The offensive food fanatic and the evils of cake

I have always had a fair deal of respect for nutritionist Rosemary Stanton but realised yesterday that this is only because I haven’t been paying attention.   Not sure if the rest of you caught it, but Mrs Stanton has launched a pretty out-there tirade against Bindy Irwin’s new commercial deal as the public face of a particularly sinister company. Not Union Carbide or Exxon or British Aerospace but the baking products conglomerate Greens General Foods, one of the shadiest players in the evil cake trade. ........   It’s a good thing Mrs Stanton doesn’t know our address, or the addresses of our many mates with young kids, as we’ve all adopted a totally reckless attitude to child-rearing where we regard baking the odd cake with the kids as enjoyable family time, a great way to introduce them to cooking, especially with a good packet mix because they can do it all by themselves, with the added bonus that you can eat something tasty afterwards or take it down to the park for a picnic. We’re lucky DOCS [a famously bungling government child-welfare agency] haven’t come around. It’s cloud cuckoo land stuff which wouldn’t matter if not for the fact that Rosemary Stanton, author of 25 books on diet and nutrition, is on the Federal Government speed-dial for advice on health and wellbeing issues, one of those superficially innocuous right-thinking people who only has all our interests at heart. The Punch   Via the Food & Health Skeptic     At last, somebody has had the balls in the mainstream media to take on Rosemary Stanton and the rest of the increasingly shrill and demented food police!   This woman really should just be ignored by sensible people.   And despite the patina of science that covers so much of the advice and hectoring and lecturing and nagging about our food these days, the real science in reality says something quite different.   One properly randomised double-blind trial after another has failed to confirm most of the warnings about red meat, sugar or fat, let alone cake!   The trouble is that there is so much noise created by these hysterical puritans and their dodgy epidemiological "studies" that people get spooked.   And is it any wonder that increasing numbers of kids are presenting with eating disorders? They're being made neurotic about food while still in primary school.   I'm sorry, but this is just another form of child abuse in my view.   So I heartily agree and absolutely endorse The Punch's closing advice to parents, because it is just so sane and reasonable:   "Anyway here’s a link to Greens Traditional Chocolate Cake. Buy some and feed it to your kids."   Oh, and ignore Mrs Stanton.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous