Dear McDonalds

I love you. I want to make this clear from the start, our from the "get go" as you Americans say. We have a dangerous relationship where you are a "feeder" but I'll be honest, I encourage it.

I like your breakfasts best.

Who am I kidding, I love your breakfasts. I love the muffins full of greasy goodness. I love that you serve pancakes with bacon and syrup, because, while it's not very British of me to admit, I adore bacon and syrup.
I love the choices of drink, the orange juice that lets me kid myself I've had a healthy breakfast. The milk that let's me pretend I care about my bone health.

But the coffee...ah the coffee... Now the coffee has improved, I admit that. I like the taste. But you have temperature issues don't you? The hotter the coffee the better? Is that your thought? You are wrong.

Remember the old adage "boiled coffee is spoiled coffee"? You would imagine that having a court case where a woman was scalded would have given you a wake up. But no. this morning I had to wait twenty minutes before I could drink my coffee without losing all the skin on my tongue. Twenty minutes! Imagine how hot it was! Sort it out. You are spoiling an otherwise perfect breakfast.



Lots of love
Me

Animals, friend or foe

I have read some strange stories in the news lately, and maybe it’s just a coincidence that so many wild animals seem to be killing people lately, or maybe (worse) wild animals kill people all the time but we only hear about them some of the time! But whatever there have been some strange tales in the news lately, so for anyone that missed them I’m sharing them here.

First I spotted the headline ‘Crocodile on Plane kills 19’ and I refused to read the story because I felt that the story would only disappoint after such an amazing headline but how wrong I was, for it transpired that a crocodile had been smuggled onto a plane – forgive me while I imagine ways you can smuggle a crocodile, in your luggage? Disguised AS luggage? Down a leg of your trousers? (risky but can be done with ferrets so who knows) Under a jumper “my oh my that guy is fat and has scaly belly skin’? the mind boggles – but however it happened it appears that the poor crocodile was not securely smuggled (always secure your smuggled crocodiles folks!) and it escaped on the plane, running about and generally terrifying the passengers who dashed away from the ravening beast, unbalancing the plane and causing it to crash! And the worst bit was that the poor crocodile was one of only 2 survivors of the crash! but was killed by rescuers at the scene! Now THAT is a news story.

(as an aside – maybe he smuggled the croc into the plane in a bag of toy crocodiles in much the same way this lady smuggled a tiger cub……)

But jeepers creepers if it doesn’t get worse!

Imagine, you go on a safari holiday, you watch animals during the day and camp in cabins at night, eating round the fire, enjoying the sounds of the wild. Protected in your compound you pop out (with your wife) for a late night outdoor shower under the stars, does life get better? Well it can certainly get worse! Just when you thought soap in your eyes was the worst that could happen, 5 lions attack you! Yes not 1, not 2 not even 3 but 5 lions attack you IN THE SHOWER! This is the stuff of nightmares, and in the case of Pete Evershed  the cause of death too.

And of course last week a young boogie boarder was killed by a shark in the waters off of California, a young man that had joked about 'what if we get attacked by a shark'.

 Nature is fighting back people! By careful out there!

(How morbid would you need to be to keep a Top 10 animal attacks list  though, yeah I'm looking you Time Magazine)

How old is too old? (or 'sniff it and see')

Every now and again on social media someone says they have chucked away a yoghurt 3 days past the 'use by' date, or asks if bread 2 days past the sell by date is OK to eat or........well you get the idea. They want to know if they can safely consume an item of food that seems to be saying  

NO! DON'T EAT ME, YESTERDAY I WAS FINE 

BUT TODAY I AM FILLED WITH POISONOUS BACTERIA 

THAT WILL KILL YOU IN AN INSTANT 

WITH PAIN YOU CAN ONLY IMAGINE 

or something like that anyway.

I am old enough to know that expiry dates are a fairly new invention. Yes young people you read that right, we have not always been told when food is 'past it's best'. For hundreds, indeed thousands of years we used our own judgement! We looked at things, smelled them, touched them and decided 'is it still good'? (* when I say 'we' I do not, obviously, mean me! I mean the human race, I'm not thousands of years old, or hundreds come to that!)

And in some cases we still do. While supermarkets may wrap your vegetables in a plastic bag with a sticker proclaiming 'use by 9 Feb 2010' your local green grocer is unlikely to do the same, my local green grocer sells cucumbers, they are long and firm and green and that's it! I have to fondle the cucumber and decide how fresh it is! Is it soft? getting limp? then I'll ask if it's discounted or buy a firmer one! (are you all right? some of you appear a little flushed?)

Likewise my butcher does not put 'use by' dates on his pork products, i have to admire his loins and decide if they are fresh, are they greenish in hue? Do they smell? If not, I'm happy, a pink fresh loin is most women's dream, as are his sausages and his faggots! but I digress.

