A little of what you fancy...

Paul Adamson
February 15, 2018

I had a hankering for a plate of bacon and eggs yesterday. There’s a wonderful Islington butcher called Turner & George and I walked down from Highbury just for their bacon which is hormone, antibiotic and cruelty-free. I love this simple dish – homemade sourdough bread, organic eggs and top-quality bacon. What’s not to like? Still, it was the first time in many weeks that I’d eaten bacon – as a kid I ate it almost daily for breakfast.

Of course the first thing I read when I woke up this morning was an article in the Guardian about a study that shows that “ultra-processed” foods, made in factories with ingredients unknown to the domestic kitchen, may be linked to cancer. These foods, which the paper claims now account for half of all the food bought by families eating at home in the UK, have been associated with obesity for years. Now they are being linked to increases in cancer.

More research is needed though to figure out whether any rise in cancer is down to the high load of sugar, fat and salt or possibly the additives. It might be that just one or two molecules are the problem and not all the ultra-processed foods.

The bacon I tucked into yesterday (a processed but not ultra-processed food) was free of additives – it was made up of pork, salt, unrefined sugars and saltpetre. If you’re going to eat bacon, this is the kind of bacon to go for. But the salt content of much of our manufactured food is so high that eating less processed or “ultra-processed” foods is surely sensible. Still, I don't buy into much of the hysteria around food research or our interpretation of it.

There’s so much information about food and what is or isn’t good for you and it can get very confusing. I am fortunate in that living with an Italian food writer, I am able to eat healthy (and delicious) meals with lots of fruit and vegetables and not much meat. ‘Everything in moderation’ is trite, I know, but as a way of cutting through the myriad and often contradictory pieces of research on food and health, it’s a way to stay sane and, I believe, healthy.

Let's dance
Get with the program
This crazy lockdown
Crunch time
The crazies
Life goes on
The beauty of scars
The Roaring Twenties
Truly, madly, deeply
Skin deep
Fat kids
Martial artist
Meet Rei Toska
Sperm alert
The spa massage
New year, new you?
The tan line
Back pain
Feeling relaxed?
How old is your heart?
Triumphing over injury
Tackling rugby
Belly watch (2)
La dolce vita
Belly watch (1)
The London marathon
In praise of slow
Open water
The iPhone and massage
The swimmer's body
Happy with yours?
Cut the fat, Santa
The pre-flight massage
Big guys
Thin people
Fat people
Massage and osteopathy
Let's dance!
The authentic voice
Killing a lobster
The way of all flesh
Lost in space
Fat but fit?
Let's do lunch
Andy Murray's hip
Stop making excuses
Brain power
And stretch...
The sandwich generation
How we see ourselves
The pain paradox
The full body massage
The limits of massage
Men and their bellies
Reading the body
The dangers of sitting