Having just had a routine cholesterol check I thought I’d pen a panegyric in praise of porridge. Forget tasteless glutinous gunge – people queue for this stuff at Mash (haute cuisine establishment!) in London!
The medical benefits are universally recognised. Here's a quote:
"Soluble fibre which is found in fruit, vegetables, peas, beans and of course, oats, helps reduce blood cholesterol. It’s a complex process but, put simply, think of rolled oats as tiny sponges in your body that soak up cholesterol".
Well it must be good if Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, Jane Fonda and Tim Henman (oh, and Wallace and Gromit) are celebrity consumers.
Roald Amundsen even took it to the South Pole – I wonder if Scott did – would be a good advert for Scott’s Porridge Oats.(Picture on left illustrates the export version - American spelling! Picture also shows shot putt being thrown over cliff?!)
Anyway – Sheila and I have porridge at least a couple of times a week. Apart from all the above pluses, it’s supposed to release seritonin, which helps you feel less depressed by the long dark, wet, windy, dreich West of Scotland winters. But making porridge has a down side - Who cleans the pot afterwards? Because when a porridge pot cools it develops a thick gelatinous coating which, when it comes to washing the pot…….yeuk!
Scouring out the porridge pot,
Round and round and round.
Out with all the scraith and scoopery,
Lift the eely ooly droopery,
Chase the glubbery slubbery gloopery ,
Round and round and round.
Out with all the doleful dithery,
Ladle out the slimey slithery,
Hunt and catch the hithery thithery ,
Round and round and round.
Out with all the ubbly gubbly,
On the stove it burns so bubbly,
Use a spoon and use it doubly,
Round and round and round.
For a fact sheet on the dietary benefits of porridge, Scotland's contribution to health food, see http://www.flahavans.com/home/facts.htm
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