Sweet spot and a winter’s breath

April 10, 2022, 6:58 am , by Richard Lutz

Richard Lutz trawls through another week

I’m off to the hospital for a very minor affair of the crumbling body. But a hospital visit nonetheless. All ok and, as I leave, I’m confronted by the food area in the waiting room. Not a restaurant. Nor a canteen nor cafe nor bistro. Not even a food van.

It’s actually a vending machine filled to the rafters with junk-that’s it above. Sweetened drinks, lines of chocolate and, well, junk and more junk. In a hospital.

Not an apple in sight. Not a hint of orange.

Surely the health educators and the dieticians in this hospital must raise an eyebrow or at least a scintilla of concern to have a session, let’s say, with an obese patient or a diabetic and then know they’ll have to pass this machine filled with unreconstituted packaged crap.

Now, I’m not a martinet. I‘m as big a sucker for junk food as the next hospital visitor; as a matter of fact, I can’t keep from grabbing a bag of M&M chocolate covered peanuts (preferably the turquoise ones) if within range. But this bad food shouldn’t be for sale in a hospital- a centre dedicated to good health and treatment of illness.

A stalk of celery or a handful of sweets…

I root around. There are two issues here. One is that the health authorities (and schools too) are sometimes roped into catering contracts that may include an obligation to host space for vending machines in public spaces.

Secondly, some would say that a hospital, a school or train station should give the public what they want. Rather than what experts think they should have: ie, do you crave a stalk of organic celery or a fistful of my highly prized M&Ms?

The problem recurs all over the place. I enter my local gym. BANG…. right next to the physio rooms is a pair of vending machines…including not only water (alongside artificially sweetened junk drinks) but also the full arsenal of sweets, candy, crisps (aka potato chips), fruit bars with no nutritional value and, yes, invariably more chocolate.

This, in a gym where you probably spend a small fortune for monthly membership; where you pay for an hour dedicated to spin cycles, step machines and freeweights and getting fit and then having the opportunity to fill your face with Mars Bars.

For me, it’s out of the gym and into the woods. I leave Glasgow and head for The Trossachs, a huge undisturbed swathe of forest and hills which has millions of trees, mostly fir and conifer. This year, there’s been trouble: big muscular storms have felled hundreds of Scots Pine, spruce and larch.

Moss drips from the upended roots, roots too shallow to keep the huge trees upright against winter’s winds. The ones that block paths are quickly cut back. Some are still lying across trails and you have to hurdle and bundle over them.

On this day in The Trossachs, the air is cold, the weather drastically changeable. We count seven bursts of slanting rain across Loch Ard, the sheets storming in from the wet west. We eat venison and meat pies under an umbrella of sitka, waiting for a dry window. Then we head, through pulses of downpours, for the ruins of Murdoch’s Castle which sits loch side. But never find it. It’s a handsome breezy walk.

With the daffodils fading, we look for primrose, the next in the seasonal floral queue. They usually brim with life on sunny verges. But they’re just not ready. Yet, there is the sharp tang and taste of roadside wild garlic. Grab a handful of the broad leaves, have a chew and then just add pasta and wine.

But even the garlic aftertaste can’t really warm you up. It’s still cold. A wet wind keeps you chilled. Winter hasn’t yet held back its frigid breath.