedtime songs and stories to me when I was a kid.
There, a little personal history for you. Pretty much off-topic but whatever.
You should have called in when you were over here. Not too far from here to Faslane.
I've always rather liked those fruit yoghourts ( o/t, but rather amusingly, spellcheck suggested 'mahouts' as an alternative to 'yoghourts' – although I don't recollect ever having had a thing about mahouts, even fruity ones…), particularly the Greek style, but these days I go into the supermarket and there is row upon row of fruit yoghourts emblazoned with "2½ %", "1½%", and the ultimate *** "0%" *** ! TA-RA!!! (boom – tishhh).
I don't want that 0% watery shite. I want full fat. Thick and creamy. I want something worth eating.
But now, it seems, unless you buy plain yoghourt you have to buy 'lo-fat'. WTF?
Needless to say, fruit yoghourt hasn't been part of my diet for some years now. In fact any item which is labelled "Lo-Fat", "Lo-Salt", "Sugar-Free" or any of the derivatives thereof never sees the inside of my shopping trolley.
With regards the MOT you have every six months, I remember a friend here saying to me some ten years ago: "Yeah, I get these check-ups done every year at the clinic the other side of the island. It's only €200, and they check everything! You should go!"
I thought about it, and then decided that really I'd rather not know. I feel ok. and that's enough for me. I don't need the stress of worrying about some hypothesised problem I may (or may not) have.
Many many years ago I used to make my own yogurt. Unfortunately I can't remember how now. I know it involved warm milk and water which was primed with a dollop of yogurt and then stored in a thermos flask but that's as far as I remember.
The biannual visit to Doc is more of a routine thing than any concern for my health. If I don't go, he tends to drop broad hints in the pub which can be a bit unsocial, and he only charges the price of a couple of pints.
Vitamin D down a tad due to sleeping during the day and waking at night vlad, sorry grandad?
Hah! That's what Doc said. I asked him for a prescription for a fortnight in the Seychelles but he refused.
Nipped over to read that article and noticed something I don't understand not in the article on the homepage why is the papers obsessed with an english woman having a baby royal?
I could never understand that weird obsession myself. A woman having a baby is possibly the most non-news item ever. Now if was a baby having a woman…………..
Love your take on the whole "food" thing, reminded me of when I went on my first date with my Significant Other, (hence forth SO). We arrived at the pretty posh restaurant, (SO was keen to impress back in the day), sat down and got ready to order. Waiter came over to give the specials, (which weren't very bloody special), which included "light" options for "the ladies" , WTF. After we order entres, he then asked me, (not the SO) if I would be ordering a main course, WTF, thats what we came here for, to eat! We were then served our meals, with my portion being considerably smaller than the SO's meal. I called over the waiter and told him to take away the plate and bring me a proper meal. WTF was with this stingeiness??
Several years later, SO tells me that one of the things that impressed him most was that I was a woman who didn't stress over everything I ate, and could take down a waiter with one look. Eat what you like, enjoy what you eat, cause you're a bloody long time dead.
SO obviously has a good eye. Waiters should know their place and that is to serve. Maybe the whole thing was a set-up to see how you reacted? 😉