GIVEN HOW the control freaks in Europe and America dictate our every thought, it may not be long before we get instructed to cease and desist from the above activity as well.
It was a hard day’s night, in the hot sun all day building a shed. Milked the goats, time for a snack. I’m starving. So what to eat?
That same day WHO released their report, big headline: Processed meats and probably red meats cause cancer. We’re talking ham, sausages, corned beef, jerky, beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse and goat.
Brother-in-law Paddy emailed from Canada, “Wow! Pretty soon we won’t be able to eat anything.” He got that right. Ladies always comment how Paddy loves to eat.
Some of us already avoid chicken since broilers now reach market weight in five weeks instead of nine. Fish have in mercury (sardines not too bad). The gluten in wheat, barley and rye gums up your gluteus and makes you costive. Bread and biscuits are therefore out. Likewise high glycemic English potatoes. Don’t touch processed cereals, pasta.
Bananas, apples, peaches, pineapples, pears and mangoes are high sugar. Don’t go there. No mauby or sweetened drinks. Local water kinda dicey nowadays; imported bottled versions are worse.
I can’t handle beans, nuts and them fellows. Unprintable gasification and probably a headache next day. I’m a carnivore.
Don’t even mention soya. Not since I read about James Price, army veteran who went heavy on it. His breasts swelled: “It was like my body was feminising,” he said. “No more morning erections. My sexual desire disappeared. My penis …was so flaccid it looked very small compared to how it used to be . . . ” Soya contains the female hormone estrogen.
Imagine me walking along. Veoma stops to give me a lift. And discovers I have boobs and a dead dog? I’d rather die.
Need I go further? I ended up eating a tin of sardines. Went to bed still hungry. Did my woes end there? No! The wife said: “Don’t bring your stinking sardines mouth near me. Sleep with your head at the bottom of the bed…”
That usually leads to another activity but I did doze off eventually. Only to be roused by her shaking me to pieces. “Richard, wake up! I hear a lion growling under the bed.” I listened half-sleepy, then realised. “Yuh idiot!” I told her, “that is my belly.”
Seriously? Is this what life is about? At a time when old people are being carted into homes, when many are begging doctors to out their lights, what is the point of WHO’s melodrama? And should we take them seriously?
Here’s WHO on eggs: “WHO discourages the consumption of foods containing raw or undercooked eggs, mayonnaise, hollandaise sauce, ice-cream, mousses…”
Fact: my mother raised her seven sons on eggnog: raw egg, milk, sugar, rum, nutmeg on top. Those of us who were serving sometimes got raw egg with wine. I used to suck raw eggs like crazy. Punch a hole either end, a little salt. Then draw faces on the shells. How come no one ever got salmonella poisoning?
To be honest, I am far less fearful of processed meats than of vegetables drenched with residual sprays and stolen before the withholding date. Praedial larceny is rampant. China’s unusually high levels of stomach cancer are attributed to their preserved vegetables.
I recall a lady so health conscious, she had no fridge or stove. She ate only raw fruit and vegetables. And died of cancer.
We need to be realistic about diet and put things into perspective. Says the same WHO report: “For an individual, the risk of getting cancer from eating processed meat was statistically “small”, but “increases with the amount of meat consumed.”
Consider the reality of Barbados today. Two individuals are travelling in a car. The driver is gloating: “Man, I love those Inter-American Human Rights folk. I love the EU and ambassador Mik. I would put a statue of him in place of Nelson.
“I took this sucker from his home. Robbed him blind. Once I might have got hanged for killing him, but no more. It’s prison for robbery, the same prison for murder… and prison ain’t no big deal.”
Meanwhile you’re locked in the trunk, awaiting certain death, one major regret predominating. “Bacon”, you reflect sadly, “I could’ve eaten bacon.”
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
Email porkhoad@gmail.com
