Wednesday, 27th November, 2024 [Day 1717]

This morning, the workers were scheduled to arrive a quarter of an hour earlier than is normal, so we made a fairly early start. I was buoyed up by the news that I had received the evening before that our son had been released from hospital but it was going to be later on in the day that we were to receive a full update of what had been going on. After breakfast, it was the most beautiful day so we gladly trundled down the hill and met up with two of our regular Waitrose gang, which is normal for a Tuesday. I bought some last minute supplies and then we got back in plenty of time for our Tuesday ‘sit’ session. I had decided to cook a rather different Tuesday lunch today and to avoid the fish fingers/fish pie which seems so deficient in actual fish these days. I had looked at the contents of our freezer and located some haddock fillets which were to provide the midday meal.

When Meg was safely tucked up in bed and I had done my round of ‘evening’ jobs, I sat down to watch a stunning documentary on BBC2 presented by Dr Chris van Tulleken, a well known and savyy presenter of medical programs. The program was entitled ‘Irresistible – why we can’t stop eating’ and the thesis was startling in its stark simplicity. This was simply that most of the nation was now addicted to ‘junk’ food or more technically, ‘ultra-processed food’ The program revealed how the large tobacco companies communicated the techniques that they used to get people to be hooked onto their products to the food technologists in large corporations who got to work on the size, shape, taste and even sound of food (think ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’ for Rice Crispies) to make us want to consume more and more of their product. Moreover this ultra-processed food is so cheap compared with the natural alternatives so it is no wonder that those on restricted incomes are such heavy consumers of it. To quote from a ‘Times‘ article devoted to the subject in the T2 section ‘We are facing a health catastrophe of obesity and other diseases caused by what we consume..our diet related disease statistics are as bad as the worst in the world. ..the pandemic of diet-related disease – primarily obesity but also lots of other problems including cancers and metabolic disease like type 2 diabetes is driven by the marketing, availability and consumption of industrially prepared and products that are high in energy, salt, sugar and fat’ The program actually has a disturbing, not to mention sinister, ending. There are evidently powerful people in the food industry who would rather like Chris van Tulleken to shut up. One food company offered him £20,000 after the publication of the book ‘Ultra-Processed Food’ on condition that he would not say anything that would damage the reputation of the company – van Tulleken immediately declined the offer. McDonalds explored the idea of him becoming an ambassador and offered to fly him to Chicago to meet board. He said that he would to meet them but to pay his own way and not accept the offer of a free flight. The invitation to meet the board was then withdrawn. This was such a powerful programme that I intend to watch it again and with Meg in the next day or so – and I am sure it will probably affect the way I buy and prepare food in the future (although to be fair, we hardly ever eat what is currently regarded as ultra-processed food).

Normally I would wrap the smoked haddock fillets in some tinfoil and baked in the oven but even though I try to wrap the fish assiduously, the smell still seems to permeate the kitchen. So today, I reverted to a method I used to deploy and that is to poach the fish in milk, also taking the opportunity to make some parsley sauce with the poaching milk. As both the ‘sit’ carer and the normal lunch time carer were here when the food was ready, I decided to dish up the dinner straight away and I served up some little bits of the poached fish in two little side dishes for the carers to try whilst Meg and I ate our main meal of the day. In fact, the result was so pleasing and I really enjoyed the fish cooked in this way so the next time I go shopping, I must remember to replenish my stock of smoked haddock fillets. After lunch, as the ‘sit’ carer was still here, I took the opportunity to visit or off-centre AgeUK shop which I commonly do on a Tuesday and I finished up buying some wood design necklace for Meg and a long sleeved jumper for myself. After the washing up was done, I was keen to have a FaceTime chat with our son released from hospital the previous evening. He managed to give me a full briefing about the things that had been happening to him. As I cold recall my own inpatient experience of some six years ago and was looking after Meg when she was in hospital last May, we had quite a lot of notes to compare. In particular, we remarked to each other than when you are in hospital, you find out who your true friends were. Actually, a lot of Martin’s rail enthusiast friends had contacted him with their best wishes for his recovery and his best friend who actually lives in Malvern had a colleague deputise for him at a meeting in Bristol whilst he himself came to see our son in hospital. Hospitals are the arenas of all kinds of social interactions which is one of the reasons why they are beloved of sociologists who have hospital as a ready source of fieldwork experience. When I was researching health service quality management, I read a long and detailed book by a Scandinavian author which was stuffed full of metrics and indicators but was pretty boring. But actually, the best part of the book came at the very end where the author had sustained an accident to his elbow which necessitated a hospital stay. What emerged as the final chapter was an ethnographic account of quality processes which was as fascinating as the rest of the book was boring. We anticipate seeing our son in a couple of days time whilst he continues his recuperation in the comfort and safety of his own home. I had managed to locate two good sources of information about how best to restore good lung function, one of them from the Leicestershire hospital which is a regional leader in the field. I was pleased to see that our son was receptive to some of this advice and was actually following some of it already.

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