I refused to be beaten on Tuesday and I took the editing I hadn’t done during the day into the living room to do during the evening. I’d had my dinner late and was going to skip tea, but when I started to feel hungry again, I changed my mind again. Before and after tea I managed some editing, and I was very happy with that one.
Puppy had me up at 6:30am (early for us) to let him out and spaniel went with him. An hour later, they were both demanding their breakfast, so I got up again and this time I stayed up. The poet was away on a business trip, so no one to help out this time.
I had my dirty cuppa and my quiet hour with the pup on my lap and the spaniel asleep, and I finished the book I’ve been reading, Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken.
it’s NOT food, it’s an industrially produced edible substance…
Out of the entire book, and it was a fair read, one thing jumped out at me.
After the initial fall-out in the UPF (ultra-processed food) industry (‘it’s NOT food, it’s an industrially produced edible substance’), following publication of the book and according to an afterword written more recently, various food giants were clamouring for the author to speak to their teams and/or attend various meetings, and they were offering ‘obscene amounts’ of money for him to do so.
Confused (‘baffled’, in fact), he finally agreed to do one so long as the fee went to charity.
And then he got the contract. Also known as a gag order.
Yup, these organisations were so scared, they wanted to buy his silence in future.
(Spoiler alert…) I was very pleased to read that he pulled out of the arrangement before anything further changed hands. But this single fact alone makes me want to distance myself from these companies, as far away as I can possibly get. The poor poet is going to be doing a lot more cooking from scratch, and I may just have to bite the bullet and take my turn.
And yes, I too think what people eat is down to their own personal choice and circumstances. But in order to make those choices, where they can they need to know what they’re choosing. If we’re going to nanny anyone into anything, we should be helping everyone afford good quality unviolated food, if they want it.
I would have liked to see more of how to avoid said UPFs in our food, making it real food, but it’s a good read and a book I’ll no doubt refer to again.
I let the dogs out again while I went to get dressed, but before I made it to the bedroom I realised one of them had gone AWOL. I had to go outside in my dressing gown, although I did manage to replace my slippers with my garden clogs, and look for the puppy. He’d only gone and got through the fence that not one but two people assured me he wouldn’t get through in a million years, despite my protests to the contrary.
Fortunately, he’d only escaped from the back garden into the front garden, which is walled and the gates were closed. But I know that if a dachshund puppy wants to get through an ornamental gate or over an uneven wall, he will. It should be a truth universally acknowledged that anyone who has never owned a dachshund puppy knows jack shit about what a dachshund puppy can and can’t get through.
Both dogs were then locked inside while I did get dressed, and then I went and spent valuable work time that no one was paying me for re-arranging garden pots of various sizes along the hedge. When I’d finished, the little shit still tried to get out…
I fed the birds and had some play time with the dogs, keeping a close eye on the puppy who’d only gone and found another pot somewhere in the garden and brought it to me (aww, pretending he’s helping…). I didn’t empty the dishwasher because it wasn’t full. All it had in it was my tea things from the day before, a single cereal bowl, a cup and a glass.
When I got to my desk the autumn budget preamble was on the news so I got that all lined up to watch, started today’s blog post, and made my midday breakfast, before settling down to watch the budget…
…which was somehow ‘published’ several minutes before the budget speech began.
Whatever happened, where it happened, and how it happened, this is a complete shambles and was even cited in the House of Commons as a criminal offence. The report was removed as soon as the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) noticed, but even so. It should never have happened in the first place.
Gasted flabbered, and all that, once it was over, I finally settled down to do more editing. In the living room.
Yeah, it’s rough to eat well when it’s so expensive. We’re lucky where we are right now. Although I can’t grow much out on the balcony, we are in the midst of a lot of local farmers. The grocery store prices rose so they’re sometimes highter than the farmers’ market prices, so why not get something from my local farmer, who also comes to my readings and art openings, and is in yoga with me? I’d much rather put my money there, and it’s healthier.
But the whole industrial edible substance thing is so frusstrating.
I wish we had more farmer’s markets and farm shops. We’re surrounded by farms, after all. But that’s bureaucracy for you – many of them aren’t allowed to sell to the general public! In the first village where I lived when I moved up here from Birmingham, there was a massive dairy farm that wasn’t allowed to sell milk to the general public either. They had to send their milk hundreds of miles south to be bottled and sent back!