As mentioned in an earlier post, natto was my biggest “taste hump” in recent years, my most significant challenge since being urged to “come on – just try” the sheep’s brains my mum had scrambled with some eggs for lunch for me one afternoon when I was a teenager. I’m aware that the idea of eating brains is abhorrent to many, but I’m interested in the importance of cultural and historical context in taste preferences, so bear with me.

My mum grew up as a post-war child in 1950s Australia where scrambled brains represented a cheap nutritious meal. While not so popular there now, or the UK, in large part due to its links with BSE, it is still the norm in other cultures (Cuba, the Middle East, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and France to name a few).

My brain eating experience took place in the mid ’80s. The Cold War was a constant background hum in our lives, women were chaining themselves to the fence at Greenham Common, the chilling TV drama Threads was being aired, along with disturbing documentaries such as On the 8th Day.

A basic rule in our house when I was growing up had been – “You eat what’s on your plate”. I’d managed to negotiate two opt-out tickets (Brussels Sprouts and liver) on the basis of “being an individual with different tastes” and, I suppose, a lot of tears and whining. However, now that I was a teenager my fussiness, as they saw it, seemed relevant to what was going on in the world. “What if there was a nuclear war and this kind of food was all we had to eat?” they reasoned. Part of me (undoubtedly the part that had been psychologically assaulted by aforementioned TV programmes) knew they were right….(just watch the movie if you don’t believe me).

But also, it was still quite easy to buy tongue, tripe, sweetbreads (thymus and pancreas), oxtail and bones in the supermarket in those days, so it wasn’t a massive leap from there to buying a bag of brains from the butcher (I suppose).

The cultural implications of offal availability in large supermarket chains wasn’t what was on my mind, however, as I stared at the plate in front of me. Every minute that ticked by saw the food transmogrify from a small plate of potentially edible hot scrambled eggs – with a smattering of brains – into a gargantuan platter of brains that were cooling (to brain temperature) and congealing (to brain texture). The scrambled egg component (now also cold), by contrast, becoming diminishingly imperceptible.

I mustered all my courage and lifted the fork to my mouth, but the undeniable smell of something-I-didn’t-recognise-but-understood-to-be-brain, made me retch. Nope. No can do.  “I’ll make a deal. If there is a nuclear war I’ll eat brains” I promised, adding “if I really have to,” to ensure an escape route hadn’t been entirely ruled out.

Thankfully they didn’t push the issue and I got away with “just trying” a tiny mouthful. To this day I can still remember that taste and texture. This was no hump, this was my Mount Everest. Lucy Martin’s description of her experiences eating brain on her Homesick and Heatstruck blog struck a chord with me.”The texture was unnervingly creamy and soft” she says, adding “it was silky. Eerily silky. Like a limp, moist handshake. Or a shaved cat. Or the soft voice of a psychopath”.

I’m not saying this experience was directly related to my support for CND, or necessarily led to my increased interest in Gorbachev’s rise to power. But it seems to tally with Højlund’s opinion (Højlund, 2015) that cultural taste sharing “is related to the situational as well as to the geographical, political and historical context.”

Does the news that organic milk contains less iodine than non-organic mean mean you should switch? Headlines about a recent study from Reading University being cited in the Guardian and Telegraph today would certainly make you think so. While the journalists themselves have attempted to balance the story with quotes from some experts, it seems sub editors just can’t stop themselves from penning frightening didactic headlines.

The fact that this isn’t actually news,  but evidence to be added to an ongoing area of is study rarely mentioned in the stories either. Food science is a continuum, and the problem with pumping out stories that represent one piece of a large and ever growing puzzle does little for consumer confidence or understanding. Whether it results in positive behavioural change could also be debated. My experience is that it usually confuses people or radicalises them to choose one or other side of the debate without consideration of all the facts. As a nutritional therapist trying to advise people on how to improve their diet while taking many differing factors (preferences, micronutrient needs, personal ethics) into account, this can be incredibly frustrating.

To see how complicated this can be let’s just take a random review study from 1979 , which pointed out that iodine feed supplement had caused an increase in milk iodine levels and warned that adults consuming more than even ½  litre could supply more than the recommended adult daily dose. It’s an old study and by no means gold standard, but I’m cherry picking to illustrate a point – that being, are there some additional questions we might want to ask when deciding what to make of media reports.

For example, have things changed markedly since the late 70s in the dairy industry? How do accepted levels of iodine then compare with today? Is there a recommended level of iodine in milk that has been agreed on by public heath experts?  If so, does this take individuals’ widely varying needs into consideration? Does focusing on iodine levels in milk detract from other potential sources in a healthy diet? Are the benefits of increased iodine offset in any way? Or even a basic question such as – does supplemented grain feed trump grass fed milk across a variety of important nutrients? The Soil Association thinks not. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that how animals are fed determines the quality of food produced.

You can begin to see how it would take years of study and and a PhD in dairy farming and food science to begin unravelling answers to these questions. Thankfully, there are people trained to do just that.

My point isn’t that we should ignore such studies – I personally find them fascinating. It’s just that we should expect the media to be more responsible about reporting them. That’s their job, after all! Providing readers with properly researched pieces, in this case offering a balanced review of the pros and cons of organic v non-organic or the importance of including other food sources of iodine etc., would have been much more useful than scaring people into believing that somehow they will be damaging their child’s intelligence if they give them organic milk!

