Hospital Food Worse Than Prison Food
A report today from Professor John Edwards at Bournemouth University has said that hospital food is worse than prison food.
Here’s the e-mail I sent to the BBC.
Luckily, I’ve not been into hospital overnight, but the Professor’s research bears out the experiences of my relatives and friends.
I also moderate a list on the Internet for coeliacs, who need a gluten-free diet. Some of the experiences are not good at all, with it seems kitchens unable to provide the correct diet.
The last bit worries me.
Coggeshall
Essex has a bad reputation as a place inhabited by loose women in pelmets and white stilettos and men with large beer-fed guts in shell suits. This may be the image, which is also fuelled by lots of Essex girl jokes. But are the people of Essex feeding this image to keep us foreigners out and save the best bits for themselves?
Last night I went for dinner at Baumanns Brasserie in Coggeshall. Note that it doesn’t have an apostrophe!
Coggeshall
This view shows one of the streets that used to be the main road from Braintree to Colchester until it was by-passed in the 1980s. How the town managed before that I dread to think?
Opposite the restaurant is a sweet shop. Not your normal one, but one with real jars in the window.
Normans Sweet Shop, Coggeshall
What surprised me was that the jars in the window were for Fox’s Glacier Mints, Murray Mints and other common sweets. They looked to be new jars too, so they must be still available.
Now to return to Baumanns.
My late wife and I used to go a couple of times a year, when we lived over the other side of Suffolk at Debach. It was just too far to go and come back after a meal. But last night, I had other reasons, so it was very convenient to visit an old favourite place. In fact, I think it was the first time, I’d been there since I was diagnosed with coeliac disease.
I was not disappointed.
And the place had hardly changed in all those years.
Is that good or bad? It depends if what was there all those years ago was worth keeping. In Baumanns case it certainly was.
I had sardines followed by ostrich. These were two dishes I’d probably never cook for myself. They were both delicious.
I shall visit Baumanns next time, that I’m in the area.
Happy Memories
I’m just watching the Grand Prix in Valencia on the television.
It brings back happy memories of a weekend in Valencia, that my late wife and I spent just a few months before she died. It was our last holiday together.
It rained and rained and rained. But we did have some fabulous food and all of it was gluten-free.
We actually stayed in the Las Arenas Hotel close by where the Grand Prix is taking place. It was good and excellent value.
Cooked Meats and Cancer
The World Cancer Research Fund are now saying that cooked meats, such as ham and salami and bacon, can cause cancer and should be banned from lunch boxes.
They have form in this area and have been warning for some time. Do I eat much cooked meats? Not really, as I possibly eat them once or twice a month. I did eat a bit more at the weekend, but it was my party.
They also provoked this blast from the Daily Mail. I’ve read that and that perhaps says one important thing and that is moderation in all things.
But what is missing from all of this research and rants is any degree of statistical sense.
We could take a silly example, which states that if you spend all your time on a computer, playing computer games as a child that this is bad for your health. Other research could also say that playing on railway tracks is also bad. They both probably are, but the second is many times more dangerous than the first and people these days tend to lump everything as equally bad.
Now my worry about this “ham sandwich is bad for you” scare is that I’ve never seen any relative risk information compared to say cigarettes, obesity, excessive drinking or spending eight hours a day on a sunbed. So you get the obese smoker giving up cooked meats as his bit towards better health.
So what are the relative risks?
The best book on the subject is The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. He analyses the risks and prints them in detail. Everyone should read his book. You may not agree with everything he says, but it will certainly make you think.
But bear in mind one thing; if you want to live a long time, you can increase your chances by not smoking, eating a good diet, exercising and maintaining a healthy weight. I do all four. But then so did my late wife and she died at fifty-nine!
One point about diet is that diagnosed coeliacs on a gluten-free diet have a twenty-five percent less chance of cancer. That more than mitigates the bad affects of a ham sandwich in gluten-free bread.
Frittatas from Waitrose
Just found two frittatas in Waitrose. One is asparagus and parmesan and the other is chorizo. They are both gluten-free.
Testing one for lunch, but those at my party will have them too.
When I bought them in Cambridge today, if you bought four you got a free cool bag!
Queues in Sainsburys
I went to Sainsburys last night to get a few things, so that I could experiment for my party on Sunday. Now, this is nothing against Sainsburys in particular and I know they have the system in some of their stores, but it is so much easier shopping with the QwikCheck system, that I use in Waitrose.
The queues at the check-out were to be avoided. The girl at the check-out I had could have been a clone for “Computer Says No!”
