Chicken skin

And What Not To Eat

Homemade lemon chicken

Like many others, I’ve been indulging vicariously in the new year’s resolutions of others, and this time via the telly. Have you been watching Prof Tim Spector and Dr Kandi Ejiofor’s new show What Not To Eat? Adorable people with unadorable eating habits being shown the light by those in the know. You find yourself in turns appalled by the realities of supermarket shelves and trolleys, the evil magicianship of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and the way that minor pleasures turn into terrifyingly heart-stopping habits. Regarding the last, two LARGE (think family sized, although I don’t think their weight was given) chocolate bars were being consumed EVERY NIGHT, EACH, by the couple in the first episode, said bars unwrapped and poked into bowls and eaten as if it was a penance that had to be completed if happiness was ever to be achieved. It was unbelievably painful and sad to watch. The couple was so lovely, so sad, so determined. Everyone must have been rooting for them, and that they could and would continue beyond the six weeks they were under observation.

The second couple were equally charming, clearly still very loving after many, many years together, and traumatised by poor health. Also intelligent and self-delusional as so many of us are about what we put in our mouths. Again, I found myself cheering them on, willing their success, keeping an ear out for snippets that would be personally useful in my own dietary travels.

It’s no secret that the Prof is not entirely a fan of meat. He’s begrudging, shall we say, about animal protein, although he stood in a field with a pig to honour the good old pork chop. He just didn’t like it minced into regurgitated (sorry, reconstituted) ham, which was fair enough. But he shuddered as he talked about muscle as if it was a bad thing. Meat IS muscle. I was confused. The Prof clearly puts it low down in the priority of food stuffs. Not averse to sugar though, as he sprinkled it about in his recipe on a healthier take on biscuits. Perhaps a better option if you really can’t kick biscuits to the kerb, although surely we should be able to do just that, for the most part? But he does like to get his digs in about meat, and then his clear revulsion at a piece of chicken skin finally made me cackle and roll my eyes.

Firstly, have you been to any slightly fancier restaurant in the last decade? Watched an episode of Masterchef? Come to my house for supper? Fought over the luscious bit by the neck end as a golden bird comes out of the oven? Crispy chicken skin is not only the best bit of the bird, it has become an ingredient in its own right.

This crazy obsession that we mustn’t eat fat or the other bits of animals and that only a skinless boneless chicken breast deserves a place on our plates is maddening, never mind unacceptably wasteful. There are plenty of other Profs and Docs who prioritise protein and their associated fats as a key principle for eating well, and they aren’t talking about tofu. To name just one, listen to Dr Ben Bikman on the subject. As for sprinkling sugar about, well that’s a complete no no to the metabolic scientist.

So yes, let’s unearth the UPFs that sit like evil toads in our cupboards and boot them out, and get back to simple foods that our grandparents would recognise and don’t bear barcodes. And when I say simple, I mean simple ingredients. There is nothing simple about the flavour of a great oxtail stew or the broth from a well-reared, long-lived chicken, or a fresh scrambled egg. Let our curries be colourful and rich, just minus the plastic tray and film covering and all of those strange laboratory ingredients, sizzling instead on or in the stove, setting our noses a-twitching with pleasure.