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We are continually being reminded that we do not, in general, eat healthily, writes Paul Moore.
Usually these reminders relate to ‘junk’ and processed foods or to the fact that we tend to buy unhealthy snacks when driving anywhere or when buying petrol. The temptation to so is also constant when one is confronted by the range of hot foods available in the larger forecourts.
My own bête noire is a thing called a jambon. One is usually enough – they tend to be on the large side -but in some places they offer four small ones as a package and I can inevitably convince myself that the four small are actually smaller than the large one.
I accept that this defies logic.
I am also partial to coffee from one of the roadside booths which sprang up during the pandemic and which were so successful they never went away.
I have a friend who informed me one day while out driving that every horse box in the country is being used for coffee, so much so that the horses are now having to take the bus.
Of course it is impossible to purchase a coffee from the horse box without having to also have one of the traybakes with exotic names.
I had never, however, considered fully the amount of money which must be made catering for our poor diet until I stumbled on an astonishing statistic last week. Apparently the Centra group in Ireland sold a staggering ten million chicken fillet rolls last year. Now I am no accountant, but even if we assume that these rolls sell at a modest three euro then the income is 30 million euro, just for one sandwich in the range.
I cannot begin to contemplate what the overall profit must be for the group or for those fortunate enough to have a franchise in the right location, that is, on a major transport artery.
I am fairly sure none of these establishments are concerned about what they might be doing to our arteries.
As if these revelations were not enough, I then encountered an article about the Mars Bar. Mars has always been a superior kind of bar as is evidenced by the fact that one of the delicacies served up by the middle class ladies of Belfast was a Mars and dulse seaweed cream cracker canapé, while for the working class it was a deep-fried Mars Bar.
For clarity I have only tasted the deep fried variety. The most interesting fact from this article, however, was that confectionery – Mars, Malteasers, Bounty, Galaxy to name but a few – is only the top of the Mars business iceberg.
The company owns Wrigley and Orbit chewing gum, which will no doubt be useful after you have consumed pasta drenched in their Dolmio pasta sauce, although if you prefer you could have the sauce with their Ben’s Original Rice.
If you find yourself hungry later in the evening, how about a tin of Pringles and the following morning you can select from the full range of cereals from Kellogg’s Cornflakes to Rice Crisps to Coco Pops. Or perhaps you might prefer Pop Tarts or Nutrigrain. And let us not forget the family pets. They can choose from Pedigree, Cesar, Whiskas, Kit-e-Kat and Royal Canin.
This list underlines the complete ignorance I have about how large companies operate, but the one thing I do know is that from now on when I stop for petrol and need a sugar fix, a Milky Way it will not be.
I am also aware that this too is naïve, because whatever I do decide to consume will simply be part of another vast food empire I have yet to discover the detail of.
Perhaps after all, a banana is the only safe bet.
