2612. What’s for dinner?

Luke couldn’t decide what to have for dinner. He grabbed a magazine for ideas. These magazines nearly always had a healthy recipe section. There were handy dietary tips scattered throughout the pages.

Chickpeas are very healthy.
Cranberries are very healthy.
Figs are very healthy.
Flax seeds are very healthy.
Chili peppers are very healthy.
Ginger is very healthy.
Grapefruit are very healthy.
Green tea is very healthy.
Kidney beans are very healthy.
Oranges are very healthy.
Kale is very healthy.
Garlic is very healthy.
Lentils are very healthy.
Almonds are very healthy.
Pomegranates are very healthy.
Blueberries are very healthy.
Beets are very healthy.
Salmon is very healthy.
Turmeric is very healthy.
Apples are very healthy.
Avocados are very healthy.

In the end Luke decided to have pork chops, deep-fried French fries, and lashings of salt and ketchup.

Footnote: Hi Everyone. These days I’m not too good at reading your blogs. I apologize. I have eye cataracts and can’t see a great deal without effort! I’m on the waiting list to get them “done” but when that will be (under New Zealand’s medical waiting list) I have no idea. I have trouble finding the cursor on the computer screen even though I’ve made it large and bright red! My postings may get a bit haphazard as well. So this is simply to let you know why I’m going to be a bit erratic (I said “erratic”) and I’m not looking for sympathy (unlike Prince Harry). I’m tired of thinking every tree stump is a cow! So in the meantime – yjsml upi gpt upit ytience.

1801. A dollop of cream

Norbert Burtonshaw was heavily into natural food. By “natural” I mean organic and unprocessed. He liked to grow things himself and then he knew for sure what he was putting into his mouth. He grew lots of sunflowers and pumpkins. That way he could dry the seeds in the sun and spend a gloomy winter gobbling them up. If one needs to nibble between meals, what better than a sunflower or pumpkin seed or two?

His wife, whose full name was Constantia Margaret Burtonshaw, thought that Norbert’s obsession with food was ridiculous. “You’re not a canary,” she would say. “If God intended you to be a canary he would’ve given you a singing voice.” And indeed, she was right; Norbert didn’t have a musical note in his skinny body.

In the meantime, Constantia Margaret Burtonshaw would get stuck into her meal of animal fats and salt and sugar and everything under the sun that was processed and came out of a packet. Constantia called herself buxom; others called her fat.

Constantia and Norbert had drifted apart over the years, although they still lived at the same address. They never shared a meal together; their preferences were so vastly different. And then one day, Norbert dropped dead. Most people were expecting it to be the other way around.

At the post-funeral cup of coffee, Constantia Margaret Burtonshaw served a variety of little cakes imbued with all sorts of seeds that made a mess. “These little cakes are to celebrate the life of my late husband,” said Constantia. “However,” continued Constantia, “there are little bowls of whipped cream on the tables, and one can place a dollop of cream on each little cake if one isn’t a canary.”

1720. Unhealthy food

Loreta had embraced the relatively new fields of genomics, pharmacogenomics, biogenics and epigenetics. She knew the possible carcinogenic outcome of eating genetically modified tomatoes. She knew that low-fat yoghurt was unhealthy. Shrimps could cause gout. She knew that red meat was… need one go on? In fact, Loreta had made an extensive list of what not to eat and the dire consequence if one did.

Anyway, the coroner determined that the cause of her death was malnutrition.

1029. Fastidious Johnnie

Claudia and Johnnie had been married for a good number of years. Over time, things that Johnnie did, little mannerisms and habits, began to annoy Claudia. Why, for example, did he always have to brush down the seat of the sofa before sitting down? The same for getting into the car. It was driving Claudia nuts.

There were other things too. The big annoyance was that he was older than she was. He had retired and stayed at home all day, while she still went to work. Talk about lazy. She almost pined for the day when he would pass away and she could live an independent life the way she wanted it. His fastidiousness was a constant aggravation.

Claudia thought Johnnie was eating unhealthily at lunch time when she wasn’t there. She began to prepare and leave healthy food for him to eat; organic fillings with gluten-free bread rolls, supplementary vitamin pills, non-fatty meats, and so on. No salt of course; never any salt.

After several months, Claudia discovered that Johnnie wasn’t eating the stuff she had prepared. He was eating junk food and hiding her preparations in the trash. No wonder the poison hadn’t worked.

961. Seeds

Leigh was into health food. She had an overabundance of tomatoes this year and decided to make and freeze some soup.

Of course, the thing she most disliked about making tomato soup was skinning the tomatoes, and removing the seeds. Seeds in tomato soup! Never! All the recipes said to take them out, and she did. What a task!

And so to make some healthy bread. Now where did she put that carton of seeds?

To listen to the story being read click HERE!

814. Skipping breakfast

Hunter Hetherington was a great proponent of the healthy breakfast. Skipping breakfast has pretty consistently been linked to health risks: high blood pressure, overweight, and an unhealthy assortment of blood-fats.

Hunter never skipped breakfast. You could say he was a health fanatic. Men who skip breakfast, he said, were 27% more likely to experience a heart attack or to die as the result of coronary heart disease. The men who skip breakfast were more likely to be single, smokers, employed full-time, to drink more alcohol, were younger, and were less likely to be physically active than people who ate breakfast.

Let us learn from what Hunter Hetherington says, as today we gather to mourn his sudden passing.

To listen to the story being read click HERE!