Your Health: A nation addicted to fast, bad, food

As some of you may know I was diagnosed as type two diabetic back in May of this year and ever since then I have looked at a few things differently.
Sunday Roast is a favourite of Bill StewardsonSunday Roast is a favourite of Bill Stewardson
Sunday Roast is a favourite of Bill Stewardson

Throughout my life I have never been particularly “diet aware” but I have always had a good mixed diet of meat and vegetables, as in good meals which both filled me up and were also enjoyable to eat.

Of all these meals the Sunday roast was the highlight of each and every week for my entire life, this however I hear is becoming a thing of the past.

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These days it seems that convenience food for many people rules, something which made its way across the pond and we can all see our general population becoming like the one nation out west.

Everywhere you look there appears to be fast food outlets and it is possible to eat from about 49 countries around Sheffield city centre alone.

Let us be honest about this, there is a degree of taking the easy route involved here, and I will admit that I can easily understand the attraction of not cooking and washing pots and pans.

Without being at risk of someone’s derision I have to say that I only really trust stuff I have bought and cooked myself.

We are endlessly bombarded with healthy eating propaganda.

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Just this morning Sky news have been wittering about GPs prescribing cookery lessons which takes my breath away.

Just how much is this hair brained nonsense going to cost? More to the point, who will pay for it all?

Back to the propaganda, I use that particular word deliberately, because that is all it actually is.

If the authorities are genuine why do they not act like it? Why can a certain burger chain pump out millions of burgers for 99p?

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Why does a bottle of water cost more? Why are chocolate/pop manufacturers singled out with sugar tax threats? Why are low fat sausages dearer than the run of the mill ones?

The biggest question is why are those cookery lessons not taking place in our schools?

I did cookery at school and still enjoy cooking to this day. Those skills have stayed with me since about 1973 and I find it incomprehensible that they are no longer given. Catching people when they are young is the key to anything, if the authorities are genuine this should be corrected as a matter of urgency. Not only that, how many kids know about cholesterol or carbohydrates?

Every penny spent on health education would be saved thousands of times over in later years.

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Next time you walk by a burger “restaurant” on a Saturday afternoon look how many are in it and note the age profile, then amble by a sandwich bar and see how many are in there, it is quite telling.

Also, see what you can buy for 99p, that also is quite illuminating.

n Bill’s book “Fear of a Blank Mind” is out now. For details visit www.amazon.co.uk/Fear-Blank-Mind-Epitaph-Generation

n More health, page 62