{"id":32383,"date":"2017-04-15T01:00:23","date_gmt":"2017-04-15T05:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=32383"},"modified":"2017-04-05T10:11:58","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T14:11:58","slug":"qotd-healthy-food-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/04\/15\/qotd-healthy-food-choices\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: “Healthy” food choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever I find myself choosing my next meal I always like to look out for the sign that says \u201chealthy option.\u201d In this age of variety and abundance it can often be hugely difficult making up your mind as to what to eat next. \u201cHealthy option\u201d makes things so much easier. It tells me: \u201cAvoid like the plague.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good news, then, for takeaway customers in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. No fewer than six local fish and chip shops have taken on board the advice of their local council\u2019s Healthier Choices Manager and introduced special, non-greasy, low-fat menu options. So now when customers find themselves torn between the battered sausage, the chicken nuggets and the \u201crock salmon\u201d at least they can be sure of what they don\u2019t want: that insipid-looking fillet of steamed cod on a bed of salad, with so few chips they barely even qualify as a garnish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early to say if steamed fish will be a hit,\u201d says an article on the council\u2019s website. And I\u2019ll bet when they know the answer they won\u2019t tell us. That\u2019s because this well-meaning scheme is doomed to flop like a wet kipper. Of course it is. No one in their right mind goes to a takeaway as part of a calorie controlled diet. You do it when you fancy a treat.<\/p>\n

And the reason it\u2019s a treat is precisely because that food is so deliciously greasy. As the late Clarissa Dickson-Wright, the generously girthed cook from TV\u2019s Two Fat Ladies<\/em>, once explained to me, fry-ups, sizzling bacon, battered fish, and so on will always taste nicer than the \u201chealthy option\u201d because fat is a great carrier of flavour.<\/p>\n

Clarissa (who was as big an expert on the science of food as she was on cooking and eating it) remained, to the end, a great defender of butter, cream and full-fat milk. She claimed they were much better for you than most of the supposedly healthy, low-fat alternatives. And it turns out she was right. Recent studies have shown that it\u2019s the \u201ctrans-fats\u201d in artificial health products like margarine that are the killer, not natural animal fats you find in butter.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the evidence increasingly suggests, that it\u2019s sugar not fat which is most responsible for our supposed obesity epidemic. So by trying to stop customers eating fried fish in Rochdale, the council is barking up the wrong tree. It\u2019s the cafes pushing sweet cakes and doughnuts they should be investigating.<\/p>\n

James Delingpole, “I prefer my cod in batter, thanks very much”, James Delingpole<\/em><\/a>, 2015-08-15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever I find myself choosing my next meal I always like to look out for the sign that says \u201chealthy option.\u201d In this age of variety and abundance it can often be hugely difficult making up your mind as to what to eat next. \u201cHealthy option\u201d makes things so much easier. It tells me: \u201cAvoid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,831,74,66,41],"tags":[322,244],"class_list":["post-32383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-business","category-food","category-health-science","category-quotations","tag-nannystate","tag-publichealth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8qj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32384,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32383\/revisions\/32384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}