One Tenth Of A Sausage
Christopher Snowdon attempts to feed himself for a day while abiding by the Lancet’s latest nutritional guidelines:
There’s breakfast, and lunch, and a lovely chicken dinner.
Readers are advised that Mr Snowdon is seen handling a dangerous quantity of bacon.
‘Six eggs should last you all month’. 😀
I understand that the sheila [Gunhild Stordalen] promoting or underwriting this campaign against eating meat is a multi-millionairess who jets around the world in a private plane worth about $20 million. So we peasants can eat an odd sausage to save the planet while she burn av-gas in her jaunts around the world: recent trips out and about have included Mexico, Greece, Costa Rica, Antibes, Cuba and St Tropez.
Jim
And note the term “choice editing,” which is wonderfully coy.
@NTSOG
Guido has the story here.
“Let them eat cake.”
But without the cake.
“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank The Lancet for raising the sausage ration to seven grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to seven grams a week…”
My apologies to Orwell.
“Despite none of the “expert panel” actually following the diet themselves…”
I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people telling me it is behave as though it is.
I see this sort of official guidance, propaganda, and legislation as just more movement towards taking the joy out of life. Joyous people difficult to control. They get wild notions and smile a lot. This makes bureaucrats very nervous.
Thought I should let you know I’m preparing a stew with a potentially lethal quantity of chicken and ginger. If posting ceases abruptly, you’ll know why.
Actually this is nothing new, just a new package. In the past it has gone by names such as “The Hanoi Hilton Diet”, “The Bataan Diet”, “The Chavez-Maduro Diet”, “The Holomodor”, and many others.
It’s nothing new, one egg a week was more or less what an adult expected to get under the British food ration that was in force from around 1939-1953. Nutritionally adequate, in fact the “choice editing” meant that a lot of people were eating healthier – more brown bread and vegetables, less bacon fried in lard. But boring, bad for morale, and not a lot of room for treats – you could bake a small cake if you gave up your egg and sugar ration for a fortnight.
There’s a lovely scene of post-war hope in David Lean’s 1949 film The Passionate Friends. Ann Todd is looking out the window of the airplane that’s speeding her from dreary old England to Switzerland, but more wonderful than this aviation miracle is the breakfast she’s served of white bread and butter and non-ersatz coffee.
If that’s what it takes to save the planet, then to hell with the planet.
Sorry, Gaia, you’re on your own.
It’s this sort of nonsense that accounts for the decline of the West.
a multi-millionairess who jets around the world in a private plane worth about $20 million.
For some reason, this came to mind. A similarity of attitude, perhaps.
How long ago was the Lancet taken over by political fanatics?
Adam,
Joyous people difficult to control. They get wild notions and smile a lot. This makes bureaucrats very nervous.
I would imagine people laughing makes them piss themselves and retreat to the designated safe space.
David,
From the link:
Well, I think it’s obvious Mr Skideslsky never imagines that the restrictions he would like to impose would ever inconvenience him in any way at all.
Mr Skideslsky never imagines that the restrictions he would like to impose would ever inconvenience him in any way at all.
He sees himself as management; not, like us, livestock.
How long ago was the Lancet taken over by political fanatics?
At least as far back as the Gulf war under W. They published some estimate of Iraqi civilian fatalities (in a health mag? Shhh, they’re rolling.) that used the Maths to prove that it was some insanely high number.
I’m sorry to rehash the bacon wars but that’s not bacon he’s handling it’s cured pork loin and it’s very lean. Bacon is cut from the belly and is deliciously made of fat.
Let the chips (crisps?) fall where they may.
Bill,
…used the Maths to prove that it was some insanely high number.
It’s pretty much public consensus these days that the number of Iraqi casualties is between 1.5 million and 1.7 million. When I ask someone citing that ridiculous figure “where are all the mass graves?”, I’m typically subjected to a stream of insults.
It reminds me of my Grandmother’s stories of rationing in the last war. She kept 49 chickens. Never 50, because then you had to give all your eggs to the government. 49 chickens and you kept all the eggs and bartered with the butcher for extra meat. My mother was one of the first children in Britain to get a banana after the war thanks to those 49 chickens.
Of course PHE lives the idea of wartime rationing, just for the war to never end.
“but more wonderful than this aviation miracle is the breakfast she’s served of white bread and butter and non-ersatz coffee.”
My grandfather drank chicory coffee till the day he died. Gained a taste for it during the war and could never get used to the real stuff.
“It reminds me of my Grandmother’s stories of rationing in the last war. She kept 49 chickens. Never 50, because then you had to give all your eggs to the government.”
My great-grandmother did the same, although I’m not sure she ever troubled the 50-hen limit. My dad can still annoy my mum by recalling that he never wanted for eggs during the war. (He was in his early teens, but she wouldn’t even be at school yet. These things stick with you.)
Using food as power control
They state their preferred option bluntly: ‘restrict choice’ or, better still, ‘eliminate choice’.
