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.
The only “specialist equipment” I have for my newer car is a fault code reader
Me too! I have an OBD II reader I paid $15 for and free software for my phone to read the codes.
You’re right, I sure don’t miss gapping spark plugs with a feeler gauge and making sure the plug wires are making the right connection with the plugs and the distibutor. I know all about a straight six. That’s what my current car has. I do miss having more than a couple inches of room to manoeuvre though.
I did have to borrow special tools when I changed the wheel bearings. Buying them was cost prohibitive.
Farnsworth, you shouldn’t need to fiddle with Weber’s, they’re a fixed jet design. Maybe remove and clean them out from time to time. I had many years back a 4 cylinder car with 2 x twin throat downdraft Weber’s, and it was damned hard to tell without a lot of trial an error if a misfire was electrical or a partially blocked jet. FYI, an Alfa Sud Sprint Veloce, the engine could be a little temperamental at times, but wasn’t half as bad as the tendency of the body to develop hole-through rust spots due to the rubbish contaminated steel used for the panels.
This fart-discrimination article seems like it should have come from Everyday Feminism rather than the site I found it on.
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/05/the-fart-gap-why-red-pillers-think-that-women-should-never-fart-or-fart-shame-their-flatulent-men/
Either way, it’s a gas. Maybe the title sunk it on EF. They’d have wanted to call it “12 Ways To Support Trans-farters Of Color” or something like that.
Why did England keep rationing so long after the war? That seems whacked.
In any case, how are diabetics supposed to fare under this regime? Meat is both tasty and zero carb, while eating a lot of beans, rice, and such seem the opposite of what the doctor ordered.
I’m happy to fix chainsaws, mowers etc. I’m replacing the deck on my house, and I recently fixed the ceiling in my kid’s bedroom. I consider fixing things a standard part of manliness. But at fuel injected modern cars I draw the line.
I’m always a bit suspicious of “you don’t need specialised equipment”, because people who have all the correct tools forget that most people don’t. I would have a choice of doing my car in the dark of my garage, or outside — or paying to install excessive lighting of my garage. And oddly, I don’t have a welder or air compressor, nor room to store such things. I can’t jack my car off the ground even, except one wheel at a time, and that’s not safe to crawl under and I can’t see anything. I don’t really even have room in my garage to fix the car, and I have a reasonably large one for a city dweller.
People who like doing this stuff forget that for most people it is a chore. They don’t mind spending their weekends doing it. For me it simply isn’t cost effective, because I don’t consider my time spent as free. If I “save” a hundred dollars replacing my brakes myself, I have lost out badly — because I simply couldn’t do it where I live without a great deal of unpleasantness. Better hope I don’t need unexpected parts or make a mistake, because getting to work is going to be tricky.
Saying I could do something — while omitting that I would need a large, well-ventilated, well-lit garage, with a proper jack and electrical sockets in order to make it even remotely pleasant — isn’t convincing. I could indeed. I shan’t.
@Bill
@Spiny Norman
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.
I like to ask “Where are all the wounded?”. Combat casualties tend to give you 2-3 seriously injured for every 1 dead, along with 4-5 lightly injured. So 1 million dead should give you, say, 2 million people with missing arms, or in wheelchairs, or with otherwise visible injuries. In a country whose 2003 population was 25 million, that means one in ten. A 30-second clip of an Iraqi souk is enough to disprove that, usually given as a background to some vacant talking head on CNN.
David, my comment linking to Derek Lowe…
Freed.
… my almost daily driver has dual Webers.
I always liked you, Muldoon. Know I know why.
Why did England keep rationing so long after the war? That seems whacked.
Short answer? Because socialism, that’s why.
Longer answer: Britain’s post-war socialist Labour government with Clement Attlee as Prime Minister is often spoken of in reverential terms by the left, but in reality it created a nightmarish situation with fuel and clothing being rationed in addition to food until the mid 1950s, when rationing was ended by the Conservative government of Churchill and his successor Anthony Eden. Many of the shortages were down to the power of the trades unions, where the dock workers (the ports were nationalised) were often on strike as they knew they could effectively hold the country to ransom. Solidarity, eh? The 1945-54 period should serve as yet another warning from history- even in a liberal democracy, a socialist government’s command economy just won’t work. It was a time of great hardship for Britain. My maternal grandmother became a statistic- she died from influenza at the age of 42 during the terrible winter of 1947, when my mother was ten years old. Mum always maintained that the privations and indignities inflicted by food and fuel rationing played a part in her mother’s demise.
“Now I know why”. Aaarrgghh.
Why did England keep rationing so long after the war? That seems whacked.
It was.
It’s largely because the Labour government, elected in 1945, decide to spend the money on setting up the NHS rather than rebuilding Britain’s infrastructure and industries which had been either badly damaged or over-stressed and neglected during the war.
Unfortunately, when Labour were booted out in 1950, Churchill’s administration, instead of changing course,continued Labours policies.