I was also worried that their gluten-free offerings were worse and fewer in number than the last time I went.
But is this because there has been so much publicity lately about how to cook without gluten and now that a lot of food is so much better labelled?
I Couldn’t be a Catholic Priest
This is from this week’s Popbitch.
In August 1994, the Catholic church decreed that you couldn’t be a priest if you were an alcoholic or had coeliac disease (allergic to wheat).
But then I like women too much! And I don’t believe in god.
I have a feeling that the guy who said that is now Pope.
I have discussed this with several devout Catholics and they don’t agree! Wasn’t according to the Bible, Jesus welcoming of all and sundry? Even tax collectors.
The Coeliac Travel Problem
It was a two and a half hour journey of 155 miles home. But at least I had the top down on the Lotus, which is a great way to drive under the stars. Sadly, I didn’t see any meteorites.
I hadn’t eaten since lunch before I left and except for a fruit bar, I didn’t eat anything on the way back. I generally don’t stop in motorway service stations, as it means putting up and taking down the hood. Not that this is a problem, as it is much quicker, than those fancy electric ones you now get on convertibles, but I am just lazy.
But all of the garages on the A14 had shut their shops, so I got home hungry.
So I went to bed after a small whisky and a bag of crisps.
I should have planned better, but it is a real problem to find sensible gluten-free food to eat on the go. Especially as my fridge that plugs into the car has turned itself into just an insulated box!
Bad News for Coeliacs
The report on the price of sugar is bad for coeliacs like me. What will happen is that more food will use wheat glucose instead of sugar, because it’s cheaper. Unfortunately, a lot of coeliacs can’t handle this and it makes them ill.
Interestingly, the EU says that wheat glucose is alright for coeliacs to eat, so products don’t have to say they contain gluten.
Well, here’s one who’s affected by wheat glucose (maltodextrin). I am not alone!
Jamie Oliver’s Fish Pie
I like this recipe as except for the potato saucepan, there isn’t too much washing up and most of the preparation is done in the dish you cook it in. It’s also very gluten-free without any dodgy ingredient at all.
Here’s what Jamie says about it.
This is a fantastically simple fish pie which doesn’t involve poaching the fish or making a tedious white sauce. Loads of good, fragrant veg are added quickly by grating them in. You can use whatever fish you like, making this as luxurious as you want it to be. If you like your fish pie to be creamy, feel free to add a few tablespoons of crème fraîche to the fish.
For four people and a typical deep dish you’ll get in somewhere like Debenhams, you’ll need the following.
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1kg potatoes
- 1 carrot
- 2 sticks of celery
- 150g good Cheddar cheese
- 1 lemon
- ½ a fresh red chilli
- 4 sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley
- 300g salmon fillets, skin off and bones removed
- 300g undyed smoked haddock fillets, skin off and bones removed
- 125g king prawns, raw, peeled
- Olive oil
- Optional: a good handful of spinach, chopped
- Optional: a couple of ripe tomatoes, quartered
Note that Waitrose will take the skin of the fish. I suspect other places and of course real fishmongers will too.
This is the method.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and bring a large pan of salted water to the boil
- Peel the potatoes and cut into 2cm chunks
- Once the water is boiling, add your potatoes and cook for around 12 minutes, until soft (you can stick your knife into them to check)
- Meanwhile, get yourself a deep baking tray or earthenware dish and stand a box grater in it
- Peel the carrot
- Grate the celery, carrot and Cheddar on the coarse side of the grater
- Use the fine side of the grater to grate the zest from the lemon
- Finely grate or chop your chilli
- Finely chop the parsley leaves and stalks and add these to the tray
- Cut the salmon and smoked haddock into bite-size chunks and add to the tray with the prawns
- Squeeze over the juice from the zested lemon (no pips please!), drizzle with olive oil and add a good pinch of salt and pepper
- If you want to add any spinach or tomatoes, do it now
- Mix everything together really well
- By now your potatoes should be cooked, so drain them in a colander and return them to the pan
- Drizzle with a couple of good lugs of olive oil and add a pinch of salt and pepper
- Mash until nice and smooth, then spread evenly over the top of the fish and grated veg
- Place in the preheated oven for around 40 minutes, or until cooked through, crispy and golden on top
Serve piping hot with tomato ketchup, baked beans, steamed veg or a lovely green salad.
I would just point this recipe to Jamie’s site, but I like to print out the recipes as I have a bad memory. And it doesn’t print from his site on my machine.
The Anonymous Widower 