Reminds me of Heinlein’s juvenile Farmer in the Sky where global Earth government restricts all citizen diets to 2500 calories per day via rationing (the protagonist enters in the calories of meals he takes from the freezer on the smart refrigerator so he and his dad don’t fall short of food by the end of the month).
How long ago was the Lancet taken over by political fanatics?
An air of authoritarian condescension is hardly unknown among medical professionals, especially those working in the NHS.
Using food as power control
A favorite of authoritarians through the ages. During the Siege of Leningrad, Field Marshal von Leeb made the deliberate decision not to try to occupy the city because then the Germans would have been responsible for feeding the people who ultimately were reduced to about 150 grams of bread per day. OTOH, unlike the Lancet BS, they could eat all the dead horse meat they could scrounge, so there is that.
20 years or so ago when I somewhat joked with my doctor that this is where we are headed regarding these control freaks and the nutritionists and diet Nazis, he assured me that such things would never happen. Y’all worry too much.
Well, a vegan diet is more appropriate to creating the Appropriate Post-Masculine Man.
Darleens remark immediately clarified a thought I’ve had a lot recently.
That is, that proponents of “post-masculinity”, “the future is female” etc. have in the back of their minds their real vision.
It’s not the end of Animal Farm, I think. It’s Brave New World.
Alphas (themselves, natch), Betas (for entertainment) and a horde of Epsilon-minus machine tenders.
I think they’re more likely to get the Eloi-Morlock thing, instead.
I think we’re at least halfway there already, Fred.
Well, a vegan diet is more appropriate to creating the Appropriate Post-Masculine Man.
One at a time, ladies. No pushing.
re Post Masculine Man – Holding Your Emotions In: ”the model man was stoic: the strong, silent type who never cried and wouldn’t admit when something made him sad or afraid. Let’s leave that whole concept in the past where it belongs.”
Who says ”that whole concept” belongs in the past? The dictators of the socialist left who can only operate in packs of like-minded and generally bullying mobs?
Well I’m significantly autistic and the ’emotional’ population [aka neurotypicals] completely sap my energy with their increasing emotionalism and decreasing logic. Hence I have always spent much of my time trying to be alone and repair the damage their corrosive, vomiting emotionalism causes as it spews all over me. Thank God I’m retired from education – I was always chronically ill and run down trying to protect the integrity of my Self from the intrusive and needy emotionalism of, especially touchy-feely, SJWs. I now spend about 95% of my time alone with my animals on my farm and have never been healthier and calmer keeping my emotions – they are mine – to myself. As Maxwell Smart said ”Und damit gefuhlt”.
I take great pride in being independently able and solving problems for myself.
…the Appropriate Post-Masculine Man.
It is somewhat reassuring to not that every comment to that was trashing the author.
I am still trying to figure out how hunting and cooking for one’s self are mutually exclusive, or how knowing how to code will come in hand for fixing a flat, let alone re-jetting a carburetor (carburettor for those what grew up with extra letters…).
the ’emotional’ population [aka neurotypicals] completely sap my energy with their increasing emotionalism
I supervise 38 women (and 2 men) – had my first staff meeting of the new year this past Wed and the agenda included revisiting the civility policy I wrote (and update).
I take a page from Dennis Prager and tell them that “bad moods” are as acceptable in the workplace as body order or bad breath. They should share their troubles, issues, emotions with family or close friends, but don’t inflict your emotions on your co-workers.
(I get to retire from the county in 8 months 29 days … but whose counting?)
The perfect compliment to your 7 grams of bacon, a dram of woke scotch.
Note the “subtle: logo change for this swill.
a dram of woke scotch.
I guess they don’t like Jews as customers.
a dram of woke scotch.
The sky is so bedazzled with virtue signals Commissioner Gordon will never get a message to Batman again.
I guess they don’t like Jews as customers.
I think, based on these “Jane Walker” “posters”, they haven’t a clue as to the demographic that generally drinks scotch, even blended (spit) scotch,
Speaking of those idiot posters, this guy’s wife’s boyfriend made him carry one.
On the topic of posters, this tuliphead misspelled “and” as “or”.
On the topic of posters, this tuliphead misspelled “and” as “or”.
On the upside, it’s good to know at a glance, from a distance, which people are best avoided.
“He sees himself as management; not, like us, livestock.”
I think that attitude applies to almost everyone and group that is ridiculed and detested by the visitors here at David’s Animal Farm.
I am still trying to figure out how hunting and cooking for one’s self are mutually exclusive
Cuz we all know that every boy is taught how to toss the dead deer on the table and force the little woman to make sammiches out of it. While barefoot. And pregnant.
The problem is not that it has been taken over. The problem is that it, like Nature and Science, has been anointed as the highest prestige journal in its field. And to keep this, it tends to publish not the best research — which is often boring and doesn’t get eyeballs — but the most provocative articles. The MMR vaccine fiasco wasn’t because of their politics, but because they saw that as a blockbuster (which it was). It’s why the Lancet has stopped being about medicine, and now is an expensive Scientific American.
