A curry a day keeps Brain-Rot at Bay!

John, I am with you on that problem. I used to like onions in large quantities, I now have to have them in measured doses only, which is a shame because their anti viral qualities are well known.

Garlic is one that I never could stand, it makes me perspire like nothing on earth and then of course I spend the night drinking water by the gallon to calm, not cure the thirst.

Once you move into the exotic range with things like turmeric, then it might make me feel like I am living for ever as I spend the time doubled over, wondering if the loo would be a good idea or a cyanide pill. For several years my wife and I have been unable to go out for a meal as we have had to watch over our daughter 24 hours per day. We have taken her out with us a few times, but her stability is not assured. Anyway last Wednesday we decided that as she was being looked after by a support worker we would go out for a lunchtime meal. We were behind the schedule for our first choice meal so tried a Pizza somewhere else – big error. Something in the flavourings had me out of action for the rest of the day.

One thing that too many ignore is that different groups have evolved to digest things that are endemic to their lives. Others may develop a tolerance over time but many will not, some will go the other way and develop severe reactions such as anaphylaxis. Most northern Europeans can drink milk and eat cheese, other peoples cannot digest them so easily. Some can breakdown alcohol more easily than others, probably because fermented grains and other otherwise indigestible thing were a major source of nutrition in this country for much of historical times. The process of fermentation was also thought to have helped purify the water killing off water born infections.

In other extreme cases things like thalassaemia became endemic because those with the condition resisted malaria better. So they were able to (painfully) reproduce more children, so the list goes on, The Japanese sometimes eat a bracken, unfortunately it is implicated as a cause of stomach cancer, our liking for alcohol is no longer a life saver, etc. the lists are so easily bi-directional.

Many medicines have derived from once natural substances, (aspirin, antibiotics, digitalis, etc.) that have side effects muted and beneficial properties enhanced. Whilst I would be one of the first to admit that side effects are not always eliminated I would also be near the front of the queue to point out that each individual’s genetic make up will be a key to that issue. Some react negatively to treatments because of other co-existing conditions, one daughter cannot use minocycline, several of the family abreact to sedatives, etc. Unfortunately the study of genetic, ethnicity, or food ingestion patterns in relation to conditions and treatments, let alone tests for them is heavily frowned on by the so called social networking crowd.

I am unaware of any move to ban or bar otherwise safe foodstuffs from being ingested by anyone who so desires, though adulterated products do emerge from time to time only to cause severe problems. Adulteration with dangerous industrial colourings being a recent issue that caused problems with imported sub-continent flavourings. Which in my purely personal experience detract rather than add to the food stuffs.

If you are prepared to add extra salt , sugar or anything else to everything  you are allowed to do so and at your own risk.However, its removal for those with different tastes is, shall be agree, is rather difficult. I have not bought Heinz Beans for a good many years, preferring the taste of other suppliers, they use less of the seasoning so beloved by some.

The addition of salt and sugar to processed food, once used as a preservative is no longer needed. Your response appears almost an almost Pavlovian response or a trained pseudo-addiction. Why should others suffer and perhaps die because you chose an unhealthy diet? Give people an honest choice, why not or is compulsion your way, provided it conforms to your view? I noted the snide reference to the ‘food police‘ I can just imagine the antisocial networking response if medical support was withdrawn for those enjoying the self harm from their excesses. For example if their was any move to withdraw treatment for the over weight women stuffing bags of chips through the fence for their over weight kids.

Having almost eliminated the purchase and addition of sugar to drinks for the past 40 years or for that matter the addition of salt to food stuffs we find almost all much commercial food (00ps, big industry again) dreadfully over sweet and salty. Christmas treats are anything but treats as a result. I now find eating out a total lottery as to whether I can find anything edible because of the take over of so called seasoned food, where unpleasant additions (extract of burnt car tyres?) are made to hide the original flavours of the food ingredients. At least you can, should you so wish add the horrible nasties to your own food. Why should I suffer compulsory consumption of unnecessary? Do you really believe that there is no issue with over eating or the consumption of excess empty calories?

I noticed you did not respond to the point about adulterated imported food stuffs.

By the way not all dementia is Alzheimer’s. There are inherited forms, perhaps all are inherited in some way or another, just like thalassaemia; perhaps diet is completely unimportant. Some dementia is vascular dementia, caused by high blood pressure and related to excess salt and possibly genetic factors involved in metabolism; are you suggesting that they do not happen elsewhere due solely to diet?

