Living like a king

[dhermann1]

This is in today's Times of London. Anyone care to comment? Looks like fun to me.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/healthy_eating/article1640930.ece

 

[scotrace]

Wonderful article! Thanks for posting it.


Afternoon tea: Fruit cake, Madeira cake, hot potato cakes, coconut rocks, bread, toast, butter.

High tea was invented by the Edwardians to stave off hunger during the endless minutes between lunch and dinner. Everything is very brown.


Lunch: Simpson’s Chophouse on Cornhill. Beloved of Thackeray, Dickens and Newnham-Davis himself (who reviewed it on one occasion when he had been caught out in the evening in morning dress and dared not be seen in his club improperly attired for the hour). It’s been here since 1757 and I eat with some very old fellows. Have steak and kidney pudding with a giant sausage, then a huge pork chop and then stewed cheese served fizzling in a little tin tray with toasted bread triangles on the side. Also lots of claret.

Simpson’s opened its doors to women only in 1916, and since I’m living in 1907, I’ve left Sue behind. The chaps and I discuss the good old days, when men were men and the sort of women who made trouble about it were generally chained to railings somewhere out of earshot.

 

[Paisley]

It would be nice to have one meal like that (half of it taken home for leftovers).

But I'd hate to eat the whole thing in one sitting, let alone eat like that for a week. Why? First, I hate that lethargic, bloated feeling I get after I overeat. Second, my clothes wouldn't fit. The third reason is best explained in the last paragraphs of the article:

A RECIPE FOR AN EARLY GRAVE

The human body does not adapt to this level of excess. If Giles were to continue eating this type of food in such quantities he would gain weight rapidly, placing a strain on his organs, including his liver, heart and gall bladder. With his already raised cholesterol, enduring the Edwardian diet for longer than a week would lead to a rapid worsening of his health. Giles was eating 122g of fat a day (32g more than the advised upper limit), of which 56g was saturated. A man should limit his intake to no more than 30g of saturated fat. Eating such amounts of saturated fat and gaining weight would raise his risk of heart disease.

Gout is controlled largely by drug therapy today, but dietary restriction of foods rich in purines, which increase uric acid in the blood, is reasonable advice. Noshing on liver, heart, sweetbreads, anchovies and the like would make full-blown gout likely. With his low levels of vitamin C and fibre Giles could also expect problems with constipation and his digestion, as well as potentially weakening his immune system.​