Latest food scare

what puts the great in great britain
Originally uploaded by lomokev.

Two traditional British staples, bacon and beef, are the latest food scares. It would be nice to think there was going to be some commonsense on the subject but I fear another panic response.

To judge from the size of them, some people are obviously eating too much. A full English breakfast is calorie-laden, it is true, but you feel full up for hours afterwards. Too little exercise, too much beer and too many sugary soft drinks also play their part in the prevalence of fatness. And a lot of bacon is not worth eating. It oozes white stuff and smells of pigs' wee.

But now we are told that bacon and beef cause cancer. The relationship is not a surprise, especially in the case of meats cured using sodium nitrite. If these foods sit inside the gut, they can fester away and produce carcinogens.

So the solution is a simple one. There is not need to stop enjoying these foods now and again. But they need to be eaten as part of a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables, fruit, wholemeal bread and other things with roughage, to keep everything moving through the digestive system.

So the breakfast of bacon and eggs is probably best started with a bowl of porridge and a roast be followed by fresh fruit such as an apple or whatever is in season. And the fried bread should be the proper wholemeal stuff.

Bacon and beef are not addictive drugs and having them once or twice a week in the context of a balanced range of foods is not going to endanger health.

I shall continue to enjoy a Full English and a roast once in a while.