Month: March 2020

Mayonnaise

(30 March 2020)it has been a couple of depressing weeks as the country locks down. As I take my prescribed compulsory healthy walk I see a jogger at a crossroads. The road is empty but I cannot avoid the impression that at any moment a stumbling horde of the infected will be chasing after him.

I comfort myself with a healthy but dull salad then make it perfect by piling mayonnaise all over it which somewhat reduces the healthy eating cachet.

So I got to thinking about mayonnaise, a delicious product and one where the brand leader is actually the best. However given that the suggested portion size is absurdly minuscule and a sensible one is quite a lot, regular consumption would be an easy route to obesity.

Thus eating the good stuff should be an occasional treat.

This is a problem for the manufacturers who would like the public to eat it more frequently but still be capable of getting off their sofas.

So they invent a “Lite” version (I suspect the universal refusal to spell it properly is indicative of their secret shame) and to make it low in fat churn up several unusual ingredients(defined as ones you won’t have in your food cupboard) See the difference below.

Proper Version Inferior Version
Rapeseed oil (78%) Water
Water Spirit vinegar
Pasteurised free range egg and egg yolk (7.9%) Modified corn starch
Spirit vinegar Sugar
Salt Pasteurised free range egg and egg yolk (4.0%)
Sugar Rapeseed oil
Lemon Juice concentrate Salt
Antioxidant -calcium disodium EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) (as a medicine it is used to treat lead poisoning and is recognised as being very safe) Cream Powder
Flavourings Citrus Fibre
Paprika extract Colours (carotenes, titanium dioxide E171 sourced from ilmenite, rutile, and anatase

 Thickener (xanthan gum E145 derived from the fermentation of a bacteria anthomonas campestris, which also causes black rot on leafy vegetables)

 Flavourings (contain milk)

 Preservative (potassium sorbate E202)

 Lemon juice concentrate

 Antioxidant -calcium disodium EDTA

So this is a perfect example of The Chicken Theory in action- rather than having a nice treat now and again it appears lovely to frequently guzzle on inferior substitutes (and sell a lot more jars).

Oh well here is a cute couple of kittens

Thank you NHS

(13 March 2020) Not much more to say on Covid-19 except my paper said that 80% of us will get it and half a million will die. Which is a bit worrying.

However today I want to praise the NHS.

I had a cataract operation this week- at an outpost of Moorfields at a local hospital. It seemed to go well and all the staff were extremely courteous and professional. Inevitably, and quite reasonably, they had a session that processed six people in a batch so I was there a few hours.

Nevertheless, it was still at no cost to me other than a cab home. In the USA it would have cost at least $4,000 and possibly more if it was complicated. So much and many plaudits for our glorious NHS.

However my rant is about one of the patients who complained bitterly about not being first on the list (they actually prioritised the order so the people who appeared quite ill went first), not appreciating what they were getting. It demonstrates the false expectation of entitlement and one I will return to in future posts. Sadly I did not remonstrate with him as he had someone with him who was also angry and had many more muscles than those that protrude from my body.

Oh well; here’s a kitten.

COVID – 19 part 2

This whole story is starting to dominate the news.
I have two thoughts.
First, shortages in the shops demonstrate how fragile modern society is.
Let’s say I buy one particular thing every weekly shop at the supermarket.
Panicked by the newspaper headlines, it is quite rational of me to buy two of them when I shop.
However if everybody does that a  variant of that hundred per cent increase in demand will inevitably cause shortages.

The story of the shortage causes further panic and people start buying more things.
Then there is a shortage.
Then people start profiteering.
The moral of this is to be sensible though I am  not sure everybody will be.

A second thought is one of puzzlement. It is quite clear how the virus originated, it is a zoonotic infection.
But a surprising number of people fuel the Internet with strange conspiracy theories.
This leads to more panic and more worry.
Therefore, what puzzles me, is why so many people are prepared to believe anything but the ordinary mundane truth.
Here are a couple of links for some simple debunking.

Independent

Telegraph

At least here is a kitten to cheer you up.

 

Kitten