nanny state

I actually forgot yesterday that I have some caramel cheesecake chocs sent by DD2! I ate one the day they arrived and hid the rest from DD3 . Oh well, I can enjoy a couple later today after my hike

Not really, Jess - I don't like sweet things, so I never eat cakes, biscuits, or sweets. I find just one square of chocolate is as much as I can eat. It used to infuriate my daughter, who is a chocoholic, when I bought a bar and it lasted me a week!. The only exception is chocolate brazils, as long as they are made with good chocolate, not cocoa powder.
My weakness is for lovely fresh French bread and for potatoes.

bags great link!

Re healthy diet: My MiL boiled veg to death. We could arrive at 11a.m. for a 1:00p.m. Sunday lunch to find the carrots and cabbage happily simmering away with the meat loaded with added lard. She ate loads of cakes, bananas & oranges the only fruit she ate regularly (2 x week) and plenty of suet puds, lemon meringue and trifle! She lived to 98 but never smoked or owned a car.

Oh yes, my Grandma was like that. Forty minutes for cabbage and sprouts, twenty for beans and peas. She added bicarb to keep it green and then pounded it to death with a wooden mushroom. Yum.

My mil did the same! I'm more healthy!
I rarely eat greens! And when I do I like them soggy!

2 points
1) greatnan if one square of dark chocolate is good for you, how much better is the whole bar?
2) Only 40 minutes for cabbage and sprouts, mamie? You all know that timing for sprouts is place 3 large stones in a pan of cold water, add sprouts, boil until the stones are tender, drain and serve.
and 2 1/2) was the wooden mushroom cooked or raw?

It was wooden - was it the same one she used for darning socks? I remember she used to boil her knickers in a big aluminium saucepan too...

gracesmum

I'm back to whole milk and butter in protest! I'm sick of being told what I should or shouldn't eat. I don't drink gallons of the stuff and I don't have much butter, but I do make cakes with butter when formerly I used soft marg. Probably my next blood test will show my cholesterol has shot up - but my parents lived on this stuff to a ripe old age and brought me up on it. It was only reading how bad it was etc in the papers that I changed. I've had it up to here [points to eyebrows emoticon] with do gooders telling me what to do.

Same here, goldengirl. We've gone back to full-fat milk and butter - the amount we get through in a week is not going to make much difference. We changed originally because OH was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, mainly on account of his high cholesterol count - then the opinion was reversed after many tests and his just reducing his sugar intake.

It's not really about nannying though, is it? It's about managing a tight NHS budget. If people make the effort to keep themselves healthy, there will be more money to go round for people who are in need through no fault of their own.

Guidance is good when it comes from the proper authorities. Money is being spent on researching the best foods to eat and the best lifestyle choices to make, and we need to be given the results of that research.

After that, we are free to make our own decisions.

I think it is the hysterical press that turns the guidance into 'nanny state' statements.
Probably any 'guidance' says something less 'shouty' than the papers would have us believe!!

That's all very well jings. Advice about taking exercise has led to orthopaedic wards overflowing with middle aged men needing their knees seen to. You can't win.