Thursday 10 June 2010

More balls

Not being a football fan, I might have missed this little gem had I not stumbled across it at the excellent Nanny Knows Best blog. It appears that the government is worried that we're all going to be sat on our backsides staring at 40-inch plasma screens for the next four weeks. Because of this, the Food Standards Agency has issued some guidelines to armchair footballers about what sort of food and drink they should be eating as they cheer on their favourite team. Now, put the salted peanuts and beer to one side and consider this helpful advice:
"If you're throwing a party for friends and family to watch a game, there are lots of tasty and healthy options you can tuck into as you cheer your team on. Why not serve a vegetable curry with boiled rice or a tasty chilli with plenty of kidney beans? 

If it’s just nibbles, how about some tasty, healthier snacks, such as: 

  • low-fat dips (less than 3g fat per 100g) with vegetable sticks, bread sticks or mini pitta breads for dipping
  • lower fat/salt crisps – compare labels so you can choose healthier varieties
  • some easy-to-eat fruits, such as apples and grapes
  • homemade plain popcorn – made in the pan from popping kernels"
If that's not bad enough, the advice goes on to tell you how to barbecue safely before going on to give some advice on which takeaway meals are better for you. In a cringing nod to the diversity industry there's even a piece of advice about how you can eat food with a multicultural twist. Naturally there are the usual warnings about drinking too much alcohol and not eating salty snacks and, finally, there's a hectoring jab to tell you how you should also take exercise during the competition.

If the government needs to find somewhere for its money saving axe to fall, I don't think it could do better than the department of tosspots who drew up this heap of bollocks.

5 comments:

  1. The usual know-it-all rubbish from those who know nowt.

    If I followed this advice I'd be ill, good job I've got the remains of a brain to not blindly follow idiots

    10 years ago I had 2xDieulafoy duodenal arterial lesions, "a tasty chilli" or "curry" would cause me a bit of irritation - to put it mildly.

    After an alleged metabolism clinic dietician insisted I change my diet I had chronic diarrhoea & constipation. Allergy clinic tests showed I was Atopic with multiple allergies & reactions to most of the foods dieticians say I must eat.

    The kidney beans here would give me something akin to horse colic & acute constipation, same for popcorn + nuts, sweetcorn, Pomegranates, chickpeas, etc. Vegetables that don't cause constipation frequently cause diarrhoea as do quite a few fruits - in biology aren’t fruits are vegetables - but not to a dietician. Chocolate gives me diarrhoea, chocolate covered almonds give me raging diarrhoea, as do green leaf salads.

    Problem is every time I move to a new work location someone has the bright idea of sending me to a dietician who won't listen or believe what I tell her (it's usually a her). The last dietician was very upset there wasn’t a wife so she couldn't cream her ego telling my wife how she wasn't feeding me correctly, how she didn't know how to cook & buy fresh ingredients. Seemed lost, didn't know what to say when she was unable to follow her usual script.

    Seems strange that with all these health service dieticians the NHS can't provide decent hospital meals!

    Then there's the exercise advice. One bright spark asked had I thought of taking up exercise, how about jogging?

    I've degenerative arthritis in both shoulders & down my lower left leg where a blind crane driver dropped a load of steel bars on me. I’ve osteoarthrose in both hips, both patellae & both feet. I have a permanently torn meniscus in my knee from when a fed-up centre forward decided he'd try to surgically remove my knee with his studs. I'm a thrombophiliac who over the last 24 years has had multiple DVTs leaving me with a blocked & damaged left iliac vein & femoral extension all the way up my leg well into my abdomen. All valves in the veins are destroyed, I have oedemas, wear a Class 3 compression stocking with supports in my boots for bone problems.

    And I'm going to go jogging?

    It’s all I can do to walk the two miles to my Dr's surgery. My old grey black cab nowadays only gets to go out on special occasions, like visiting the garage for a new head gasket.

