Daft Old Duffer returns. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Whenever the question of diet pops up in and on the media – boringly frequently to my mind – some bunch of doctors or dieticians will take pains to warn us that, whatever else we do, a good hearty breakfast is essential to our well being.
If we don’t start the day off with a thorough cramming of our gut – we are assured – we will become diseased, die early, the cat will leave home and we’ll never see our children again.
A half-ton of horse feathers served on haybale toast and garnished with male cow product, in my opinion.
Not me guv
In all my many decades of life I can count on the fingers of one and a half hands the number of times I’ve started off my day with a meal.
A trait I share with just about everyone. In Africa, China or Asia.
As well as, I believe, many Europeans.
In large parts of France, for example, the idea of stuffing one’s gut within minutes of getting out of bed would be regarded as downright uncivilised.
Why ever not?
Yet whenever I confess to starting my day with two cups of black coffee and a pee, I’m met with a chorus of;
“what, you don’t eat breakfast?”
“Nothing at all? You’ll make yourself ill!”
“I simply couldn’t survive without a good meal inside me to start the day!”
How about you?
So here’s my challenge:
Do you honestly – honestly – eat a ‘proper’ cooked breakfast on at least most days of the week? What about this morning – something solid to add to that belly, or just a bowl of cereal and a cuppa?
What about yesterday – and the day before that?
You’re anonymous, so you can be truthful. The neighbours won’t sneer.
If I’m proved wrong I’ll eat humble pie. For breakfast.
But I’ll need some convincing.
And on similar lines
During the period when jogging was all the ton, a friend pointed out how dangerous it was, and that the A&E departments of the hospitals were full of fit looking people with strained knees and ankles, or bumps and bruises and broken bones, as a result of bumping into things, falling down holes or being run over by passing traffic.
And now it has been announced that overmuch pursuit of physical fitness can do damage to the heart as well.
Think I’ll just get another cushion for my fit and healthy back.
Image: Alpha under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license
