Now I’m a firm advocate of a little bit of what you fancy (foodwise we’re talking about). So it makes me really grind my teeth when you see these absolute fanatics on TV, or other media, absolutely foaming at the mouth at the thought that people are eating chocolate, white rice or butter to name but a few of the perceived ‘sinful’ foods.
It’s all absolute rubbish, there is absolutely no reason why people can’t eat a little of something they enjoy, and it’s not the place of these "food haters", who probably flog themselves with birch twigs, and wear a hair shirt to sleep in and enjoy it, to condemn every little bit of food that isn’t fruit or vegetable, calorie or fat free.
My big love is chocolate. Now there are proven
health benefits to eating dark chocolate, studies have been carried out, and the scientists say "yes". But it’s not the same for milk or white chocolate, (white chocolate being a misnomer anyway, it’s not real chocolate).
Chocolate makes you feel good, it raises the spirits, it’s far better than taking an anti-depressant, it provides you with a temporary sugar fix when you really need it, it’s there for that moment of indulgence when you think that you deserve it, it’s the gift of lovers, and it keeps the mother-in-law sweet on mother’s day.
You don’t have to eat lots of it, so why ban it from your diet?
How about white rice? Not that long ago on a TV series for 'You Are What You Eat' there was a man with a serious eating disorder. He would make huge shepherd's pies (6 person + size) in the early hours of the morning and then eat the lot lying in bed. And that was just one minor food problem that he had. He led a completely junk food, huge quantity orientated, wrongly timed, life of gorging and binge drinking.
Gillian McKeith stepped in and turned his eating, and his life around. On a follow up visit, after he’d been at it a few weeks the difference in him was astounding. He’d lost stones in weight ditched the junk food, and his fridge and cupboards were reformed characters.
Until she spied a bag of white rice. Boy did she lay into him. One lousy bag of white rice, this woman has a serious problem with getting foods into perspective, it brought to mind the saying "physician heal thyself".
So what about butter. Well butter seems to get a really raw deal too. But what’s wrong with butter, it’s just about the purest fat spread you can buy, no additives or preservatives, no hydrogenated or trans fats. Look at all the ingredients listed in all the so called "healthier" alternatives to butter. A lot of them are rubbish nutritionally, and dangerous to your health, yet they are touted as the healthy option. Am I stupid or what?
As with all things, use butter in moderation. You don’t need to have butter the same thickness or thicker than the filling in a sandwich (yes, the mother-in-law being a perfect example of this). It’s got a superb taste, which means you don’t need too much of it to still taste the flavour coming through.
So the message in this blog is, don’t shun the things you like because some TV personality says it’s bad. If you like it then simply modify the amounts you eat of it. By cutting out the things you really love you’ll only make yourself miserable, and set yourself up for a fall. And then that fall will probably be big time, falling off the wagon always results in a very long drop.
Enjoy everything in small amounts occasionally (except fruit and vegetables, those rank as desirable in larger quantities regularly), and you will end up with a balanced perception of foods and what they do for you, your body and your soul.
