and finally News comes with a health warning


Chris Proctor is forced to switch off the radio to steady his nerves


I


’d like to thank Radio Four for getting me out of bed so promptly in the morning. Half past the hour, I leap from the linen like a lithe leopard. It is because of my hypochondria.


It is then that the Today programme slips into “frighten the punters” mode with its medical news. If I lay in bed and listened to it, I’d be reduced to such a state of panic that I would probably never arise again. What would be the point?


I sometimes eavesdrop from the safety of the bathroom in the hope that there might be something positive, and sometimes there is. But one thing is guaranteed – the following day there will be a new report condemning the previous one and warning that its advice, if followed, will lead to boils, scurvy and baldness. If you’re lucky.


John Major’s chum Edwina started it with her salmonella. I’d been going to work on an egg quite merrily since childhood until that fateful day in 1988 when I awoke to hear that if I ever cracked another shell, I may as well quit the family pantry and contact the funeral parlour. Basically, I was finished. I didn’t know what salmonella was, but it sounded fatal. The following morning, having binned my poacher pan, smashed the egg cups and written my will, I read that the British Egg Industry Council said that Ms Currie’s remarks were “factually incorrect and highly irresponsible”, It was claiming that the chances of being infected by the bacteria was “less than 200 million to one”. Although no gambler, this seemed a reasonable punt. But the fear had been instilled. Who do we believe?


The most commonplace foodstuffs, old cupboard staples, can overnight be revealed as menaces. Even tap water is contaminated – with fluorosilicic acid, aluminium sulphate, calcium hydroxide and sodium silicofluoride for starters. I marvel that it manages to squeeze its way out of the tap with that lot inside it. Even Terry Wogan got into the act. I remember how soothed I was to hear the margarine he was flogging was “rich in polyunsaturates”. I bought it by the bucketload. Although I had no idea what they were, I


had great faith in polyunsaturates. Butter was on the back burner. Oh, deluded fool that I was! Last year saw the news that butter isn’t bad for us at all – and never was! Polyunsaturates were passé. The Express revealed that increasing butter consumption is good for you, because, thanks to its heptadecanoic acid, it staves off diabetes. I hadn’t even started worrying about diabetes until then, and I was already being offered a solution. Bad news was, however, galloping up on the inside lane. What about the workers? While the anti-butter period was in full swing, there were reports of a dairy industry in crisis. But now butter is back in fashion, are we to heartlessly abandon marg manufacturers to their fate? A Unilever spokesperson reveals that the food giant may cease production. The worry is enough to bring on a stomach ulcer. Alas! Reliable medical advice on stomach ulcers includes avoiding dairy foods. Like butter. I hastily consume a breakfast of dry bread and bottled water before repairing to my GP. He is soothing but mentions my cholesterol. This is bad stuff that clogs up your arteries. Or it was. Now it seems there is


good cholesterol as well as bad. Or maybe both or neither. Professor Adam Butterworth recently warned the BBC: “Some people who have high levels of ‘good’ cholesterol actually have a higher risk of heart disease.” Then there are avocados. These are generally deemed good, but you have to be careful. You can eat too many, for one thing; and you have to consider good and bad fat. Having done this, Lord save us all, the California Avocado Commission advises that if you don’t use their “nick and peel” method, you could well be a gonner within the week anyway. This is because “areas of the pulp that are closest to the peel are higher in certain phytonutrients than more interior portions of the pulp”.


My paranoia has grown is so serious that I now try to avoid all contact with the media. My days are spent reading Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and penning letters to Alan Moses demanding that a health warning be placed on these health warnings.


All in all, I’m in a right (fourth e)state.


26 | theJournalist

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