The Feelgood Factor

There is something strangely addictive about rubbish food. Since changing careers I've spent less time driving around the country (and the continent), and eat far less manufactured pappy crappy food. In fact our diet is extremely healthy. Yet still I can be tempted by what I know in advance will be, say, a tasteless and hugely over-priced sausage roll (I ate one at lunchtime yesterday on what proved to be a painfully long car journey).


For a minute, however, it's enjoyable. Same with chocolate and sweets. But the sugar or salt or fat rush is inevitably followed by a down. A down that I know is coming.


By way of contrast, the fruit- and vegetable-rich regime we enjoy - and enjoy is the word - normally does not give that very brief intense high, but makes me feel good through the day. It's even more noticeable the morning after on the rare occasions when I'm too tired to cook, and so buy us a takeaway. Next day I feel hungover, regardless of whether I had anything to drink with the meal or no. Too much salt, too much saturated fat, and heavens know what additives and preservatives.


I'm reminded of something I read years ago about a simple test that predicted a child's future success: put a sweet on the table in front of them, and say they can eat it now, or if they leave it for five minutes you'll give them another so they can scoff two. Bright kids (who followed up later in life had bright futures) waited. But too many of us can't control our impulses, and our need for instant gratification. People still smoke, knowing how bad it is for them. I still enjoy a drink - at a level that even ten years ago would have been thought abstemious, but that now is more than doctors recommend (I read recently that just seven units a week is considered alcohol abuse by some health professionals now).


Maybe it is growing maturity - about time some may say - but my drift is towards the longer-term feelgood factor. One major problem remains - jelly sweets. I have asked The Dear Leader to keep me away from them, and them from me. But I will miss them.

Salad for the Family or a Chocolate Bar? Full Stomach or Gold Medal?

Tonight before our main course we had a small salad. This in the main came from a bag that I think cost £1.19 at Booth's. I had already used a handful of the leaves in my wife's packed lunch, with a few different  bits and bobs added to that and the evening version to make sure she didn't feel she was getting the same thing twice.

Factor in the half a chicory head, few slices of cucumber, and a grated beetroot (plus a few drops of dressing) this evening and it would still not have set us back anywhere near £2. A chocolate bar each would have cost more by my reckoning, and we're not talking Green and Black's 70% cocoa either.

That bag is in fact a bit lazy, and even in proper austerity terms an extravagance, a lettuce going further.

Of course in about three months we will be back on our own salad ingredients. Growing your own salad provided you have a little patch of ground, or even a sunny windowsill, is ridiculously easy, incredibly economical, and provides you with leaves and roots that put supermarket or even greengrocer stuff in the shade.

I still keep turning over in my mind the relative health benefits of the Olympic Games which cost £13 billion, and say spending a third of that on land to provide allotments. So that's £4.3 billion. Arable land costs £6,500 per acre, being generous. The £4.3 billion would buy 660,000 acres, again erring on the safe side. An acre would give a manageable plot (125m2, half the normal size of an allotment if there is a normal size) to 32 families or individuals (you can tell I'm not a politician, I didn't say 'hard working families). Say you lost a whopping 25 per cent of usable space for access, paths etc. That still leaves more than 15 million allotment plots. Allotments, btw, are more productive than commercially farmed land as there is no need for tracks for machines, you can intercrop more easily, have quick crops like radishes while slower ones like spuds are on the way, etc etc.

Of course farmers may not want to sell all that land, and arable land tends to be away from the centres of population. And it is unlikely that 15 million families would want an allotment suddenly. But I bet you could get a million interested at the drop of a hat. Give them the full-size plot and let them build a summerhouse shed on it so the kids can play and have shelter, and it becomes a British dacha. If my sums are correct, you could give (lease or rent for a small amount is more practical, so people don't sell them on instantly) a million families healthy food and exercise for less than £600 million.

Instead of which we make national heroes of a very few people who can swim backwards fast, jump quite a long way, throw pointed sticks, and not bomb when they dive into swimming pools. We got lots of goldish medals though. Try eating them in a few years' time. Or another comparison: we intend spending £33 billion making it a bit quicker to get between London and Manchester by train (and Birmingham, and Leeds...). We know that our food security will be affected by climate change; is almost certain to be threatened by political events around the globe; by population growth; and by the growing demands (quite reasonably) of developing nations. Have we got our priorities right?

Secret Service Santa II

The second missive found in the top-secret file of celebrity-chef thank-you letters to Santa carelessly left on the train. Again it is impossible to say who wrote this, though I have a feeling I really should know. It does sound as though this celebrity chef is not very concerned with austerity.

Darling Santa,

I adored the gorgeous gifts you brought me, and having them enrobed in thick, unctuous double cream folding into melted chocolate with extra dark chocolate squares was a marvellous touch. My husband loved his gifts too, especially that clever ‘Prams I Was Sick in’ installation. Arriving downstairs in my red silk décolleté nightwear to find such super things rather excited me, as you and a lot of other older men may imagine. Come again soon, 

Mmmmm, 

Yours,

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