For a split second I thought that was Mikhail Bakhtin.

Serious dissertation flash backs.

*reaches for the phone, dials number of preferred therapist.*

I think it is actually a good thing that they want to teach us how to cook, what is wrong with that? You take some batter, a Mars Bar and a deep fat frier…

That is cooking.

Or that they should even suggest that a ‘five a day’ diet might make you live a bit longer. Or that if you cook your own stuff, it’ll end up cheaper and probably better for you, especially if you ignore my suggestion in my first paragraph.

The problem arises from our ‘betters’ deciding what we should eat and then attempting to impose it. Given that they can’t actually decide, it being a moving feast let us say, whether, red wine, is good or bad.

The bottom line of all of this is a state more interested in treating you and I as ‘tick tock’ men and women, and complaining when our taxes, which are immense over a lifetime, are used to look after us, rather than pay vastly inflated salaries to, say, their offspring. Tut, tut, they say, it was all your fault. No. It isn’t. It is a culture that is unable to accept that we all die sometime, and pretends that they have no responsibility to ante out the dosh when we need it. Money they were happy to take. But apparently not happy to give.

I think we ought to teach this guy in primary school, I give you, taraa!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin

As I’ve said elsewhere, I personally went through a trial of fire when deciding that money was more important to me than easy food, and I’m glad I did it. I still eat Domino’s Pizza’s, I have kebabs and burgers after a night of drinking too much. Tonight’s superbowl will see me tucking in to a solid half-pound of burgers as well as a few fried sausages.

But when push comes to shove I understand that for me to be healthy everything has to be in moderation, and I have the choice to cook pretty much whatever I want that is also healthy, because I was personally driven enough to learn. To think that everyone else will be once they reach a period of their life where partying is more prevalent, or where their job + commuting takes up so much time is a little unbelievable to my mind.

So yeah, I’m completely against banning foods because of their content, although I wouldn’t be adverse to foods with certain levels of content having a duty on them to keep the obese out there from having to pay for their own healthcare when the time comes that they need that operation (if they need it), but I’m also against creating a society where we never take the responsibility of passing on knowledge of cooking good food and basic cooking techniques when there is the time and ability to do so.

haha, love this post. I don’t disagree either and I have frequent arguments with myself, but they generally revolve around violent films and video games rather than food. Am a big fan of Grand Theft Auto you see, but I don’t go around jacking cars or firing on police with AK47s. Fun as it looks on screen and in animation.

But I think there is grain of truth in saying that sometimes the prevailing culture becomes such that ‘bad things’ can become more legitimised than is healthy for a society. Of course, who is to say what is unhealthy for a society but I’d argue that an upsurge in anarchy and street violence isn’t probably too good.

Anyway, is it possible for the govt to try and shift that prevailing culture? Who knows. There have been some good examples and some bad ones.

I am not much of a libertarian, but I do occasionally find myself at odds with the prevailing consensus. The more I think about it, the more I find contradictions with proposed government policy and thinking. I am able to split civil freedoms which I support from the economic freedoms will which I tend to have little enthusiasm. But on the subject of social freedoms. I remain basically a lefty. But as I have said there are occasionally exceptions.

One of the exceptions are the consumption of so-called “unhealthy” food. Let me be honest here, I am a fat git and proud of it. I enjoy tucking into burgers chips and of course my national delicacy a good Cornish pasty. That’s a proper one not one of those horrible things are you get out of county. My family and friends marvel at the excellent quantity of wine and cheese I can knock off. Also sausages, pies, and other wonderful foodstuffs that have now become deemed to be persona non-Greta. Is it only me that looks at the ads on the TV such as the Marks and Spencers ad, then immediately rush out into an empty M&S store and grab all the fillo pastries for myself??….Err..No. The shop seems quite full. Nor do I, having seen an advert with a yellow unfunny clown, rush into a deserted McDonald’s…. No… There is other people in their as well. They may well be people with horrible screaming children, but thear, there.

Let’s take a look at the most famous fat person I can think of. Homer Simpson. Homer may well be an extremely bad parent. He lets Bart use his power tools for his nefarious purposes. Regularly he arrives home drunk, and is highly incompetent at work, amongst other things. Yet Homer is loved by the viewing public. Do adults who watch the Simsons need to rush off and emulate him. Will children watching decide to live their life following the Homer ideal. Of course they won’t The assumption is that you see an advert or role model on the TV, and it becomes your personal goal to obtain the advertised product or you wish to be like the role model whoever they maybe. To think so is intellectually lazy, and since when has it been assumed that anyone other than the employee of an advertising agency thinks that this is the case. (Or maybe I should go out and acquire an AK- 47 assault rifle, because recently I saw Arnie in “The terminator” again.)
There is also a case here for personal choice. Remember the kids in Rotherham who had fish and chips and other real foods sent in through the railings of the school after Jamie Oliver’s attempt to serve them “healthy food”. They were simply being denied the right to eat what they wanted, and I will say that I wholeheartedly support the parents sending in the “emergency food parcels”. It is wrong to force a particular diet or eating habits on someone else. Also I note the failure of the Oliver project, but now little Johony will have to cook the gastley “helthy” stuff..

As to myself. It’s my life and my diet. I have agency, and free will, and therefore will eat whenever I like so long as it can afford it. If you wish to eat health food that your business. Not mine.

There are certain areas of life which should not be legislated on. I think we can all agree on the varying levels that would be applicable to this because the resulting in legislation would by its very nature of its subject be completely at odds with the reality of the situation. Indeed some things are not the business of government… De minimis non curat Lex.. There is an argument about the effects of this generation’s dietary habits on provision of service when they become older, reasonably it may deserve some consideration. So what, if as projected 52 per cent of the population are classed as clinically obese. Or more accurately referred to as fat gits. It’s their business. That’s what people decide for themselves within their lifestyle. There is plenty of nutritional information in the public domain if they wish to avail themselves of it. But other than that, lets all choose our meals without further hindrance.

Because, if not, us fat gits will be around to your place tonight to smash up your car and throw bricks through your windows. Because we also love our ASBO’s as much as we love our burgers………. So if you want me to eat muesli….Sod off!..and don’t bother me again!