Healthy Eating

I am all for healthy eating! Being, what my doctor described as a "Fat slob," I understand the need for care in the diet. However this word crossed my path a short time ago, 'Tunnocks Caramel Log!' Immediately I was transported back to my youth a few short years ago. The very good remembrance of caramel logs being stuffed in my fat gob has never left me. Tunnocks, as some may well know, are responsible for more tooth decay in Scotland than any other company! Their wide range of products are chomped on worldwide, and many a dentist has grown rich on his patients love of the Uddingston giants.

All Scots kids develop the sweet tooth by beginning on a Tea Cake or two as a treat, brought out when visitors are in, and progress onto Caramel Wafers and Caramel logs, often suffering the Snowballs on they way. Oh let me suffer mother!!!! It is possible to buy these lovely products worldwide, especially now the internet has changed shopping habits. Several companies at home and abroad make vast profits from the exiled Scots nostalgia for trips to the NHS dentist. I remember the needle being inserted while the dentist muttered, "This will not hurt a bit, be a good soldier." I assure you he lied! Tunnocks were of course not the only people to cash in on the sweet tooth. I once took to a cheap chewing gum and happily received seven fillings because of this disgusting habit! Now all chewing gums and many soft drinks, use Aspartame, a substance with a dubious record, instead of sugar, the products often advertised as 'sugar free.'
I recommend a web search on this product as it is used by so many products and little information regarding the possible problems comes to our attention. I would rather have sugar myself!

The Scots childs love of sweets and the adults love of drink and chips helps make the nation one of the unhealthiest in the world! I suppose having such dreich weather does not help. The idea of cold mackerel and salad while the dark gray clouds unleash heavy drops of cold rain rarely appeals as much as spam fritters and chips, with a whisky follower! Not that I would know of course, I am only going of what others tell me here. However when I left Edinburgh's gray skies in 1975, the sun shone that day and I, grasping the money collected for me by my work colleagues - enough for a one way trip to London - I left a society in which red and green peppers were considered 'exotic. Such things really were unknown outside of the middle class shops we could never afford (start playing the violins now). Until the Patels came flooding in from West Africa in 1973 Edinburgh shops still worked a simple routine. They opened at 9, closed from 12 - 1 and closed sharp at 5 p.m. like it or not! The Pakis, as we then called them (well except Mr Khayam, "I'm an Indian, not a bloody Paki!" and being 6'2" and a very good customer in the cash & carry I worked, we submitted to his will) opened their shops from 8 a.m. and did not close till 6 in the evening, one staying open until 7. This small change in the approach revolutionised Edinburgh and it has never looked back. We owe such Pa...Asians, a great deal! However, in spite of tropical fruits and veg, Scots are just as fat as everybody else.

But while I agree with a better 'Veg filled' diet, honest, I have to say that as long as Caramel Logs exist, I will want to eat them! Bring them on I say!