What people haven’t cottoned on to, is that an article in the Lancet now has at least a 50% chance of being entirely wrong, even if entirely non-political. It’s now more a journal of speculation than research. When people eventually work that out, it will sink. Good riddance!
Chester et al,
I linked this in a comment at Althouse, but it applies here re: SciAm, Lancet, Economist, Atlantic mags…
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/01/10/learning-some-science-at-last
Pull quote:
“My particular favourite is the periodic table, which I had never even heard a year ago.”
I think that attitude applies to almost everyone and group that is ridiculed and detested by the visitors here at David’s Animal Farm.
Heh. Four legs good, two legs better.
It’s why the Lancet has stopped being about medicine, and now is an expensive Scientific American.
A bit of distinction needs to be made, there is The Lancet, and then the Lancet specialty journals (Lancet Neurology, Lancet Hæmatology, etc.). The latter are respectable (in general) still because they stay in their lanes, but, as you allude, The Lancet is a tarted up Weekly Worker (Woker ?) masquerading as a science journal.
It is no better on this side of the pond JAMA is a equally a joke*, but then only about 13% of US docs belong to the AMA, and the once proud NEJM has articles pimping climate change malarky.
The problem is that the editorial boards have been taken over by the academic types (and we know how that works) and not the grunt docs actually touching patients – mainly because they don’t have time for this BS. Well, maybe the shrinks, but they don’t actually touch patients, except maybe in California.
*Please file Dr. Mgbako’s story in the category of “Tales of the Unbelievable”, cross reference with “Woke Five Year Old’s Sayings”
David, my comment linking to Derek Lowe seems to have instantly evaporated
Not exactly the best example given that no modern cars have them — you might as well have said “let alone how to string a crossbow”. Both are now very much in the hobbyist category, rather than life-skills.
Because you need specialist equipment to fix modern car engines it is no longer cost-effective to do it yourself. At that point you may as well outsource the brakes and suspension and the stuff you can do yourself — unless you actively want to do it. It’s much more cost effective to be able to replace the battery, memory etc of your various phones and computers rather than rely on shops to do something so easy. Men even enjoy tinkering. (Wanting a man to be able to code is reaching — what would most people want coded? The “being able to code” is just a new variant on “I am more muscly than you” — it merely replaces one arbitrary “manliness” with another. For the record, I can and do code, but I don’t think it makes me a better person.).
Our “Obsolete Man Skills” writer must be a real pussy though. He thinks being able to fight is obsolete. But it’s not being able to that is the issue — it’s being prepared to. I haven’t had much need to resort to physical violence in my life, but life has been a lot easier because people realise that if push came to shove I’m prepared to go there.
If you’re so wimpy that you can’t at least threaten violence, even if the crazy rage fighting of a nerd pushed too far, then you are simply a mark. You don’t have to be any good at fighting, you merely need to persuade the other person that you are prepared to hurt them.
In my later life I’ve had a couple of major stoushes, but of the modern kind — where a boss or fellow worker tries to take advantage and I refuse to back down. I can’t help thinking that people who lack physical confidence won’t just fold equally quickly in such situations. I certainly know other people who did back down rather than take someone on, to their detriment. (Note we’re frequently told this is one reason women are paid less than men, but no-one seems to link you’re preparedness to fight as something that comes from physical confidence.)
Not exactly the best example given that no modern cars have them
Cars may not have carburetors but lawnmowers and snowblowers do. I know because I disassembled and cleaned one of each in November.
Because you need specialist equipment to fix modern car engines it is no longer cost-effective to do it yourself.
That’s what I used to think too until I got a quote of $3,500 to replace a fuel pump, fuel filter, a thermostat assembly, and a head cover gasket. I did it myself for $300. There are incredible DIY videos that show you how to do these things. That’s not to say I would be able to fix everything on my car but there are a lot of things you can still do for yourself at a tenth of the cost. It was as easy as the computer examples you gave and required no specialized equipment.
”Cars may not have carburetors but lawnmowers and snowblowers do.”
I have to agree Steve: I’m always working on one or other of my two tractors, brush-cutter, chainsaws, fire fighting pumps and so on. Then there are bicycle wheels to build or broken spokes to replace and the wobbling rims to be trued. Welding to be done on broken equipment and so on.
Jim
Cars may not have carburetors but lawnmowers and snowblowers do.
As my disappeared post noted, my almost daily driver has dual Webers, so for me, carb tweaking is a life skill.
The only “specialist equipment” I have for my newer car is a fault code reader, and software to tweak the ECU. To tag team Steve, changing plugs and coil packs is easier than plugs, coil, wires, distributor cap, condenser, points, and setting the latter. Everything else bolts on as if it were a 1950 DeSoto straight six, just in different places. OK a fuel injected DeSoto.
The only special tools I would need if I wanted to change the cams, or do a complete rebuild.