Say cheese

According to Michael Moss, in his book Salt, Sugar, Fat, the US government played a direct role in getting the American public hooked on eating cheese-with-everything, as a direct solution to the problem of what to do with all the fat once consumers started to demand that it be skimmed from the top of the milk before they drank it.

Thus adding considerably to the amount of calories consumed, as I have learned since starting to take note of the calorie content of ready meals; any dish with cheese has a good 200 calories more than an otherwise similar pasta dish without it, without the advantage of making you feel more full.

Increased production of cheese however will be a boon to those who live long enough to draw their pension, rather than be carried off early by an obesity-related disease. Dairy Crest, who make much of the Cheddar cheese consumed in this country, has about £150m worth of maturing cheese in store at any one time; it has just been agreed that £60m of that value can be transferred to the ownership of company pension scheme

Links
Financial News: Cheese and pension pie
Michael Moss: How the government got you to eat more cheese
Related posts
Dairy cream
Knowing whereof

Hungry Britain

A young man was having a rather agitated conversation, on his mobile, in the lobby of the library:
Yes, I’ve been to the Job Centre ...
No, nothing yet ...I got the food bank thing sorted, though.

The BBC’s Mark Easton reports that since 2011 it has been government policy to allow Job Centre staff to provide any claimant with vouchers for a food bank if they are concerned about their immediate financial problems.

Although these needs may be said to be new, a result of economic recession & changes to the benefit rules, it is worth remembering that, even in better times, many young people went hungry, failed for one reason or another to get properly fed by their families.

Speaking recently on Radio 4 about her experience of friendship with Brixton gang members Harriet Sergeant said that she was surprised to discover how hungry they were. Such lack of sustenance cannot aid good behaviour.

Although obesity in the young is clearly a serious problem, we must not let concerns about this blind us to the fact that the opposite problem also exists.

Links
Mark Easton: Food banks used by thousands of jobless
Harriet Sergeant: Amongst the Hoods
Related post
Where are all the obese hoodies?

Tickled my fancy

Recent links I liked:

Why Twitter Makes Us Want to Add Extra Letterssss & How long is a tweet string? - answering the important questions of our time.

Ageing and productivity: Economists and others. Given we are all going to have to work for longer it's good to know the older folk can keep up.

The evolution of Consciousness: Part 2

Alcohol consumption higher than reported in England. Here we go again. The report is behind a paywall so I cannot check whether they have addressed the questions of how much is consumed by visitors to Britain, how much by people who do not live in private households, & how much by those who are too drunk to co-operate with social survey interviewers.

A Closer Look at College Completion Rates for Full-Time Students: A new American study, for example, finds that men are less willing to tolerate loan debt than women are. Which may mean that girls in the majority at college may not be the all-round good thing we might like to take it for.

Multilingual dictionary keeps humans in the loop - At a (biggggg) price

Running scared

On Saturday’s Week in Westminster, Peter Oborne spoke to Frank Dobson & Stephen Dorrell about what it is like to be a Secretary of State in the eye of a storm, such as those we are currently having over horse meat & NHS failures in Mid Staffs.

One nugget concerned Frank Dobson’s regret over the failure, during his tenure as Secretary of State for Health, to take a more robust line against the claims that MMR vaccination causes autism. He attributed this in part to a distinct lack of confidence about the issue on the part of his professional advisers, still reeling from the fallout from the BSE affair, when robust reassurance had turned out to be disastrously misguided.

Links
BBC Radio 4: Week In Westminster
Stephen Dorrell
Frank Dobson
Mid Staffordshire Report
Related post
MMR & responsibility