    To disagree with this good food bad food mantra, this right-on message is viewed as heresy. It should be the qualification for receiving a P45, sharpish.

    I even saw it in the back pages of New Scientist where usually they debunk rubbish. Someone had inferred that alcohol limits were over the top because he had drunk wine daily for nearly 40 years, presumably with meals, & he'd calculated that under the government alcohol guidelines he was well over the weekly limits. A couple of sanctimonious twits were pontificating that he was underestimating his weekly units consumption & how much damage through drink he must have done to his body through addiction, hypertension, liver & gastric problems; his risk of cancers, strokes, whatever.

    It's noticeable that only the UK has alcohol units; wasn't it on this blog that someone gave a news story link that the alcohol unit limits had been arbitrarily set because a government committee decided a limit was needed because drink was bad but no research had been done so no-one knew what was safe. Now in the pages of N.S. it's stated that these units "are based on epidemiological evidence".

    These pernicious dogmas need to be stamped out now. Ninety years ago in the US they called it prohibition, we're going the same way.

    JohnB

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  2. These experts know nothing, every ones metabolism is different, eat what agrees with you and what you like and the same with drink in moderation ... Simples.

    I saw a dietition once, she must have been at least late 60s in age, stick thin, you could see the bones in her skeletal like face, she stank of alcahol, and this was 10 in the morning.


    She gave me a hand written list of what to eat. I was shocked, included was corned beef, the fat and salt content in this is high, also cheddar cheese, that has the high fat and cholestorol content, Edam or Feta have the lowest.Ryvita crackers, these are full of salt and have more additives than any other cracker.

    I decided to research all foods myself , so armed myself with every book and magazine available. Having completed dozens of pages on all calorie, fat and cholesterol contents on ALL foods, I then did a lot of low fat and non fat recipies myself, not your usual crap that you wouldn`t eat if you were desperate, tasty, wholesome and enjoyable meals.

    I lost three stone in three months ,by eating what I had concocted in the kitchen, I was now a kitchen alchamist with food, but I used an ab trainer for an hour a day, and went swimming every other day as well.

    I went to see my doctor , who advised me to lose weight previously, armed with all my papers and recipies, research, facts etc. I asked him to look at them and approve or dissaprove , he said there was no need to dissaprove as the evidence stood before him, but he took the papers anyway.

    Next time I went to see him as my test results were in, he congratulated me on what I had done and asked me what inspired me to do all I did with the research, I said " the useless dietition who cares nothing about the people who need help with sensible diets that please and not punish". " oh she is not with us anymore " he said," and yes , she was useless".

    Doctor asked if he could keep the papers , I said yes as long as it helps people, but I may want to write a book one day, so no publishing without my permission.

    Ness..

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  3. Hear, hear....and apparently the health dept are thinking this could be a good time to inspire the nation to get of their backsides and exercise - you can check your fitness levels on NHS direct, compare yourself to the fitness levels of other nations and be inspired to get moving...in reality, what will happen is the nations men will be sitting on a couch, fag in one hand, beer in the other, munching on takeaways and watching the footie, now I cannot stand football, and believe in a healthy balanced diet and exercise, but surely these poor sods can be left to enjoy 4 weeks of footie every 4 years without being nagged at...maybe not!

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  4. Why does most of the world call it football and we call it soccer? I suppose if we did that, what would we call our distant cousin of rugby if not football?
    I personally will watch as many matches as I can. Sitting. Sewing. Being unemployed right now affords me that luxury. Especially tomorrow to see if Mandela comes.
    This soccer series is only four weeks...over here football season is forever! Especially for Canadians (males as described by bonnie) who watch both Canadian and US football...that would be August to the end of January! Hockey season just finished last night after starting in September or October. Lots of couch potatoes. No wonder North Americans have an obesity problem.

    TM are you going to watch any (eating what and when you wish)?

    Libby

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  5. It's soccer in Australia too ;)

    and don't get me started on dieticians. :(

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