I will not have this.

Oh dear, little miss McKeith. It looks like the enemy won in the end after all ... well certainly triumphed in this decade at least. How did you eat so healthily and come out looking like a shrivelled old prune at the ripe age of 51, whereas Nigella has had fun all of her life and still echoes a radiant glow. Nigella eats lots of yummy things like chocolate and cake and wine and cigs on a daily basis, whereas Gillian worries about shelling hemp seeds all morning. Alongside the occasional glance at a stranger's faeces to check that "everything's normal" (is it? Define normal) she believes in holistic medicine and even has some qualifications in them. Apparently. So this gives her a bit of authority to boss people about and criticise what most people would call "balanced" diets because they didn't include enough of her own super expensive product that didn't do very much anyway. Who honestly has linseed and goji berries for a nutritious and revitalising snack? I've lived the best part of my life without them, so I don't really see any reason to start now.

What worries me most is that her original degree was nothing science-based whatsoever, but events and people management. Well, somewhere along that vein, as she ended up getting an honorary masters in international relations when she worked in America. I wouldn't really say that she was one that had been called up for helping the Cold War negotiations, judging by her people skills on TV. She reminds me of a witch.
After that, she goes out to get her MA and PhD in Holistic Nutrition, a course completed long-distance, of course. What really gets to me though, is that this course wasn't even accredited as it was organised by the American Holistic College of Nutrition, another bunch of new-age mumbo jumbos. How has she been allowed to practise and get so much publicity over here when there are plenty of good nutritionists and dieticians who have got a reputable qualification from a well-established university? This Holistic College of Nutrition ended up changing its name and then disbanding, so those "degrees" are worthless for all I care.

I think Gill's love of blue green algae may have something to do with her demise. She wrote a thesis on it (without conclusive evidence, of course...)as well as singing its praises, despite the fact that she's been consuming something that releases potentially harmful amounts of toxins into the blood (cyanobacteria). I don't think they even taught her any science on this course either, because she talks about consuming darker green leaves because they have more chlorophyll, and therefore can "oxygenate the blood better". WHAT? I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT SHE'S TRYING TO SAY.
First of all, leaves only produce oxygen through photosynthesis, which requires them to be alive and near a light source. However, if the leaf's no longer part of the plant, it can't make any extra oxygen... and there is certainly not enough light in your digestive tract to allow a plant to continue with photosynthesis. So, that's no extra oxygen going into the bloodstream, but perhaps she's referring to the way that it is carried around the blood? Actually, I can see a bit of sense in there. It took a little extrapolation and interpretation to guess that the darker the veg, the more rich in iron it will be. Iron is found in haemoglobin, the bit that makes oxygen stick to the red blood cells and carries it to where it needs to be in the body. Hooray! Does she get a point for that? ...No. What she doesn't realise is that oxidising or "oxygenating" these cells is going to lead the organism to an eventual death, where the cells have fully oxidated and just broken. Ah, oxygen. Our two-faced double-edge sword.

She's a big fan of her detoxes as well. Take her favourite standard detox, which eliminates 12 different foods, or, as she likes to call them, "toxic terrors" (and proves that she can't count),

smoking; caffeine; alcohol; chocolate and sweet snacks; pub snacks such as crisps, nuts, and pork scratchings; processed meat; white bread, white pasta, white rice; products containing added sugar; takeaways and ready meals; table salt; saturated fats; and fizzy drinks

How bloody boring. No wonder she looks so miserable at that age. Telling so many people to stop living their life as they wish and become obsessed with superfruits? I think not. I wouldn't trust a word she says, and especially not when it comes to colonic irrigation. *Shudder*

There are too many fussy eaters out there these days.

One of the "not-so fussy"

I mean, I should know, seeing as I'm one of the many of them. However, I'm not fussy to the extent where I will only eat food that is white, or solely potato wedges and spaghetti hoops, nor do I have to ensure that everything is cut to an equal side and must be ate in a certain order (however, if it's all set out nicely on a plate, broccoli should be eaten last). Well, I guess that's basically bordering on obsessive compulsive behaviour. However, too many people have some really crap food habits, like not liking vegetables. Agreed, mushrooms, sprouts and aubergine are vile, but all the rest are just lovely. You feel positively radiant eating them, so I don't understand why some people have to stick to pizza and chips.

It is moving. Ergo, meat.

However, the people that really get to me are these so-called "vegetarians". I don't mean the real type of vegetarian who completely eliminates all meat and meat by-products from their diet. I mean the type who come out for a meal and say: "I'm a vegetarian, but I eat chicken."
IS A CHICKEN NOT AN ANIMAL OR SOMETHING? HAVE I MISSED SOMETHING? LOST THE PLOT PERHAPS? Because to no extent of my imagination does eating poultry fall into the not eating meat category. I guess that fish is a moot point (the Bible was a bit blurry with the classification), but we have pescetarianism for that. And besides, fish is much better for you than chicken anyway. However, the person must be deluded, absurd to even think that a chicken could pass as a vegetable. That person is clearly not in it for any sort of ethical reason whatsoever.

I used to be a vegetarian. It wasn't down to beliefs or anything ethical, I just didn't like it. Still don't really. One day I just thought to myself: "Well, I don't eat beef, lamb, duck, pork or game, so it would make sense to stop eating chicken and call myself a vegetarian to save the confusion amongst everyone." And that was it. Didn't eat chicken for two more years because of that, and then started again because I felt like I was being a massive inconvenience to anyone who tried to cook for me. I guess that having consumed fairly hot chilli sauce on practically a daily basis for nearly a year now, and smoking like a chimney have washed my tastebuds up into oblivion, as I work by the mantra now: "If it's cooked for me, I'll give it a go (especially if it's free)."

Never looks that great raw,
does it?

However, I would prefer it if it weren't bought from the supermarket, as you know those cows/chickens/pigs have gone through hell to get squeezed into those sad little packets and pumped full of water. Half of the stuff that those animals were fed throughout their life was cheap crap as well, combined with the confinement of small space and unhappy animals, it doesn't make great meat. Butcher's meat is always better, as you know that the butcher is friendly and certainly knows who he's getting his meat from, what it is and how it was fed etc etc. And it always, without a shadow of a doubt, tastes nicer. I mean, I appreciate that, even though I don't really like the taste of it. But say that I were to have a dinner party, it would be the butchers I'd visit.

Om nom nom 

I did try and be vegetarian again after watching River Cottage a couple of weeks back. I haven't bought any meat or fish myself, which is a start (well, it's not really a difference to the norm), but I have had a couple of pre-packed chicken sandwiches from Boots, and some King Prawn Noodle salad. The chicken was vile, never having one of those chicken sandwiches again, but I think I've found my Achille's heel with those prawns... And I did have a chicken dinner with my family. Had to eat it to be polite, of course.

So it turns out that I'm not a vegetarian after all, nor will I call myself a vegetarian in spite of me eschewing meat 75% of the time. That's because vegetarians don't eat meat at all. Ever. Not even haribo or jelly. And vegans? Gosh, my will-power is not strong enough to substitute strong cheddar and camembert for soy milk and tofu. Just sayin'.

Vom.

PS. Quorn is AWFUL. How anyone can stand those plastic lumpy imitation-sausage.... things is beyond me.