Until 1973 no stores in the UK used best before dates at all! And it was Marks and Spencer that began the trend purely as a marketing technique, to show how 'fresh' their food was! Of course all other food sellers leapt on to the bandwagon to be sure and keep up with the new trend.

It's true that some foods nowadays are hard to see. How can I tell if a tin of beans is 'fresh' or if a carton of orange juice is? and the simple answer is of course that I can't, like the rest of society I rely to some degree on labelling of the packets, but wouldn't it be easier to tell me when it was packed rather than a use by date? When I bake a cake I estimate how long it will last (bad example - 10 minutes in my house) by the date it was baked and then I use judgement.

When I open a loaf of bread and it had a patch of mould on it, I tear off the blue bit and toast the bread! I only throw away the whole loaf if it's more mould than loaf or if the flavour is totally tainted. Marmite can disguise a multitude of tastes.

And yoghurt is gone off milk! As is cheese, it can't go off! Sniff it! how does it smell? I've often eaten yoghurts 2 weeks past their 'use by' dates with no ill effects at all. And cheese can usually just have the mould cut off - after all cheddar is often already 24 months old by the time you buy it! So why would another month make any difference?

But I'm not alone, I am aware that many of you eat food that you have judged to be OK. Just remember it's a skill, learn it, pass it on, don't be afraid, trust your instincts.  My good friend Donna on Twitter sent me this handy link to get you started.

And don't come crying back here if you get sick.


Remember that this advice is just from a boring old person, not anyone clever and don't take risks with the elderly, the very young or the infirm. (No testing mouldy yoghurt out on your granny!)

PS   A website called Love Food Hate Waste perpetuates the myth by saying NEVER eat food past the use by date, which is just silly IMO. They even tell you 'if it looks fine, still throw it away!  I still say that for cheese and many other products this is ridiculous.


If you would like to buy some out of date food to practice on - look here for some cheap deals. Yes indeedy, an online retailer that specialises in old food!

Being Nemo's Dad...parenting and Risk Management

Long ago a cop show was on TV called NYPD Blue, hubby and I watched it a lot and really enjoyed it. In one episode a character called Sipowicz and his life was pretty traumatic, lots of those close to him were killed, leaving him sole carer of his young son. The tragedies that surrounded him left him over cautious and in one episode we saw his anguish at having to let his son climb and use a high slide at a playground, on his own. It was a defining moment where Andy Sipowicz learned that you have to let go, or people cannot fulfil their potential. And that all hazards can be risk assessed and managed (more of that later).

For hubby and I it was a mixture of the funny and desperately sad. And we vowed to never become so protective of our daughter that she wouldn't be able to have the fun that goes with the odd risk. So during her toddler years we used the phrase "Remember Sipowicz" whenever we felt that we may be in danger of over protection......but wow it is hard! hard to see the small person that you adore doing something 'risky', going on the 'big' swing with no straps for the first time! Riding a bike, climbing a tree, horse riding etc etc (getting sweaty palms here just imagining it...

Fast forward.....................

So then when she was 3 we went and saw Finding Nemo. Aside from the fact that the scene in which the mother and all the eggs bar one are killed and eaten by a barracuda, leaving Nemo's Dad alone with one deformed egg, affected my sensitive daughter so much that she screamed and begged to leave the cinema, and is now scarred for life; we enjoyed the film.

And I realised that Marlin (Nemo's father) was a modern day Sipowicz. He too was over protective due to the tragic events that had befallen those he loved. So why was I in danger of being him? I've had a great life where most people I love died of old age (one with a glass of martini in her hand! now THAT is the way to go!) and I have a lovely daughter who is pretty, and clever.....so maybe that's it! I fall into the 'I'm too lucky, it can't stay this good, I deserve something bad to happen!' How ridiculous! but it's true. So now when my 10 year old starts jumping at her riding lessons, I mutter under my breath "don't be Marlin" because she needs to experience hazards, and if I don't let her I run the risk, like Marlin did, of driving her to bigger hazards than I can control.

Which brings me to Risk assessment. :-) (I can hear you yawning, yes you! you at the back!) any way we had a safety talk at work. We defined the difference between a HAZARD and a RISK.

A Hazard is something that could cause harm, and a risk is how likely that is to happen.

For example a tiger is a hazard, in a room uncaged the risk to you is HUGE but the same tiger, caged is barely a risk at all, the hazard is the same, the risk is managed.

So now I'm a parent that tries to risk manage WITHOUT turning into Sipowicz or Marlin!

Horse riding? learn at a good stable and wear a hat and back protector.

Swimming? Learn at a good swim school, and learn the hazards associated with open and cold water.

Not sure I'm there yet but one day, maybe when she's 35 I'll let her cross the road alone.....