Banned – it’s for your own good you know!

On returning to work this week after my Estonian adventures, the hot topic in the office is food rather than the more usual who is or isn’t shagging who.

While I was away, the works canteen implemented their part of the governments healthy eating initiative (Public Health Responsibility Deal) whereby “dangerous” high fat and salt foods are banned and all prepared meals come complete with an itemised nutrition list.

One of the consequences of this deal is that the beef dripping from canteen roasted beef is no longer allowed to be given away for free and is now binned, much to the distress of half the canteen users who quite enjoyed a scraping of it on their toast in the morning. Further complications arise from the mandatory nutritional labelling which means that the chefs now have to follow an exact recipe when preparing the meals rather than being allowed to vary the amount of seasoning (specifically salt) to match the varying quality of the days ingredients.

Better still, we are not now trusted to add our own salt to the newly insipid creations as the sachets have been removed from sale as they could result in “excessive salt consumption” according to the unit catering manager who actually managed to trot out that bansturbatory bollocks without the slightest hint of irony.

Overall, we now have upset chefs who have been turned into recipe following drones and upset customers who are turning away in droves due to the one taste suits all fodder on offer.

The only plus point from all this is that a hell of a lot of people were talking about the stupidity of government interfering in their own personal choices. Maybe, just maybe, they finally went too far by fucking around with the food people eat?