Interesting Facts

According to the Professor Nigel Hunt at the Royal College of Surgeons, “cake culture” in the UK workplace is fuelling the obesity epidemic and contributing to poor dental health. (As a healthy alternative they are suggesting that workers should bring fruit platters into the office instead of doughnuts, cookies and biscuits. He said, “Cake culture poses difficulties for those who are trying their hardest to lose weight or become healthier - how many of us have begun such diets only to cave in to the temptation of the doughnuts, cookies or the triple chocolate biscuits?” I agree in principal, but I wouldn't want to be the one to bring a box of apples to work on my birthday, I don't want to be known as Lynney no friends.)

Dr Henry Heimlich, the surgeon who gave his name to the simple but dramatic procedure used to rescue people from choking, managed to save someone’s life using the technique himself for the first time since he invented it in 1974. (His technique, called the Heimlich manoeuvre, is used for dislodging food or objects caught in people’s throats, and has been credited with saving thousands of lives around the world: On noticing a fellow resident at the senior assisted living centre where he lives, choking on a piece of meat, Heimlich, a spritely 96-year-old, calmly stepped in. After her brush with death, the resident in question, 87-year-old Patty Ris, wrote Dr Heimlich a note, saying: "God put me in the seat next to you.")

A thing of the past? According to a survey conducted by Linda McCartney Foods, 12% of Brits are vegetarian. (Each generation sees more people eschewing meat, 25 years ago only 6% of the popluation were vegetarian. The younger generation is more likely to turn to tofu, in the 18 to 30 age group 20% are veggies, and across the country people are eating less red meat, with "meat free Monday" becoming more popular. It seems there's gold in them there carrots, as the UK vegetarian market is worth an estimated £820m a year.) Soure: The Wright Stuff

This one could have been labelled under "time" too.  Seemingly the old "5 second rule" is a myth. (For those of you who don't know what it is, the 5 second rule says that if you drop some food on the floor, as long it hasn't beenthere for longer than 5 seconds, it's okay to eat it. In a survey commisioned by a cleaning technology company they found that 37% of Brits would eat food dropped on the kitchen floor. I'm not sure when the so called "rule" came into effect, but scientists are now warning people not to put their lives at risk of contracting E.coli or salmonella poisoning by eating dropped food.  Personally (as a dog owner) if I drop food, I'm not likely to be given the chance to eat it, Laika is much faster than me.)

People in the UK are eating 3.5 million ready meals - wait for it - a day. (According to analysts Kantar Worldpanel for trade mag The Grocer, Brits munched their way through £3.2 billion worth of chilled or frozen dinners in 2015. Family favourites are shepherd's pie, lasagne and chicken tikka masala, with traditional British meals accounting for £1.3 billion of sales. Italian meals £610 million, Indian nearly £400 million and Chinese meals £281 million. We are turning into a nation of microwave chefs.)

Tesco supermarkets have decided to only sell straight croissants. (Why? Well because UK customers have complained they cannot spread jam properly on a traditionally curved croissant. Now you probably know that the croissant is a French pastry, but what you might not know is that the word is French for crescent, and if you look crescent up in the dictionary you will see that it describes the curved sickle shape of the waxing or waning moon.  Oh dear, this is becoming an interesting word post. Anyway, although I am suspicious of their reasons (it's far more likely that it's simply cheaper to produce straight pastries), Tescos should be able to sell their boringly straight pastries, but they shouldn't call them croissants, they should call them tout droit instead.) PS - I am aware that no self-respecting French person would put jam on their croissant.

Seemingly the smell of garlic on a man is irresistible to women. Not garlic breath though, it's the smell that comes from a man's armpits after chewing raw garlic. Eew! (Scientists believe that the sweat of men who had eaten a bulb of garlic was more attractive to women because it suggested the man is healthy. Garlic is a bit of a superfood, it has antibiotic, antiviral and antifungal properties. So, throw away the Lynx on Friday night, and get chomping.)

3rd September Welsh Rarebit Day - Welsh Rarebit is a kind of cheese on toast.

Visitors have been banned from eating picnics, or packed lunches at Southwold Pier. (One elderly couple were told they had to pack their Victoria sponge cake back into their Tupperware, and that seating was reserved for people purchasing food from on-site shops and restaurants. In 2012 Southwold was labelled 'the snobbiest place in Britain' after residents objected to a Costa Coffee shop opening up in the high street. It sounds as if they are living up to that reputation.)

