Food War

This Lent, as usual, we gave up meat and alcohol, but I  decided, while hesitating in the Tesco cut-price section, that we would give up ultra-processed meals, too. I'm not sure if they are UPF, strictly speaking, but I was thinking about the breadcrumbed fish cakes and fillets, specifically, as well as the obviously UPF cut-price raspberry cream turnovers. At any rate, since Ash Wednesday I have bought fewer and fewer UPFs, and the grocery bill has gone up and up. Real food is expensive. 

Sometimes I wonder if I should write about "good foods" and "bad foods" and giving up this and giving up that, for it could pass on the negative Western female obsessions with food to younger generations. However, shopping (or growing or gathering), cooking and determining what or when or how much to eat has forever been a part of Western (or all) female life, so there it is. The novelties are UPFs, all-day grazing and fad diets for the poor.  

Benedict Ambrose loves to cook; it is a form of kitchen pottering, and how he used to relax after work. Now that he can't stand unaided, it is no longer relaxing. Thus, I have returned to the kitchen and make B.A.'s porridge (large rolled oats, nuts, fruit and/or dried fruit) every morning. I also make his lunch and pack it in a stainless steel tiffin box. I'm a bit concerned about the supermarket bread we still use. And I was rather torn about the chocolate biscuits I put in today. I must make time to make super-healthy ground-almond-date-and-pear brownies today.   

For my own boring medical (dental) reasons, I have this week been mashing almost everything I eat up in a food processor. This has included rather more fruit than usual via yogurt smoothies. Thus, I am consuming more sugar, too, though if you have to eat something sweet, better apples, pears or berries than anything else. I feel less nervous about the extra-dark (82%) chocolate I have been consuming, too, as it is current touted for its healthy polyphenols.  

This leads me to think about "added" sugar, how terrible it is for human beings, and what a pity it is that it is connected in our minds, from infancy, with joy. My 20th century mind connects maple syrup with weekend brunches, candy canes and milk chocolate with Advent, cinnamon buns and trifle with Christmas Day, delectable chocolate cake or vanilla cake with peanut butter frosting with birthdays, store-bought cookies with Sunday visits from Grandma, milk chocolate and jelly beans with Easter, popsicles for warm weather, junk-food cereal for the most exciting two weeks of the summer holidays, and the whole panoply of sweets for Hallowe'en.  

Mind you, candy was otherwise banned from my house when I was growing up, and fizzy soda pop was all but stranger there for 15 years or so. (Exciting--and so rare as to be memorable--exception: root beer floats.) We did, however, drink the Kool-aid, and there were always bags of store-bought cookies begging to be rifled. There were sometimes homemade cookies, too, although the guilt factor in filching those was rather higher. 

Cookies, I am afraid to say, are or were the family treatment for depression, which is very unfortunate, as sugar probably exacerbates it. It's too bad we didn't stick with "a nice cup of tea" for all ills. That said, even No Frills chocolatey-chip cookies were a step up from the Player's Navy Cut cigarettes my grandmother consumed with her nice cup of tea. 

I was heartened to hear, at a dinner party, that the current crop of Edinburgh university students don't drink much alcohol compared to every generation of British students before known. It would be a major advance for the nation if the younger generation started out health-conscious right from the get-go. One excellent thing they could do for their own children is connect healthy things like exotic fruits with joyful occasions.

Maybe they could serve sugary cake for Lent (a real penance with the sugar crash) and then avocado toast for Easter. Or we could ditch milk chocolate, as a species, and eat only dark chocolate during our festivals. We could bring back the oranges and nuts of the Victorian Christmas and, if we must have sweets, desserts sweetened only by fruit, especially dates. 

Carrots and tomatoes are relatively sweet, too. How happier society would be if, when we were sad, we ate a carrot or a tomato. 

"Work was awful today. I'm going home to stuff my face with tomatoes."

"Ha! For me it's carrots."

"Mmmm. Carrots with organic butter and a little salt."

"And parsley."

"Mmmm. Parsley."

The thing is, children love sweet foods and are, in fact, hardwired to eat them. The other tea ladies and I put out dozens of UPF cookies and a jug of (Acesulfame K, Sucralose) squash after Mass and the children consume them in a pagan frenzy. They rush off with handfuls, and the more obedient children tell their parents tearfully that the others are allowed more than one. On the one hand, I feel pleased that Mass--which must be psychological hard work for wriggly kids--is being connected with sweetness ("O taste and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed the man that hopeth in him" [Douay, Psalm 33:9]). On the other, should I be serving food I would not eat myself? At very least, should I not bake them shortbread instead of buying endless palm-oil-infused custard creams? 

Speaking of which, buying a lot of berries from Tesco has meant buying the horrid plastic containers that go with them. Unfortunately, I put them in the wrong recycling bin last week,  and the bin men rejected it. I felt judged by the bin men and rather aggrieved as I in no way wanted the plastic containers in the first place. I would rather pile plastic-free berries in a paper bag, or buy them by cardboard carton, but I don't have these options. The fault is not in ourselves but in Tesco. 

UPDATE: Actually, I think the UPF biscuits have been engineered so that children can't stop eating them. For some time I have been wondering why the children eat so many cookies (only allowed on Sundays? Mass is at noon? no homilies against greed?), and now my blood is running cold. 

Wow. I foresee a serious improvement in the quality of biscuits in future.