THEY’RE at it again. Eat this, don’t eat that, drink six of these a day, don’t let a drop of that pass your lips: the health police have such a lot to answer for.
Their pronouncements come thick and fast, creating confusion and despair in equal measure.
This week, would you believe it, we’re told that eating mandarins could increase our chances of recovery if we have liver cancer and – this is true – silkworms and houseflies possibly hold the answer to the survival of the entire human race. They produce proteins or something of such perfection that we should all be gobbling them up with our breakfast cereal. Or maybe I have got a little confused.
The trouble is, I only ever glean a modicum of what these nagging holier-than-thou types are telling me because I start to read some pronouncement or other and then I come over all sceptical. ‘Get away with you,’ I think. ‘You can’t tell me that walloping back three litres of fruit juice each day is going to change my life. A pain in the wallet, maybe, and a severe case of stomach ache certainly, but not a lot else.’
Nothing they say surprises or impresses me any more. In fact, something I read the other day sums it all up rather neatly: ‘everything I like to eat causes cancer in mice’, someone wrote, and I absolutely agree.
If we like it, it’s bound to be bad for us. Even good old tap water has had a bad press recently. I ought to be drinking cups of tea instead of water, I’m told, because tea has magical properties. The fact it also contain things that a few months ago we were told we should all avoid like the plague is conveniently forgotten.
Should it be tap water, though, or should it be filtered? There are so many conflicting theories that I couldn’t possibly work out which I should be drinking. This week, anyway.
And coffee? Forget it, they say, unless you want some grisly fate to befall you. I don’t need to know that. I’ve worked out for myself that it gives me bad breath and sleepless nights, which is quite grisly enough, thank you. On the other hand, there are several squads of health police who say coffee is almost obligatory if you want to live to be 100.
Which reminds me, did you read the report in the BVM a few weeks ago of the centenarian who attributed her long and happy life to her indulgence in cigarettes and sweets? The habits have not only given her a long life but a refreshing honesty, too.
And while we’re deferring to the wisdom of our elders, I should mention an 84-year-old of my acquaintance who is equally frank on the subject of nutrition.
Advised to increase her intake of Vitamin A through ‘orange’ foods such as carrots, she conveniently remembered only half of the sight clinic nurse’s homily. Consequently, the next time she was shopping she thought it was perfectly justifiable to buy a Scotch egg. ‘It’s orange – what’s the problem?’ she said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
I admire that. In fact I like it so much I think the health police should put it in their pipes and smoke it.
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