According to a survey carried out by the sustainable food and farming organisation Leaf (Linking Environment and Farming), more than one in three British children have never heard the classic farmyard sounds in real life. (Increasingly, youngsters are only hearing the sound of nature through their computer or TV screen, which means they have never heard a real cow go “moo”, a sheep go “baa”, or a pig go "oink". This means many kids are oblivious to where the food they eat comes from.  25% didn't know the names for baby cows, sheep, pigs or chickens, and more worryingly one in five had no idea bacon comes from pigs, while one in 20 thought we get cheese from them. Pig cheese? Eew! My favourite was that 5% percent of the children surveyed believed strawberries grow inside the fridge.  Which has a certain logic to it.  At least they had thought about it a bit.) 

A new device has been invented in Italy, a pizza printer. (You simply add the toppings you want, and what herbs you like, and the pizza will be printed to your specifications, and then baked - all in one.  You can set the size, depending on how hungry you are, up to 14", and the depth of the base, from crispy to deep pan.  You can even have your name baked on in cheese. The inventor, a pizza chef known as Igor Lovera, said, "This could put me out of business. From pressing "Print Pizza", it only takes about 30 minutes to get your personalised pizza. " Click here to learn more .)

According to the Vegetarian Calculator page on Facebook the average human, who lives to 80, will have eaten 7,000 animals in their lifetime. (They will have eaten 11 cows, 27 pigs, an amazing 2,400 chickens, 4,500 fish, 80 turkeys, 30 sheep, and if rabbits, ducks, geese, goats, prawns and squid are included, the total of animals eaten rises to around 7,500. It reminds me of a joke: Q: What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?  A: Anyone can roast beef. Sorry.)

After being told to eat 3 square meals a day all our lives, experts are now warning us that eating breakfast, lunch and dinner may be damaging our health. (Abigail Carroll, who wrote 'Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal', argues that the idea of eating three meals a day is a European invention from the Middle Ages, supposedly more civilised than eating when you're hungry. Now experts are saying that fasting can be good for your health. Maybe they are just getting us ready for food shortages.)

Almost one in 50 children in the UK is allergic to peanuts, double the rate of ten years ago. (The innocent looking legume can cause reactions as mild as itching and redness; but in other cases, it can produce vomiting, diarrhoea and anaphylactic shock, where the throat and airways swell and become severely inflamed, preventing breathing.  You don't even need to eat a nut; peanut oil can be found in anything from processed food and sweets to cosmetics and lipstick. The condition kills more people than any other food allergy.)

1st February National Yorkshire Pudding Day. Here's my recipe for Yorkshire pudding.

According to the British Retail Consortium, Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings is set to be cheaper than expected this year after food prices recorded a fall for the first time since 2006. (And there is even more seasonal cheer; November was the first month alcoholic beverages experienced deflation since the index began eight years ago. It's going to be a good Christmas, for everyone but the breweries, pubs and farmers.) More about Christmas food here.

You would have to run 4 miles to burn of the calories in a 500ml bottle of Coke. (Scientists are calling for this information to be printed on food labels, instead of the usual calorie count. (Do you ever read it?) For example: To burn off a double cheeseburger would take a 5.6-mile hike. Would you be likelier to chose a smaller one and go on a 2.6 mile walk instead?) 

According to research carried out by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London, the number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years. (Since 1970 animals have been decimated across the planet as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, whilst at the same time polluting or destroying their habitats. I wonder what our children and grandchildren will have to say to us?) Source

The EU has already banned powerful vacuum cleaners, sparking a rush to buy the last remaining models with motors above the new EU limit of 1,600 watts, but now Europe has its sights on other domestic appliances. (Toasters, kettles and juicers will have their power consumption reduced. Other items under the spotlight include heated greenhouses, power tools, gym equipment, food mixers, rice cookers, blenders, deep fat fryers and believe it or not aquarium lights and filters. I guess that's what you call pulling the plug.)

NHS hospitals in the UK are going to be ranked on the quality of their food. (I can see it now!  A GP recommends a patient goes into hospital, and the patient asks which one does the best lasagne.)