WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Tizer]

My gut can't cope with much fat or oil because of the inflammation and I too have a rapid transit time. I take vitamin tablets and cod liver oil capsules each morning to try to make up for the lower absorption of nutrients.

[Stanley]

I often think about you and your problems Peter when I am cooking and throwing the spices in. You have my sympathy.
Like you, I am an advocate of Cod Liver Oil and the long chain Omega-3 found in that and other fish oils. I've read 'Queen of Fats' and believe what Susan Allport tells me about the crucial balance needed in our diets.
I gave my doctor a copy and he told me after that all he had been taught as a young doctor about fats had been wrong.

[Big Kev]

Found this in Aldi. I have the urge for peanut butter on a bit of toast every now and then and this offsets the carbs in the bread (that's my reasoning anyway). It's very tasty.

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[PanBiker]

Agreed Kev, we have the same in our cupboard.

[Stanley]

And it tastes good! (I get the smooth, the crunchy bits can get under your teeth....

[plaques]

With the Government ready to blitz many of the long standing EU rules here's another one where we may be falling behind in quality meat standards.

In 2022, new EU legislation will prohibit all forms of routine antibiotic use in farming, including preventative group treatments. animal or group of animals before clinical signs of a disease, in order to prevent the occurrence of disease or infection.

1. The Government’s 5 Year Action Plan on antibiotic resistance, published in 2019, does not
mention banning group prophylaxis.
2. In a letter to the Alliance in April 2020 Defra stated: “The Government does have plans to
introduce restrictions on the preventative use of antibiotics. We will be consulting with all
interested stakeholders, following the usual processes when amending domestic legislation.

No doubt as a 'third' country we will have to prove that farmers are not breaking the EU rules before meat is exported to them. More red tape and more delays with reduced market access. Many of the very large intensive breeding farms are American owned it doesn't take a genius to predict what these 'stakeholders' will say about putting their profits in the firing line. Watch this space.

[Tizer]

We've only three years to go for the 80th anniversary of Alexander Fleming's 1945 Nobel prize lecture in which he warned of the dangers of antibiotic resistance. He would have been shocked to find they were later used for farm animals, especially to prevent rather than treat disease.

Amid a wave of unbridled optimism, one of the first to urge caution over the new drug was actually Fleming himself. In his Nobel lecture in 1945, Fleming presciently warned about the dangers of misusing penicillin:
“It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them, and the same thing has occasionally happened in the body. The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.” Before long, Fleming’s predictions came true. The first case of penicillin resistance was observed in 1947. LINK

What's less well-known is that Flemings's colleague, Dr Bill Frankland, recalls Fleming giving that warning as early as 1936.

[Stanley]

I remember when Terramycin first became available it was a sure fire way of stopping scour in calves if given before it occurred. I've seen the floor covered in pink powder as it was mixed up for the calves. Another area was hormones, small pellets inserted under the skin of a male pullets neck solved the problem. They started acting like females and grew twice as fast. The pellets were hormones. This was before to Japanese found out how to sex day old chicks and the technique spread to the UK after 1960. I had a mate called Hartley who went to Japan, learned the technique and made a living here when he came back working his miracle. I think the use of hormones stopped after that.

[Tripps]

Looks like a moment to mention that I saw recently, that due to improvements in AI technology. it is now possibe to get 99% female calves.
That solves the problem of unwanted males, and the attendant issues with raising veal calves. It referred to a specialist herd of Jersey dairy cows.

I found the link to the article I'm sure it will be of interest to some. . . 99% female

[Stanley]

I heard a report about that David and hope it is true. I'm sure you will have seen what I have written about the calf trade in what were known as 'killers'. If people knew where the protein went to in those days, geriatric and baby foods, it would put them off. I wonder if the same firms are still buying the calves?

[Tizer]

One of my friends in New Zealand, a retired food scientist who is still advises on oils & fats in food has written: In Spain, the world’s largest olive oil cooperative was fined in 2018 for failing to pay the tariffs on imported olive oil from Tunisia, which was then blended with lower quality olive oil and exported to the United States as virgin olive oil. It just shows the scale of food fraud.

[Stanley]

I only buy one brand of Olive Oil, Il Casolare, because I believe they are a genuine firm and the oil is what they say it is. (It's certainly good and tastes nice!) (LINK)
It's expensive but I don't use a lot and so I might as well have what I think is best.

[Tizer]

It's expensive but I don't use a lot and so I might as well have what I think is best.

You'll be glad to know that recent research has shown that consumption of olive oil and avocado oil are both more effective at preventing macular degeneration of the eyes than are other oils.

[Stanley]

It has just struck me that my recent salutary experience with the sugar spike has advanced my education. I never saw the need to be really strict about carbs in my diet but it has crept up on me and the difference since the change of diet after my adventure is amazing. All sorts of things that I would never have connected with diabetes have retreated! Be sure I have learned my lesson....

[Wendyf]

[Stanley]

Remember my episode of double vision? That has vanished as the Broccoli soaks into my system.....

[Wendyf]

Double vision is one of the classic signs of high blood glucose, along with tiredness, thirst, peeing a lot and thrush infections.

[Stanley]

I had all them except for Thrush!

[Wendyf]

Col had all those symptoms and more before he was finally diagnosed as diabetic, he had been seeing doctors about each symptom individually but no one put two and two together. I suggested he get tested because his father had lost both legs to diabetes and died from further complications, neither of us thinking he would be diabetic but just to put his mind at rest!

[Stanley]

I sometimes think that there ought to be a special profession or computer application dedicated to 'joining the dots'.
Actually the present system has worked for me but it took that emergency a fortnight ago to focus everyone (Including me!) on what was actually happening. All I can say is that I am a different man and Hassan said that this wasn't down to the Aloglyptin because it didn't kick in that fast, it's solely due to a more rigorous approach to carbs.
(Now remind me about low carb puddings.....)

[Tizer]

I suppose this is one way of tackling obesity!...
`Cadbury shrinks size of Dairy Milk sharing bar' LINK

[Stanley]

" were reduced in size to reduce their calorie count, "
Huh, a likely story. Lots of retail items are being reduced in size to make the price inflation less apparent.
One of the nice things about modifying my diet is that my weekly shopping bill is much less. The high carbs were so expensive. Now it's meat and fish that cost so much.

[Tizer]

A salmonella contamination caused a recall of these chocolates in the UK in the last week. Now a recall in America and possibly elsewhere around the world. This is what you get when big internationally dominant companies spread their own product worldwide...
`Kinder chocolate recalled in US over salmonella concerns' LINK

[Stanley]

Doesn't affect me. The chicken sat in my fridge ready for cooking today is probably loaded with Salmonella but I shall cook it until it drops off the bone. (And my sink and surfaces will be sterilised with bleach....)

[plaques]

Doesn't affect me either but the point is with global manufacturing units where the potential to affect the health of millions of people supply and hygiene standards is of paramount importance. On the home front our illustrious Brexit has now shifted the responsibility for veterinary checks away from the EU and back onto the UK. Currently we haven't enough qualified vets to to cover this work. What will fall through in terms of decease and illnesses is anybody's guess. Another Brexit benefit? I think not.