I am a health freak. I have to be. I fully
intend to live until 115 with all my faculties; partly in the hope that travel
to the moon will become regular and affordable in my lifetime and partly so
that I can annoy the hell out of people (think Jenny Joseph’s ‘Warning’
multiplied by ten). In Tuesday’s Guardian, Dr Luisa Dillner published a thought
provoking piece on ensuring your new-found health-regime (assuming you added
such a thing to your New Year’s Resolution List) lasts beyond the end of
January.
In
November my own GP suggested I try having two to three alcohol free days a
week. I embraced this eagerly – both with gusto and mathematics. My normal
waking day (I’m not including any insomnia here) is approx. 16 hours long,
giving me a waking week of 112 hours. I only generally drink between the hours
of 6pm and 8:30pm and this is slow, refined drinking of good quality wine of
course – no greedily quaffing pints of beer or the like. So, I only drink for
17.5 hours a week. As most people don’t drink in the mornings, the number of
possible reasonable drinking hours is 35. As you can see, I am only drinking
for half this time and therefore I’m already exceeding my doctor’s well-meant recommendations.
Aren’t I?
Perhaps
not. All joking aside, since December I have been sticking to 2 alcohol free
days a week – mostly – sometimes it’s 1 and a half (I mean I really, really
only have one tiny glass of red on that half day).
Dr
Dillner also recommends the two alcohol free days a week mode of living – it’s
getting a lot of press lately, so it must be true. She also says that watching TV
shortens your life. Apparently, every hour of television watched over the age
of 25 reduces your life by 22 minutes. According to a report in The Guardian in
2010, the average Briton will watch 4 hours of television a day. As I haven’t
had a television since 1992 I clearly have gained a lot of extra life.
According to my excel spreadsheet (email me if you’d like to see my
calculations) I have gained a total of 1.069 years life since the age of 25.
Now surely this means I can have an extra glass of wine or two?
I
thought I’d leave you with a recipe, a healthy one, to make you feel good about
your health-regime. It’s also very, very quick – easier to grab the ingredients
at your local supermarket then head home and cook it, than it is to queue up in
the local take-away.Recipe: White Fish with Tomato & Chorizo Sauce
Inspired
By: Good Food Healthy Eating App
Ingredients:
Thick fillets of white fish (one per
person)
1 x small chorizo (cut into chunks)
1 x packet of chopped tomatoes (serves up
to 4 people)
Chilli flakes (one pinch)
Garlic (one clove)
Olive oil
Greens & Barley Risotto to serve (for
an easy meal buy the ready mixed risotto and follow pack instructions)
Here’s
What I Do:
Prepare the barley risotto as per pack
instructions (this will take around 20 minutes). Fry the chorizo in a splash of
oil until it starts to release its own oils. Chop the garlic and add this to
the pan (with maybe a tad more oil) until it is just becoming fragrant. Add the
chilli flakes and stir for a few more seconds before tipping in the tomatoes,
let this simmer until you’re ready to serve. About 5 minutes before the risotto
is ready rub your fish with oil and season to taste. Grill until cooked and
flaking (some meatier fish will take longer than 5 minutes) and don’t forget to
cook your choice of greens.
Enjoy,
with wine – unless it’s one of your alcohol free days.
3 comments:
Anthony said you are off your rocker... if its TV vs Alcohol he's getting rid of TV!
I really do love reading your blogs,Minnie is also on two alcohol free days, and although she never watches TV she does try to sit on the top of it but falls off every time,even on the alcohol free days.
I'll try it as soon as I finish this response. I have some white fish that's been in the freezer since God was a boy, and the spanish chorizo is well past its sell by date. Pity that missus is watching the box. Think I'll add a parboiled potato. My mouth is watering at the thought.
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