Death and the Lady
For those interested in these things, I’ve added an update on the ‘diabetes and me’ pages.
There are one or two things I didn’t write there that occurred to me afterwards, so I’m going to put them here.
The first is that, for the most part, I have gone out of my way to avoid processed food and so avoided hidden salt and sugars. Where I’ve had tinned food it has usually been chopped tomatoes or various varieties of beans. Whenever possible, I’ve made everything fresh. A bonus is that most of what I’ve made has been popular in the household too. The one thing I bought recently that was processed was something that I didn’t enjoy – vegetarian sausages. I researched what was available, but they were bland. I have eaten no shop-bought bread, though I have eaten homemade bread, usually made with low-GI spelt flour. Unlike shop-bought bread it contains no added ingredients beyond flour, water, yeast, a little olive oil, a little salt, and a little honey.
That’s all very worthy, but, as is often said, good food is more expensive than cheap processed food. I can enjoy freshly made food, and look for associated health benefits because I can afford to. I moan about prices in the supermarkets, but I don’t have to make sacrifices to buy cheap basics. It’s well known that living in an affluent area can add eight years or so to your life expectancy compared to more deprived areas. Lots of the co-morbidities associated with Covid deaths, especially in the early months of the pandemic, tend to be more prevalent in deprived areas. Health inequality follows financial and other social inequalities.
Secondly, today ought to be my final day of dry January, but I’m going to keep it going through February. I like red wine, I like beer and I like whisky and rum, but I haven’t found their absence a particular hardship. I might allow myself a couple of beers later in the month when I see Wilko Johnson in Glasgow with a couple of pals, but that’ll be it.
***
The death was announced this morning of Norma Waterson. She had been ill for quite sometime, and her family’s fortunes have been savaged by Covid since they depend on live work for their income. She died yesterday afternoon.
Recent Comments