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Yet another foodscare :-(

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Sep 09, 2017 11:32 pm

Cross posted with Sakkarin it seems

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby karadekoolaid » Sun Sep 10, 2017 3:47 am

If what I am about to say offends you, then feel free to lambast me, internet-wise....

First of all, a question. Do we all want to live to 100? Why? Under what conditions? Would YOU be happy to reach 100 if you were blind, deaf and unable to walk? Or if you had all your faculties intact, but had no friends or family?
There are so, so , SOOOOOO many variables which affect how healthy we are, how long we live, and how much we enjoy ourselves (or not), that there is absolutely no way that all these scary stories will make any difference, in my humble opinion. So why do we bother with them?
Let`s look at a few examples.
My grandad died at 66. He smoked and drank all his life. He also fought in the 1st and 2nd World Wars. He had a stroke.
My mum has never smoked, occasionally drinks a glass of sherry, has had 6 strokes, 2 heart attacks and is still around at 89.
Winston Churchill drank himself silly, smoked like a chimney, and lived till he was :blowing-birthday-cake 93.
One of my best friends was an extremely successful entrepreneur: healthy lifestyle, highly competitive sportsman, reasonable drinking, died at 48. From skin cancer.
Fidel Castro was a miserable old git, but lived until he was 88.
So you might ask: "What is my point?"
My point is - what is the point of worrying about these awful, prissy, goodie-goodie reports which want to rob us of our lifestyle, when we could quite reasonably all die tomorrow? Or in 40 years time?
Who really gives a fig about alcohol "units" or "fatty meat" or " excessively sugary doughnuts" ?
I don`t.

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Pampy » Sun Sep 10, 2017 5:02 am

:clap :clap :clap :clap :clap :wino
My grandma was 6 weeks short of her 100th birthday when she died and I remember her saying to me a couple of years before that she was "tired and just wanted to go". She wasn't ill when she said it - just felt that she had outstayed her welcome! Her 2nd daughter, my Aunt, is now 97 and has Alzheimer's - she lives in a nursing home and has absolutely no quality of life. She's constantly confused, upset and doesn't recognise anyone. So yes, KK - eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Sun Sep 10, 2017 11:23 am

:newhuggy :clap :clap :clap to KKA from me as well! The thing is, you can live the healthiest of lifestyles and either get a life threatening illness at a young age or get run over by a large mode of transport.

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Stokey Sue » Sun Sep 10, 2017 11:46 am

karadekoolaid wrote:If what I am about to say offends you, then feel free to lambast me, internet-wise....

First of all, a question. Do we all want to live to 100? Why? Under what conditions? Would YOU be happy to reach 100 if you were blind, deaf and unable to walk? Or if you had all your faculties intact, but had no friends or family?
There are so, so , SOOOOOO many variables which affect how healthy we are, how long we live, and how much we enjoy ourselves (or not), that there is absolutely no way that all these scary stories will make any difference, in my humble opinion. So why do we bother with them?
Let`s look at a few examples.
My grandad died at 66. He smoked and drank all his life. He also fought in the 1st and 2nd World Wars. He had a stroke.
My mum has never smoked, occasionally drinks a glass of sherry, has had 6 strokes, 2 heart attacks and is still around at 89.
Winston Churchill drank himself silly, smoked like a chimney, and lived till he was :blowing-birthday-cake 93.
One of my best friends was an extremely successful entrepreneur: healthy lifestyle, highly competitive sportsman, reasonable drinking, died at 48. From skin cancer.
Fidel Castro was a miserable old git, but lived until he was 88.
So you might ask: "What is my point?"
My point is - what is the point of worrying about these awful, prissy, goodie-goodie reports which want to rob us of our lifestyle, when we could quite reasonably all die tomorrow? Or in 40 years time?
Who really gives a fig about alcohol "units" or "fatty meat" or " excessively sugary doughnuts" ?
I don`t.

You entirely miss the point,

I don't specially want to live to 100, though I may be genetically primed to do so
BUT I do want to be reasonably healthy for as long as I do live, ideally not in a wheelchair or suffering dementia

I greatly increase my risk of long term illness before death by certain lifestyle choices, which I can avoid. It's no more "awful, prissy, goodie-goodie" than looking both ways before you cross the road

Yes, of course we all know of people who bucked the statistics in both directions, either dying young or living beyond their reasonable span. Just as I can doubtless find plenty of examples of people who were knocked down while crossing a road carefully and plenty of examples of people who have survived dashing across busy roads without looking, but that doesn't mean that looking and using the crossings aren't generally the best plan

And that's the level we are looking at here, we are not talking about Goop! level orthorexia, we are talking about moderation, thinking it might not be a good idea to finish the bottle, it might be good to eat more varied food this week and so on, but having the knowledge to help make those choices. Knowledge really is power in these cases.

Of course nobody is trying to "rob us of our lifestyle", what would "they" ", the mysterious, shadowy non-existent "they" gain? If anything what these bits of research and the resulting advice is aimed at helping us to have a lifestyle that is healthy and sustainable and therefore in the long run more enjoyable.

I do drink gin, and I shall continue to do so, but not too much. And wine. And eat Chinese belly pork. But generically try to be healthy

Now if you will excuse me I'm off for a long walk, ending in a historic pub. Where I may well have a ploughnan's and a pint. That's lifestyle, that's moderation too

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Gillthepainter » Sun Sep 10, 2017 12:17 pm

Sunday lunch.
Have a good one, Sue.

