“WE are what we eat.” Squinter thinks it was the 19th century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach who said that. Others will tell you that the sentence is a loose translation of words spoken a bit earlier in the 19th century by the lawyer and culinary commentator Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who remarked: “Dis-moi ce que tu manges et je te dirai ce que tu es.” (“Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are.”) *Ignore the haters who allege that I looked these things up on Google.
Does that mean what we eat tells us who we are as a chunk of animated bone and tissue? Well, clearly that’s the case otherwise some of us wouldn’t need two seats on easyJet and some of us would fall down the gap in the middle.
Does it mean that our diet dictates the nature of our sentient interiors? How we think, how we love, how we create? Well, there is plenty of scientific evidence that the constituent elements of what we put into our cakeholes has a direct effect on brain function and the nervous system, although of course how that manifests itself is rather less clear.
Squinter has long been a student of diet and behaviour and after decades of observing our nosebagging habits, he has submitted the following ‘Guide to Rations and Rationality’ to the British Journal of Psychology. Choose one from two in the following list of 50 food and drink favourites (the first option being A, the second B) and then count your tally of As and Bs to find out what your answers say about you.
1. Battered fishfingers or breadcrumb?
2. HP brown sauce or Heinz tomato sauce?
3. McDonald’s or Burger King?
4. Tea or coffee?
5. Guinness or Beamish?
6. Irish whiskey or Scotch?
7. A fry or a bowl of stew?
8. Plain bread or pan?
9. Jam or peanut butter?
10. Mars Bar or Snickers?
11. Harp or Heineken?
12. Indian food or Chinese?
13. Pizza or fish and chips?
14. Mild cheese or mature?
15. Scrambled eggs or fried?
16. Butter or spread?
17. Black pudding or white?
18. Ham sandwich or cheese sandwich?
19. Roast chicken or roast beef?
20. Potato bread or soda bread?
21. Poke or slider?
22. Partition Tayto or Free Stayto?
A TASTE OF IRELAND: But do you opt for Tayto or Free Stayto when you require a snack?
23. Carrots or peas?
24. Boiled rice or fried rice?
25. Curry chip or gravy chip?
26. Hamburger or chickenburger?
27. KFC or Herrons?
28. Pasty or steakette?
29. Croissant or Danish?
30. Frosties or Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes?
31. White bread or brown bread?
32. Back bacon or streaky?
33. Smoked bacon or unsmoked?
34. Pork sausage or beef sausage?
35. Chilli or lasagne?
36. Brown fish or white fish?
37.White wine or red wine?
38. Pringles or Doritos?
39. Salted or dry-roasted peanuts?
40. Chocolate digestives or chocolate Hob-Nobs?
41. Diet fizzy drinks or regular?
42. Vodka or gin?
43. Paris bun or diamond?
44. American mustard or Colman’s?
45. Beans with a fry or no beans?
46. Stew with brown sauce or no sauce.
47. Stew with mince or steak pieces?
48. Broccoli or cauliflower?
49. Sirloin steak or rump?
50. Chicken soup or tomato soup?
•Mostly As: You have limited capacity for introspection, but you light up a party or a karaoke session. You are a loyal friend, a dangerous enemy and when seated you ostentatiously lift a single cheek to fart.
•Mostly Bs: You’re a retiring soul who enjoys nothing better than a solitary meal in front of the television. Your predilection towards isolationism is copperfastened by your silent-but-deadly emissions in rooms, lifts and pubs.
