What has happened to Jules?

What has happened to Jules? - Her visits were like busy little rays of sunshine; now she is a sniffling, fetid fog of misery. Has Jules become a battered wife? or, too tired to cook, has she taken to eating processed crap instead of food?

Many restaurant meals contain too much salt

BBC News reports that a "survey of nearly 700 popular meals served in celebrity chef and High Street restaurants found half were high in salt - equivalent to a red traffic light label on a supermarket product. From their research, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) discovered that the 13 saltiest main meals contained more than the maximum recommended daily intake of 6g of salt."

To give Consensus Action on Salt and Health its due, it keeps on checking salt levels in various food products and in various establishments that serve meals, and it keeps on bringing out reports which draw attention to the continued high levels of salt that are potentially harmful to consumers. Professor Graham  MacGregor reminds us that "Salt puts up our blood pressure, and as a result, thousands of people die unnecessarily each year from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure. Whilst efforts have been made by foods in supermarkets to use less salt, chefs' preference for saltier foods is preventing further progress. It's clear from our survey that some chefs are not listening to their customers."

I just wish that, as well as drawing attention to high salt intake increasing blood pressure and causing premature deaths from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure, health experts would inform people that salt intake is a major factor in problems of obesity, child obesity and morbid obesity. This is especially the case for people who take or have taken prescribed steroids, HRT, antidepressants, some contraceptive medications, anti-convulsant/anti-epileptic drugs, anti-psychotics, and some other prescription drugs.

Read about how to lose weight by eating less salt and salty food.

To reduce the obesity caused by prescribed steroids or HRT

To reduce the obesity caused by prescribed steroids or HRT, there is helpful advice on this page.

When a church does not know the difference between right and wrong

I invite you to read this farewell letter to the Pope by The Ethical Nag.

What's the difference between South African state police killing an innocent taxi-driver and UK state NHS staff killing innocent patients?

 

What's the difference between South African state police killing an innocent taxi-driver and UK NHS staff killing innocent patients?

 

Is there one? - Yes. - The South African police involved have been arrested...

Was it the medication prescribed by your doctor that made you fat?

Maybe you've sometimes wondered whether it was the medication prescribed by your doctor that made you fat. Check out the prescription drugs mentioned on this page and on this. If you conclude that your weight gain may have been caused by one or more or these drugs, then you can easily reduce that excess weight by cutting down on salt and salty food. - Why not try it? It is a safe, fast, effective way to lose weight, lower high blood pressure, reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, of stroke, of heart attack and heart disease, reduce your risk of most cancers and of depression, cognitive decline/dementia/senility, frailty, falls and fractures, and a host of allied health problems. - What's not to like? - You will feel sooo much better!

His words reached me before I saw him.

His words reached me before I saw him. Naz was telling me how much better he feels from taking the advice on my website. He's full of it. - "I don't only feel better and have more energy," he says. - He tells me he fell all the way down the stairs the other day and really hurt himself, but the very next day he had completely recovered. - He reckons it would have taken a week to recover (and be off work) prior to taking my advice. I tell him how very pleased I am at the difference taking my advice has made to him, and that I had known it would. - It is so often the first thing that people tell me: how much better they feel.

The Food Programme suggests that snacking may lead to high levels of diabetes

The Food Programme (BBC Radio 4) today suggests that snacking/grazing and convenient, bite-sized 'food on the go' may be causing increased weight and obesity, and may lead eventually to unsustainable levels of diabetes.

Francis Report fails to deliver

The Francis Report of the public enquiry into the years-long atrocities that caused horrendous unnecessary suffering to vulnerable patients, and up to 1200 avoidable deaths, and the worst scandal in the history of the NHS, is available to download in PDF format here: http://www.midstaffspublicinquiry.com/report - After a 31 month public enquiry costing millions of ££, the report has failed to recommend criminal prosecutions for those many, many staff who delivered death instead of care. None of the ghastly staff so gravely at fault has been 'named and shamed'. They have not even lost their jobs. Surely they should be subject to criminal charges? If there is no accountability for even 'the worst scandal in the history of the NHS' then there is no hope at all of ending the cruelty and inhumanity so widely evident in so many NHS hospitals.

I blame the tutorial system...

Years ago, sitting in an uncomfortable chair without arms, in an airless, windowless, cold, subterranean room, I'd patiently listened to a lengthy lecture of the so-so variety, about newspaper archives in our area, and at last Providence had granted my voiceless plea that it come to an end. I turned to my companion and embarked on a sentence bewailing the ghastliness of the chairs. I didn't want to rush it; I wanted to temper the expression of my discomfort and be as polite as possible since it had been at her suggestion that we had gone to the lecture. Before I reached the tactful point of my remark, however, she had interrupted me and agreed with what she had decided I was about to say. - " Yes," she said. "The chairs are extremely comfortable, aren't they?" (I blame the tutorial system...(o: - They're taught to be so confident and swift in their opinions that they're even confident they know yours as well! - Don't you just hate it when people finish off your sentences for you?)

Thus was I lured along the wrong path

When I bought my first fridge it arrived containing a free voucher for Blue Band margarine, along with some baking recipes which listed margarine as one of the ingredients. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they may have been Philip Harben's recipes. (Philip Harben was one of the first TV celebrity chefs.) And they included making a sponge cake by the all-in-one method. Thus was I lured along the wrong path. For the all-in-one method proved an easy way to make a Victoria sponge cake. I see that Delia has also been led astray by margarine's easy virtue in the all-in-one department. And I've read that Mary Berry too favours margarine for the Vic sponge. And have you been seduced by the baddie propaganda? - Well it's never too late to repent and reform! Read about why Butter's Better!

Don't deride it till you've tried it! - Losing weight by eating less salt, that is.

Don't deride it till you've tried it! - Losing weight by eating less salt, that is. - Very occasionally, foolish people write to me to deride my assertion that the easiest, fastest, safest way to lose excess weight is seriously to cut down on added salt/sodium. For one thing, they are usually naturally slim people who have never had the problem of being overweight/obese and never experienced the difficulties of losing that excess weight while living in a society that relies heavily on processed food products that are high in salt and other sodium compounds. For another, they tend to think of losing weight only as losing excess fat. - There is a strange idea around that to lose excess fluid as a means of losing weight is somehow 'cheating' and doesn't count! - What nonsense! When overweight people lose excess fluid by cutting down on added salt/sodium they not only lose excess weight, reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, depression, heart disease, arthritis, fragile bones, premature aging, cognitive decline, dementia and many other degenerative conditions, but also lower their likelihood of experiencing a stroke, heart attack, frailty and mobility problems. - What's not to like? - Go on! - Try it! - Lose weight by eating less salt and salty food! - You will feel sooo much better!