Your reaction to things, foods, stings and in fact anything is not fixed, you can change your responses to a stimulus. It could be that the mushrooms are different, the garlic is different or that they are all produced by some distant factory which uses a particular oil or fat. I cannot digest some oils, your issue could be something similar. However, as someone whose garlic tolerance does not exist, I have to say it could. just could be the garlic. I believe that there are desensitising programmes which can aim to adjust your responses. Try them at your and your wallet’s peril. I like my mushrooms lightly poached or perhaps crunchy fire with a coating. I discovered how nice they can be by accident, my wife ordered them but due to a physical throat issue could not eat them, her loss, my gain.

That sparked a thought, you possibly have a physical issue in your stomach, perhaps brought on by other treatments or life itself. Erosions, ulcers and the like could play a part, even hernias or changes to gut flora could affect the issue.

I had to stop eating curry after R&R in Hong Kong: I ate a pile of street vendor chicken wings and came out with a really painful, allover body rash, worst around my mouth and nose. Allergy investigation by an Army medic found the culprit to be 2 components of curry. Now I am much older and have virtually destroyed innards, I would be barred from anything spicy anyway, according to one of my consultants. That joins alcohol on the list of prohibited food and drink. I used to love curry. I once stayed with an Army mate in Bradford, at his mum’s apartments above a Bangladeshi restaurant where she worked as cleaner and caretaker. The meals sent up from below were absolutely wonderful.

Ed I understand your antipathy towards the modern Food Police and their methods to extend the Nanny State, but I also understand the reasons for removing much sugar and salt. I see you are a lover of Baked Beans, as am I, but I still buy the only small tins I can get, which are those with reduced s&s. To bring back the “real” taste, I melt a little butter and squirt a little Heinz Tomato Ketchup into the pan of beans, whilst heating them. (By butter I actually mean Clover, and not “Clover Lite”. It fools my taste buds and makes the minimum contribution as a ‘Healthy Spread’)

Richard I understand your own reaction, I also understand that you are maybe having a Bad Day amongst many Bad days. However, Ed is entitled to his own food preferences, as are are we all.

Several things on your Detest List that I have done or eaten over the years Richard!

I grew up in an NCB estate house, dad was a miner. Coal fires and a coal oven, toasting pikelets* (erroneously named ‘crumpets’ by most) over the red embers of a coal fire. Frying chips and anything else available, (in lard) on the same fire, in a well-used, blackened chip pan. Cooking a chicken or other poultry, and bacon, to the point of a crispy skin, in a coal oven: to this day I love crispy chicken skin. I was fortunate enough to have an Army cook as a mate during most of 2 postings of 8 years’ total in BAOR. My breakfast bacon was always crispy if Dave was on duty, just like at home. Had he been better looking, and had each of us been of that inclination, I may well have married him. ??? Fortunately, he was overweight, ugly and both of us were heterosexual. But he was an outstanding cook.

I never add salt to cooking, nor do I add it to any meals and neither does SWMBO. Our parents’ generation added salt to cooking, especially potatoes and vegetables. My own parents never understood cooking by gas or electric, which is why a close eye had to be kept on them daily when they moved to a brand new Sheltered Housing flat. The sight of my dad attempting to “grill some eggs” under a gas oven grill, was enough to demonstrate that.

Cereals are another matter. I used to love Honey Shreddies, but they have been removed from the shelves and I cannot now find them anywhere. So I eat “ordinary” Shreddies, with a ¼ teaspoon of sugar. I only eat wholemeal bread from a local baker. I am guilty of eating thin slices of lean boiled ham or roast beef, from a local butcher, on granary rolls (rolls are “cobs” in Nottinghamshire).

I make my food decisions based not upon what the veggie and Healthy eating brigade think I should eat, but what I like and what is proven to not upset my wrecked digestion. My one vice is McVities Digestive and/or Hovis biccies. I really do not know how I got to be almost 73: grew up eating food fried with lard, toast with beef dripping or lashings of butter, cooking with salt, the list goes on.

*Pikelets were invented by Cromwell’s Model Army during the English Civil War. Lumps of aerated dough in a simple but special recipe, cooked over an open fire on the end of a 10 to 12 foot Pike. First used, I believe, in the siege of Newark Castle, hence the word is recognised all over the eastern East Midlands.

Best jacket potatoes ever – done in the embers of a bonfire, wrapped in tinfoil, butter melted in and baked beans on top/inside. Sometimes we cooked the beans in their tin in the same fire.

Some people need a lot of salt, back in 2016 I helped Sean Conway on the cycling leg of his ridiculous triathlon around the UK. I cycled with him from Cardiff to Barry and gave him pointers on getting further easier (local knowledge). He has to add salt to virtually everything as his sweat contains 4 times as much salt as a normal persons and nobody knows why.