I simply love food. It is one of life's greatest pleasures. Eating food is easy for me… sometimes too easy.
Food can be a source of unimaginable pleasure, or unending anguish. Very few people do not have some issue with it, one way or another. What we eat, how we eat, what to eat, and how much we eat, or don't eat, is the subject of books, magazines and television programmes, without number. Food generates big business in many different areas. Its quite astonishing.
The thing is, we need food. No one can go without it for long, without dire consequences. So no wonder it generates such interest.
It's early in the new year, and what are most of the western world doing? Dieting, that's what! The giant diet and exercise industry rolls into action on January jo1st. It been quietly sleeping through December, while other areas of the food industry, are at full pelt, mince pies, Christmas cakes, party foods, turkeys, fruit and nuts, luxury sweets and chocolates etc. but on January 1 all these become obsolete, as Weight Watchers, Slimming World, Slim Fast, and the rest, take over. We want to lose weight, but we still want to include all our favourite foods…because those who need to lose a few pounds (like me!!) love food!
We all have foods we absolutely love, and we all have foods that we absolutely loathe. I LOVE chocolate, eating it gives me untold pleasure. I LOATHE turnip, I couldn't eat it if my life depended on it!!
We all have books on our shelves, telling us how to produce a culinary delight. Or we watch the same chef's on TV, working their magic to tempt our palate.
At the other end of the scale, food causes anguish. Anorexia and bulimia are the scourge of many young people today. These ones use food as a weapon against themselves. Then there are those who are underweight, and desperately try to gain a few pounds, and who receive very little sympathy from the rest of us, for their plight.
And what about the starving millions we see in famine ravaged lands. Who is not moved to do what they can to help? We in the western world, can walk into a supermarket and spend 20 minutes, trying to select a packet of biscuits from the hundreds of different types and brands on the shelves. it's the same with baked beans, tomato ketchup, bread, cheese or whatever! We have an excess, that is unbelievable. The amount of food wasted, whether that be by industry, that discards obscene amounts of food, or by individuals, who throw in the bin good food, simply because it has reached its "best before" date, staggers the mind.
The health we enjoy or fail to realize, is often the result of what kind of food we put into our mouths. Poor health can be changed for the better, often with astonishing speed, with a change to healthy eating. Our very lives can be lengthened considerably, or indeed shortened, just by what we choose to consume.
So there we have it, a bit of "food" for thought… now, somebody please pass me the chocolate!!
