100 South Mill Avenue

Let’s face it: Fat, salt and sugar make food taste good. Take those things away, and you may–possibly, and by no means with any guarantees– live a few more years…but why? It is always discouraging to meet people who fear their food, whipping out little packets of stevia to sweeten their coffee for fear of sugar calories or ‘carcinogenic’ sweeteners, spouting off about their self-diagnosed gluten intolerance or dairy allergies (I do not deride those few who actually have been diagnosed by a medical doctor). So I was thrilled to see this. (From The UK Daily Express, via Restaurants & Institutions web site.)

DAILY Express celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has shocked food faddists by saying it is okay to use lard in restaurants.Once a staple ingredient of British food, lard has fallen out of favour in recent years because of health concerns. [...]Now Daily Express columnist Mr Worrall Thompson has said: “Restaurants for me are not about watching your figure - they are about having fun and enjoying yourself, for the average member of the public.” [I]n a restaurant, where people are there to enjoy themselves, it shouldn’t matter too much.”[...] A Spanish pig lard called Iberico fat recently won the backing of food magazine Delicious.The magazine’s editor Matthew Drennan said Iberico fat, made from Spanish pigs reared on acorns, gave roast potatoes a perfect finish.[...] John Briffa, a top nutritional doctor, claims that lard has an undeserved reputation and science has shown that it is not unhealthy.He said: “The majority of studies do not show a link between animal fat and heart disease.”