Should’ve refreshed before posting, but yeah, basically what Lancastrian said.
Farnsworth, you shouldn’t need to fiddle with Weber’s, they’re a fixed jet design.
Nope, here you can find all the jets, chokes (venturis), and whatever else you need or want to tune or rebuild a Weber. Granted, it is slightly easier to change the jets on a sidedraft than a downdraft, but you can get those too.
I’m always a bit suspicious of “you don’t need specialised equipment”…
A jack, jack stands, and an LED trouble light are hardly specialized equipment, having used such a set up and ordinary hand tools (I did have to borrow an engine hoist) in my garage and driveway to take the old car apart down to bare metal when I rebuilt it, the Germans not having discovered rustproofing at the time the thing was made. The other advantage of doing something yourself, is you know it was done right
If you don’t want to do something, or don’t have the room to do it, that is fine, I too had the misfortune of having had to live in a big city with no garage (and was hassled by the cops who thought I was trying to steal something when changing the air filter and plugs while parked on the street), but I would imagine if you had to fix something, you would at least try, unlike young Ian would would call the auto club to check his tire pressure.
Bingo. If you enjoy doing that task, then it is free. Insofar as you learn something from it that you can apply elsewhere, well you’ve at least gained something. For the most part, I hire out these sorts of tasks, the sorts that I don’t have equipment for or don’t particularly care or like to do. Once in a while I’ll take one on because I’m curious but mostly because I have the time to dig myself out of any difficulty. When you don’t have the proper equipment handy for the inevitable exception, a 30 minute job can turn into an entire morning shot. Heh…once went to change the air filter/cleaner on my wife’s car. Dropped the stupid wing nut such that it landed on a bracket on the undercarriage just barely out of arm’s reach. Took 30-40 minutes of futzing around to find and retrieve the damn thing. Not that I have pros do something that simple. Then there’s the storage of all that special equipment that I accumulate over time such that when it comes time to use that thing again, I forgot that I had one. Or was at my parents house. Or in my case, my vacation home. Or I thought I sold it at a garage sale…or did I?
I value my time into any project that has no hobby appeal to me at my imaginary “overtime pay” rate. If I can hire a pro for less, factoring in of course the cost of the hassle of finding decent and reliable help, I do so without a second thought.
For some reason, this came to mind. A similarity of attitude, perhaps.
I immediately thought of this Madam.
I know how to replace shingles, but I don’t want to, I have because “…of the hassle of finding decent and reliable help”.
This, however, is the issue, and if clods like Ian get too numerous, there will be a market for professional can openers because this crop of humans can’t be bothered to do things vaguely mechanical. Not wanting to do something is different than never wanting ever to be able to do something yourself because it involves something other than a “smart”phone.
Wait for the landlord, as Ian suggests, to call a plumber to fix a drippy faucet, or take five minutes to change the damn washer yourself. For the supremely lazy and disinterested millenial, Amazon will deliver the washers to your door.
If you don’t want to fix your car don’t. There’s no shame in that. But it was originally suggested that it’s not cost effective to fix today’s cars because they require specialized equipment and that’s just not true.
Because of the internet and services like Amazon, there are huge inefficiencies in car parts prices. You can literally source parts around the world and avoid punishing duties and taxes. Your local garage is simply not going to take the time to source the best price. They will buy from a set group of reliable providers that will charge the garage full pop for the part.
In my post above I mentioned a fuel pump. The garage was going to charge me $565 for that part. I sourced the exact same part for $65. The fuel filter was going to cost $169, I bought it for $47. Then there’s the labour charge. I was quoted 4 hours to change the fuel filter. It took me 45 minutes and required nothing more than a socket set and a screwdriver.
People like to think their time is money. And it may be as far as your job goes, but none of us have people lined up to write us checks to pay our opportunity costs for the rest of the things we do with our time. So like I said there’s no shame in outsourcing a task to a professional, that’s your choice but it’s a myth that today’s cars require specialized equipment to be worked on cost effectively.
Wait for the landlord, as Ian suggests, to call a plumber to fix a drippy faucet
Heh…so this happened, years ago I was in the hardware store picking up some things for fixit stuff when I passed by the plumbing section and for some reason I was sure I had a minor plumbing thing to fix but couldn’t recall wtf it was. So rather than go home and have to turn right around, I constipated on it and constipated on it and then it hit me. It was the damn aerator on a sink in the bathroom AT MY JOB that had been missing for weeks. Dozens of guys in and out through that bathroom using that sink for weeks, not to mention the cleaning staff and probably building maintenance as well. So I dish out the $3.18 for one and screw it on myself that Monday. It’s true, we don’t all wear capes.
“Constipated … and constipated …”?
David, now we know what happened in the WC last week. Our long national nightmare is over.
“Meat” Petter Stordalen, billionaire husband of Gunhild Stordalen the person who funded the EAT-Lancet study.
What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas: