I can't wait --- Not!

As you read this you would be forgiven for thinking I’m obsessed with food, food manufacturers and supermarkets, and I suppose I am - now.
It’s an accusation I would have vehemently denied a few years ago, but as you get older and the odd ailment, or threat of one looms ever closer, you suddenly become extremely aware of what you eat.
It’s then, if you harbour the ambition if not to live forever, to receive a telegram from the queen, that you begin to recognize and then resist the cynical machinations encouraging you to buy and over indulge in food that is bad for you.
You find yourself peering at the small print on the back of products, taking more notice of what ingredients and artificial additives it contains, than what the food looks like on the package and whether you fancy it for your tea or not.

When you’ve deprived yourself of all your favourite foods but it hasn't lowered your cholesterol nearly enough. And the doctor’s peered at you over the top of his glasses, taken in your less than sylph like figure and increased the dose, it’s doubly discouraging when well meaning friends begin to tell you all about alternative supplements that will make ever such a difference.

In desperation you search the internet for advice and treatment both chemical and natural for your ailments, although I wouldn’t advise it if you have a weak constitution or lean towards being a hypochondriac.
Believe me, the search will produce thousands of diagnoses and if you're dead unlucky and having a bad hair day, your symptoms are sure to match some nasty, fatal disease.
But don’t worry. After your panic attack, when you type Depression into the search engine there are shed loads of remedies that will cheer you up. They’re particularly helpful when you end up in debt due to all the money you’ve spent trying to keep one step ahead of your doctor.

Now I read that a change is afoot.
Scientists are formulating a whole raft of chemicals that can be added to food to make us healthier, including lowering our cholesterol even more than those expensive spreads and yoghurts already do.
They have perfected one additive that makes your food taste as if it has plenty of added salt for flavour, when it doesn’t.

Eventually, instead of shopping for organic alternatives and worrying about all the artificial preservatives, colours and unsaturated fats we’re taking in, we shall soon be eagerly snapping up food that contains all the above and the more the merrier.
Ice cream is one of the products they are going to target. I guess the boffins know how much we all pine for an illicit dish of raspberry ripple, so it’s been selected as an ideal food to lead us into their idea of healthy eating.
Can you imagine when they begin to advertise all these miracle foods on TV with experts advising that we eat at least four bags of Crisps a day to lower blood pressure, or urging us to eat Hamburgers with a double helping of fries - the natural way to lower cholesterol - in between re-runs of The Fat Clinic.

Imagine rummaging around in the deep freeze cabinet for a triple size tub of ice cream. Guilt? you’ll cry; what’s that when it’s home? Because, instead of trying to work out the calorific differences between plain Vanilla over Nougat Chocolate Chip with added Pecan Nuts, you’ll be righteously deciding whether to buy a tub of yummy, cholesterol busting, eat ‘til it’s coming out of your ears, or a tub of fruity Sorbet, containing the latest blood sugar reducer.
I can’t wait. Not!