Journalists could begin by acknowledging the background to an issue and placing latest results of one particular study into context. Frightening headlines about a complicated subject (especially those directed towards pregnant women, as if they don’t have enough to worry about) need a longer, more intelligent analysis. Issues that involve financial interests on both sides of the organic v inorganic farming debate are especially troublesome. And if the journalists don’t have time, expertise or inclination to do this, they should provide more links in the story to those that do.

We often get frustrated with children’s fussiness about foods and reluctance to try new flavours, but even as adults it can take time for our taste buds to befriend new foods.

If we know a food may be good for us (or at least, not harmful), that friendship can often flourish, given time and perseverance. Take Natto for example. I tried it some years back and quickly decided that its benefits could never (ever!) outweigh the taste.  I recently revisited this food when trumpeting the wonders of probiotic foods for the “Food For Thought Group” at the Lighthouse Recovery Centre in Hove and brought some natto in for group members to try. At the first whiff (malodorous, rank, putrid…pick one) it all came rushing back to me in a not-so-sublime Proustian moment. I didn’t need to ‘re-taste’ it to recall the flavour and to remember why it hadn’t become a staple part of my diet. I was surprised that despite this, I was willing to try it again, as were many in the group. Although no one immediately succumbed to natto’s flavourful charms, there was real interest in its potential health advantages and a certain pride in having at least tasted it.

Trying natto for yourself might be a challenge too far for some, but really the best way to overcome these taste humps* (as I like to call them) is to just jump right in. It’s not so much the taste of natto – unlike anything else I know – nor the pungent bacterial pong. For me, and many others, it’s the texture that’s particulalry challenging. It’s basically mucus, and to me that categorises it as one of those foods you may have to grow up with to really accept. Even then it seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing and some have argued that it’s like Marmite in that regard – or presumably Vegemite if you’re an Aussie 😉

I’m more inclined to eat natto now that I know more about gut bacteria and its relation to health, and I’d say knowing about the properties of foods is a very effective way to start getting over your own taste humps. It can be difficult to uncouple foods from the media hype and influence of food industries. On that note, I chose the link for natto’s health benefits (above) because the site is supported by Japanese food companies with an interest in promoting natto sales. My point being there’s nothing wrong with that per se – just make sure you’re aware of who’s behind the information and whether they have vested interests.

I’m now at the mid-hump stage with natto, approaching it in the same way I’d eat a sea urchin (about which another time) – in one gulp, and as quickly as possible! This, combined with some persistence, has enabled me to overcome quite a few taste humps commonly seen in childhood (at least here in the UK), including oysters, cockles and mussels, winkles, liver, Brussels Sprouts, seaweed and cod liver oil. It doesn’t mean I’ll be elbowing past someone in the fruit and veg section of Sainsburys any time soon to grab the last Brussels Sprout, and the anticipation of eating a raw oyster will probably always cause my heart to flutter. But while I may not savour these foods in the same way I do olives or goats cheese, I’m able not only to eat them without gagging, but actually do enjoy them (in small amounts). This is because the brain can adapt to taste humps, surmounting them over time if there’s enough exposure and if associations transform them into more positive taste experiences. For example, some people despise coriander and think it tastes like soap …or (apparently) bed bugs, but can change their experience of this taste even while still being able to sense the soapiness or bed bugginess. It’s especially effective if foods you’re not so keen on are combined with those you like. This seems to help the brain distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant taste associations, categorising memories accordingly and underlining the importance of context in taste perception. More about this in part 2 of this post.

* “humps” sound less negative than “aversions” and easier to overcome than “challenges”

…gie her a haggis!

Burns Night (25 January) is fast approaching, so for those who plan to partake in the quaint tradition of celebrating a great poet by repeatedly stabbing this “Great Chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” at a Burns Supper – tomorrow is your last chance to grab a haggis.

If, like me, you always leave things to the last minute you might be struggling to find one (or more) now – especially if, like me, you’re trying to feed nine hungry people! They fly off the shelves at this time of year…or jump with their wee legs, more like.

Now, I’ve seen a few haggii in my time but never one on the scale of this beauty I found the other day – it’s hard to appreciate the size from this pic, but it’s a foot long and weighs 2.3kg. Good ol’ McSweens for upsizing. (In my opinion, after much haggis eating, they do make the best). Getting the food in three days before a dinner party was extreme forward planning for me and in my fit of uber-organisation I even remembered to get a vegetarian/vegan haggis for those guests of mine who are more evolved and don’t eat meat. I say that with sincerity, I’m not quite there yet. And, yes, the veggie haggii, by MacSweens again, do actually taste (almost) as good. And before you ask, no I don’t work for MacSweens or get any money for saying all these nice things about them, more’s the pity.

Today I discovered  a scrumptious looking vegan recipe but remain torn about whether it can really be called a haggis when the haggisy bits have all been removed….Still, if it gets more people into the spirit of things (single malt only!) then it can only be a guid ‘hing.

Would Rabbie “Look down wi sneerin’, scornfu’ view on sic a dinner?”  I doubt it.  He was fond of animals after all, especially wee mice. I think I’ll give it a try next year because, I don’t know about the taste, and I’m not yet ready to give up real haggis, but from a nutritional perspective it might just trump the real thing (and that is, really…really hard to admit).

The real McCoy MacSween……enough for 10 folk!  Braw.