Of Insidious Ingredients (or Beware the Bends) September 3, 2009
Posted by Jen in : Bits and Pieces , trackbackI am, like most people in the world, many things to many people. I’m a mum, cook, taxi driver, typing-about-bits-of-grass lady, all sorts of stuff. But one thing I am not usually is a scientiffical genius. But. I have seen things and Made Connections.
Let me explain. Next door to my office is a health food shop. I hate the health food shop. Well, not so much the shop although it does smell a bit funny, but the people who shop there. They are all very old and very, very nimble. Honestly, you should see them leaping on and off their mountain bikes in their irritatingly springy fashion. ‘Ha! No need to tie the bike up,’ you can hear them think, ‘I’ll chase any thieving buggers in my bare feet.’ You see? They even have lively thoughts.
Last week, we had some biscuits from the health food shop, mainly because Tweed Clad Colleague was – in his words, not mine – “too fat and lazy to walk to the lardy biscuit shop”. The biscuits were, by anyone’s definition, rather bendy. I posed the important question on Twitter as to why health food shop biscuits were always squashy and was told within minutes that it’s the lack of gluten which generally binds biccies together. So perhaps the spritely seniors are largely loose-limbed due to their lack of gluten.
I mentioned this to a friend who suggested that it might not be a bad thing: that if the oldies were scoffing hard biscuits, they might suddenly start wearing hoodies, spitting in the street and saying swear words all over the place. This would clearly not do at all.
As I typed this commentary of social and scientiffical awareness, I remembered that my mother’s craving when pregnant with me was fried onions. Pan after pan of the things. And, being quite a clever genius today, I have deduced that this is probably why I cry so much.
Reader, the crux of my discovery is this: we are what we eat. What d’you mean, it’s already been done? Really? Oh. That’s the end of my biscuit research then I suppose?
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I am officially in awe of your scientific genius.
(Not so sure the Gingerbread Man has found his biological parents. There is a touch of ginger about him and I wonder where that comes from.)
Soooo, if you eat bendy biscuits you become bendy…..does that mean that if I eat nuts I will become a nut? What do you mean I already am??
C x
I can’t fault your reasoning.
Ah! It is all clear now! I can blame my son’s habit of never standing up straight (despite my gentle and constant nagging) on my pregnancy fetish for bananas!
DOT, maybe ginger is a recessive gene?
Absolutely brilliant and as an ex scientist I can confirm your very erudite research. Can I just say that I love FRUITCAKE. OOPS!!!!
There’s something very poignant about being ‘too fat and lazy to walk to the lardy biscuit shop’. A tragic dilemma for the modern age.
That makes me a big chocolate button, riddled with gluten. And yet my mum craved tomatoes while she was pregnant with me. Scientise your way out of that one you oniony genius
)
Oh, Ms SS, you do so make me laugh. Thank you. I rather like gingerbread men but for some reason always feel somewhat guilty about eating their heads. Hmmm…. TFx
I craved chocolate when I was pregnant with my daughter, and she is a chocoholic like me. Then again, I always crave chocolate.
Faultless logic there Jen, you truly are a genius. So what if that woman on telly came up with idea before you – she had to sift through poo to find it whereas you have deducted it in a civilised Sherlock Holmsian manner.
I am a pizza
DOT – Thank you. I do find being a genius quite taxing, as you can imagine. Does eating ginger make one snappy, I wonder?
Carol – Lovey, I didn’t really like to say… x
JJ – That’s because I am a scientiffical genius. You wouldn’t argue with one of those in public, would you?
Loth – I must confess, I’ve chortled non-stop at your comment since I read it. Fabulous.
Queenie – You put recessive genes in my smoothie when I came to play? Crumbs.
Sheepish – Scientific support? Oh, goodness, that is truly more than I ever could have hoped for. Hmm… nutty fruitcake or just plain fruity? You can tell me. No one’s listening. Honest.
Helen – I think most tragic contemporary dilemmas revolve around biscuits. It’s the way of the world. How the cookie crumbles. See?
Karen – Tomatoes? Um… They made you fruity but not in the usual way? No? Oh, ok, I give up.
TF – My mum used to buy me a gingerbread man every Valentine’s Day specifically so that I could bite its head off, obviously imagining that poor Ginge was whichever boy that year I’d wanted a card from but clearly not received. Who needs voodoo when you have biscuits?
Debs – You’ve misunderstood, Sweetie. Chocolate’s not a food, it’s a medical necessity? So it doesn’t count. Sorry for any confusion.
Sarah – Ugh, you wouldn’t find me poking through people’s poo. I would have to give up being a scientific genius if they added poo-poking to the job description. Pizza eh? That means you’re loved by everyone
Hurrah!
You’ve made me roar. Totally with you re bendy old people. The lady who fixes my completely ignored muscles is 98, weighs 2 lbs and is the most bendy and elegant person on the planet.
I leave with muscles all happy but morale wise, an Oompa Loompa.
Yours
BATBOF
(Boo to All The Bendy Old Folk)
You ‘think’ too much.
Love chocolate and loved the post. It really cheered me up on what has so far been a pretty dismal morning. Really happy for the gingerbread man.
But surely gluten is all sticky and bendy, so biscuits with gluten in ought to be more bendy, not less? And biscuits that hadn’t been bound together properly would be crumbly rather than bendy?
Sorry. I got stuck at that point. But I did laugh at your loathing of sprightly OAPs. My dad is 65 and rides a bike everywhere. But he doesn’t shop at health food shops and loves Proper Chocolate Biscuits, so I think that’s probably all right.
On another note… I have been cycling to My New Career every day this week! I haven’t been to any health food shops yet though…
Bendy biscuits make you bouncy!
The onions might be why you make my eyes water laughing? I’m nicking that cartoon BTW.
Henrietta – You do make me smile! Your muscle-poking lady sounds terrible. I would not stand in a room with her, oh no.
bedshaped – You think so?
Colette – Dismal? No no no, we can’t have that. Happy faces please.
Squidgy -Oh, bloody hell, I don’t know *said in a rational, scientiffical manner* I am impressed at you being a swot on a bike. Just watch out for the bends – the non-biccie variety.
Lucy – Yay! Is that why my biscuit research made me resemble a space hopper?
Have just been catching up on all your news. Belated happy 40th, by the way! It doesn’t really feel any different, does it? I’ll hoover up any biscuit, gluten or no.Not sure I’d be able to spring into the saddle of a mountain bike without a forklift, though.
Mya x
Oh-ho, this explains EVERYTHING! I eat a lot of nuts.