Clive, I have to really think about what I eat and what I do. I used to be able to eat and drink as I wanted.
But nowadays not. I certainly cannot eat 3 square meals a day.
I can't relax and just let life do its thing. I'd be slobby and rotund.

I do cut out the odd thing. Sugary foods.
Now if I have a chocolate bar, I go dizzy. So I actually cannot eat chocolate in bulk any more.
Probly a good thing? (whatever that means).

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Petronius » Tue Sep 12, 2017 5:17 pm

Another twenty years of having to enjoy myself every day. It's tough you know; no time off, no Bank Holidays, in fact I'm thinking of asking the boss for time and a half for Sundays. :D

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Badger's Mate » Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:55 am

Can't help thinking that around the time we were born, there were people grumbling that we were being forced to pay for our medical care whether or not we wanted it, or being taxed in order to fund the mass immunisation of scruffy little Herberts like ourselves. "Communism by the back door. Who wants to live to 80 anyway?"

A generation previously, I'm sure there were complaints of being forced to pay in for a pension, even for the workforce for goodness sake! "The Bolsheviks have take over. Why would anybody want to live to 70?"

Doubtless plenty of examples with progressively lower ages back through the generations. My dad died at 64. His heart and lungs were shot as a consequence of poor diet, and years of exposure to cigarette smoke and sawdust. Smoking was cool, as exemplified by Hollywood stars like Humphrey Bogart, and 'elf & safety was considered effeminate.

We know better now. We could elect to drink from muddy puddles, defecate in the back garden, not wash for weeks, but most of us choose the prissy option of clean water and sewerage that was foist upon us. The exception, of course, being the sizeable minority of people who refuse to wash their hands after visiting the toilet. One person's dirty sod is another person's freedom fighter, apparently.





(Edited to correct typo)

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Petronius » Fri Sep 15, 2017 5:24 pm


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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri Sep 15, 2017 6:13 pm

It should obviously be labelled as an allergen of course

But any protein can cause an allergy, and I bet most people who know they are allergic to fungi know to avoid Quorn. Labelling won't help people who don't know they have that allergy

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Petronius » Fri Oct 20, 2017 5:22 pm

Not a food scare, but the end of one.

Apparently it's now safe for us to eat eggs. I bet that's a relief to you all. :D :roll:

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Petronius » Fri Oct 20, 2017 5:28 pm

Forgot to add this

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... salmonella

Probably so many years of OH feeding me poached eggs have addled my brain. :D

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Sakkarin » Sat Oct 21, 2017 10:38 am

I'm afraid 30 years of being told runny eggs are poisonous have taken their toll, I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat one without wondering if I'm going to be off work for two weeks :-(

I thought they had eradicated the problem, but this article says "The major reduction in the risk of salmonella in Lion eggs", which is a whole different ball game.

Bring on the aquafaba!

Seriously, I don't make it often, but when I do, mayonnaise has always had raw eggs, salmonella or not. The advice at college was "don't feed it to children under 5 or old people".

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Petronius » Sat Oct 21, 2017 5:38 pm

Being old we tend to be a bit more careful, don't make mayonnaise with raw eggs any more, even though we're quite certain our free range eggs from a local farm will be fine.

Under 5 is precise, what is meant by being 'old'? No idea.

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Sakkarin » Sat Oct 21, 2017 5:53 pm

"Old" is a moveable feast. Until I hit 40 myself, 40 was old. At 60, it was anyone over 65. When I'm 65 it'll be anyone over 70... and so on and so forth. What I find really scary is meeting people I assume are my age and finding they're 10 to 15 years younger.

I made the ultimate "old" faux pas yesterday, I mistook someone''s sister for his mum. I think I ruined her week :-(

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby miss-mouse » Sat Oct 21, 2017 9:01 pm

Petronius wrote:Not a food scare, but the end of one.

Apparently it's now safe for us to eat eggs. I bet that's a relief to you all. :D :roll:


Don't worry, once this Brexit malarky comes into being there will be loads of cheap US bleached eggs full of goodness knows what microbes and antibiotic resistance. World farming uses 99% of antibiotics (source, young vet friend from South America). 'Farming Today' R4 explored the subject and the expert/microbiologist said that 'we do not know what this is doing to the land or water' which is a fair point. UK farming they said has come a long way in antibiotic reduction.

Another delight will be bleached chickens, hormone milk, antibiotic pork (makes them put on weight) and I cannot remember the horrors inflicted on beef cattle.

Wonderful.

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Petronius » Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:43 am

I think beef cattle are given growth hormones, miss-mouse.

Have any of you come across articles on creating pieces of 'meat' made from non-meat products? I don't mean Quorn (which is tasteless in my opinion), but using different chemicals which, apparently taste like the real thing. That I find scary.

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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby miss-mouse » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:00 pm

Have any of you come across articles on creating pieces of 'meat' made from non-meat products?


I have seen/heard some news items about creating/growing it in petrie dishes. Cell replication perhaps?


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Re: Yet another foodscare :-(

Postby Sakkarin » Wed Oct 25, 2017 5:28 pm

Two days in a row, coverage of the "Lidl chicken repackaged as Tesco" story has made me angry.

Yesterday they were blaming the workers:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... cken-plant

Today they're blaming the Government:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... uiry-hears

Let's be quite clear, it was not the Government's fault for not finding out, or the fault of the workers, following orders which could only have come from above, it was the company itself, 2 Sisters.

What do they want is to think, that their workers were relabelling rotten meat as some sort of prank, for the hell of it? Idiotic.

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