"Revenge of the Food Fascists"

A new film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Calgary Avansino and Inga Dirzuite!!!

(or at least a couple of books, where they make loads of money)

 

 

The papers are full of the food fascists today. Probably a good ten years after dear old Gillian McKeith urged us to embrace spelt and agave, the big new food thing is eating raw with no carbs at all, no cow's milk and no wheat  (makes sign of the Devil).  

 

The Mail today has someone called Inga Dirziute clainming that her family's ailments have cleared up since she imposed a raw food diet on them. And it does sound quite tasty, the lunch of chilled soup, salad, stuffed tomatoes and "burgers" made from walnuts and mushrooms. How does today's harried working mum find the time to either learn how to cook like this, or shop for the ingredients? Dirziute spent £4,500, as you do, on a month-long residential course in the US to learn how to do it.

 

Calgary

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times offers up someone called Calgary Avansino, who boasts about her breakfast smoothie for all the family which contains in excess of 20 ingredients. And some days, the children only take a sip! You need to be Croesus himself to dine like this. No wonder they're all writing diet books.

 

I wonder about the substantiation for the lies perpetuated about cow's milk and wheat. I'm sure a few people are intolerant. But not many mums can afford coconut water or milk, almond milk, coconut yoghurt - all the things Avansino trots out.

 

Some of her advice is good. Parents should educate their kids about balance. When Avinsino's children go to the parties of mortal children, they eat ordinary (ie bad) food, but expect to have raw vegetables as a penance for tea.

 

Gwynneth

The goddess of fascist food is actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and the Mail today includes more of her recipes day from new book It's All Good.

 

I'm a bit disappointed with Gwyneth.  I honestly thought that with her website Goop, her personal trainer and macrobiotic diet, she'd been living clean and healthy for years.

 

But in last week's intro in the paper, she said that a fainting exercise not so long ago, where she thought she was going to die, led her to create the recipes (no doubt with a nutritionist and personal chef). Hmmm. I remember a book by someone else called "Spent" where Gwyneth babbled on about how she had felt completely exhausted, nay spent! And promptly changed her diet. That was a few years ago. To mix my metaphors, I suspect Gwyneth has not been eating her own dog food.

 

A good message from all these pious utterings would be to try to make a few small changes.

 

But really, the facts are thin on the ground about the dangers of cow's milk and wheat. And for most of us, life really is too short to source coconut water, frozen kale, chia seeds,  green powder, baobab powder, lacuma powder and maca powder -- just a few of the ingredients in the Avansino smoothie.  I very much doubt if they are all available at Holland and Barrett!

 

I leave you with one sobering thought. Remember all the fuss about aloe vera juice and how cleansing it is?  Clinical trials were halted when it was found to give rats cancer.  Chew on that!

 



The biggest problem in Britain today

The biggest problem in Britain today is one that everyone seems to be avoiding.

Obesity.

Gillian McKeith's programme You Are What You Eat neatly illustrated the scale of the problem this week. Two sisters, both with teenage children, and all of them overweight. The sisters seemed to have normal intelligence. Yet they had no idea about nutrition or what they should be eating. Their habits were appalling, and obviously their children were just going along with it. The kids were being bullied and were miserable about being fat. Yet to start with, they rejected all the healthy foods, and it was ONLY through their fat parents role modelling what to eat, and getting them involved in food preparation, that they started to change their habits.

It's a huge uphill battle because the majority of overweight adults don't want to change their habits. They don't see the connection between the poor health they suffer (arthritic knees, diabetes, heart conditions, high blood pressure, constipation) and the food they consume. Let's face it, it's much harder, and more expensive, to eat healthily. Busy parents who work will find it tough to cook meals from scratch when they get home and have hungry kids to feed. You have to get organised, prepare menus, cook at the weekend and make sufficient quantities to freeze.

The resistance to healthy eating was illustrated by the Rotherham mothers, who, rather than have their children eat the healthy lunches their school was providing, decided to push burgers and chips through the railings. Jamie Oliver's campaign to force the government and schools to provide healthy, freshly cooked meals in place of pre-cooked rubbish like turkey twizzlers and chips, was laudable in that for some children it's the only healthy meal of the day. But it avoids the biggest issue: somehow Britain's parents need to understand the problem, get the message and change their habits.

The repercussions if they don't are already known. Children will die before their parents. The NHS will drown under the weight of obesity-induced illnesses.

Yet I don't see much action. The government introduced some namby pamby traffic lights system to indicate what's in our food, but not all the retailers adopted it, leading to confusion. There's been more investment in school meals: good, but not good enough (we're still below all the other EU countries in terms of amount spent per child). Vending machines in schools are banned from selling chocolate, crisps and sweets. What else?

My immediate suggestions would be to make PE mandatory on the curriculum at all schools (and not just for 30 mins a week) and to reinstate domestic science at all state schools, to try to re-educate on nutrition.

Then we have to tackle the parents. I'm giving this serious thought and would welcome your ideas and support.