Food as Medicine

It is rather ironic that those most connected to food are producing the least nutritious food. Mass grown soya, mangos, avocados, wheat are full of herbicides, growth enhancers and weed-killer. Celery often contains over 28 chemicals. . Mass produced poultry, beef and lamb are fed questionable food, live in dreadful conditions and are slaughtered with little care to their pain. A clip on ducks on Youtube shows ducks strung up by their little webbed feet, squaking and writhing as the conveyor belt to which they are roughly attached reaches a large tin of boiling water, in which they are dipped before having their necks cut. They are terrified. I have not ben able to touch duck since viewing this.

All of these methods has all been well documented and there have been numerous investigations, but people are not that interested. We also know that fast food outlets do not produce high quality nutritious food. What they do, is produce eye pleasing cheap food.

But alarming information is coming out now regarding large catering units. They no longer prepare and cook the food themselves. Instead, they buy-in prepared food. This food has been mass prepared and put into individual plastic trays, which are then reheated/microwaved in the institution . These institutions can be schools, hospitals, prisons, company cafeterias. Maybe this is practical? However, what is raising concerns is the labeling. Much is labeled UK food. But that is just half the story. Much of the chicken comes in from Asia, has been dried, exported and re-hydrated, portioned and placed in the plastic trays with some sauce poured over it. The same goes for the vegetables. Chopped fruit is prepared in vast units, mixed together and portioned.. People assume, which is always dangerous, that if it is labeled British, it reaches certain standards. That, alas is false.

Somewhere at the end of this chain is you, lying in your hospital bed, recovering from some medical intervention, needing nutritious food to heal your systems, calm your trauma and raise your spirits. The reality is that by the time this food arrives at your bedside, it is probably at best, luke warm and tasteless.. , served with little fanfare and if you do not eat it, it is just taken away and dumped. The amount of waste food from hospitals is huge.

Hospitals have huge 'food; budgets. Sounds great. However, included in this food is all the money spent of drips, tube feeding etc. The new Children's hospital in St James' Hospital is being built on where the old kitchens used to be. Now , they have huge larders, with lots of shelving to take in all these trays of plastic trays. I will not even go into the provence of the lassagne.

Heather Humphries wants to provide hot meals for all schools. Note the word hot, not nutritious or tasty. Today's children already are fed huge mass amounts of mass produced food by their parents. Many 15 year olds do not eat, spinach, courgette, red cabbage, leeks, etc. Many have never taken a whole piece of fruit. They have no idea how to peel an orange or quarter a pear. The food is to be served at their desks, pro-ordered, pre-cooked.

Already the distribution of food in the DEIS schools is not great. Often, the children are given 2 crackers and a piece of cheese, as breakfast, at 10:30. This is followed up by the 'hot' meal at 12:30 when the children are not hungry. So, lots gets thrown out. Whatever happened Shepherd's pie, pulled pork in pastry, cchowder, and toad in the hole. ?

ChatGPT

This new app is increasingly being used in Recruitment companies. It sounds great. Feed in the Cvs and the app does all the work. Condenses the Cvs so they all have the same formaty, sends out the Cvs to interested clients but because it is automated, it is easier to programme the app to disallow for example, older workers, people with qualifications from outside Europe, disallowing anyone with any sort of disability etc. What is does not do is check if what is on the CV is true.

Increasingly, with so many people having 3rd level qualifications, experience, soft skills and interpersonal skills are becoming more sought after. The technicians will probably come up with some formulae that convey some of these skills, . Companies are discriminating on age for various reasons. Older workers are considered more expensive. If they agree to work for less money, it is considered sispect. Older workers are also more likely to question how and why they are working. Companies are aware of the many changes that Covid produced and while they can understand why many people prefer to work from home rather than spend 2-3 hours commuting, the lack of comradeship is affecting how teams work together and their loyalty to each other. Work has become more competitive and people are having to spend mpore time developing thewir own persona. It is also difficult to demonstrate how effective you are in participating in a team on the ChatGPT app. We can see the diference between the Irish rugby team now when the whoile team together ethos is encouraged rather than before when everyone saw everyone else as an opponent to their chance of getting on the team.

Hoping you are all getting along well. great results coming through from those who have opted top get involved with Tour Guiding. You can work your own hours, plan your own tour and meet lots pof new people. Tourism figures are iup. Irish people are also happy to do a local tour.

Spring is sprung and Summer is on the way. All is well in the world.