Tim Worstall

This is a vegan explaining why she is a vegan. I find discrimination on the grounds of species as distasteful as discrimination on the grounds of race or sex. So to show how appalling discrimination between species is as to which you might eat you are going to discriminate between species as to which you [...]

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So the Scots are doing deep fried butter now. Nutritionists said its estimated calorie content was 1,450 – enough to keep an adult alive in the Arctic for a week. Jesus fucking christ, can we not get a few of these arts graduates to understand some basic numbers? Not asking for any arithmetic or anything, [...]

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This column is complete and total garbage. I’ve lost count of the number of rows I’ve had about that, many in public, one live on telly, during which the broadcaster Jonathan Maitland said this was a problem of education: if she knew how to shop better she would have been able to afford a more [...]

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Overnight, by a motorway? A cleanup operation is under way after a tanker carrying more than 20 tonnes of yeast extract – believed to be Marmite – overturned on a busy motorway. Average serving of Marmite, 4 grammes, so 250,000 servings to the tonne. Average weight of slice of bread, around 30 grammes, so 7.5 [...]

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Well, actually, there is. Ham can be seen as a method of curing meat*, not the name for the specific meat being cured. Thus a pastrami sandwich and a corned beef sandwich can be seen as being ham sandwiches. For the curing processes are the same as various ham curing processes.   *ie, we can [...]

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Meanwhile, Defra statistics show the price of meat has risen by 26 per cent since 2007, bread, cheese, eggs and milk by 27 per cent, and butter by a massive 40 per cent – driven by the spiralling cost of oil and poor harvests. Umm, if we had 5% inflation per year over those 4 [...]

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I know that the PR industry is not exactly a hot bed of superior intellectual activity but do they have to be quite so stupid? One of them has just written to me suggesting that as a result of something I wrote at the Register I might be interested in a video piece they’re touting [...]

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A third of all shoppers say that they are cooking with leftover food and scraps more than they were at the start of the year, according to a survey into shopping habits by the IGD, the food and grocery industry body. Won’t WRAP and all the environmentalists be pleased? You know, the people who have [...]

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Bees in NYC: Inevitably, the insects have adopted New York ways, as became evident this summer when they started producing red honey that tasted like cough medicine. It transpired that they were ignoring natural nectar to gorge on junk food – the sickly sweet waste sugar water produced by a factory that makes maraschino cherries [...]

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Just popped inside, wifey’s watching a cooking show (not feeling well) and I heard the presenter asking a chef: “Why would I peel a fig?” My assumption is for the same reason we peel cows really.

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Well, yes: “Every time we are interviewed by a German journalist they always say that British food has a terrible reputation, but that’s usually because they once went on a school exchange and were served beans on toast every night,” she said. “Jim always says, well, no one exactly says ‘I’m going out for a [...]

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No, the evidence presented does not prove what you assert. Modern mothers are much more adventurous in the kitchen and can prepare 25 per cent more dishes than their mothers, research suggests. Being able to cook more things is not the same as being able to cook better. I, for example, am a lousy cook [...]

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Trivial in and of itself, yes: Heinz, the American company which bought the famous British brand in 2005, has changed the celebrated concoction that includes tomatoes, malt vinegar, molasses, dates, tamarind and secret spices to reduce the salt content. The previous version of the brown sauce, which has become synonymous with fry-up breakfasts and bacon [...]

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That’s good then. The figures, compiled by the Consensus Action on Salt & Health (Cash) campaign group, came after the Department of Health announced bread accounts for more salt in our diet than any other food, making up almost a fifth of our daily intake. So bread is around and about as salty as human [...]

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Yesterday I cooked something that rocked my world so much, I thought I’d share it on my blog and who knows, it may become a occasional feature. Since it’s aimed a blokes or the kitchen-impaired (like me) the kind of food I’ll do will be quite simple and much more aimed at taste than looks. [...]

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John Liu, a film-maker who has been documenting the transformation, told a conference on “human security” in Caux, Switzerland, this week that the results had “far exceeded expectations”. Other speakers had similarly surprising experiences. Yacouba Sawadogo – an innovative, illiterate and eloquent small farmer from Burkino Faso – experimented with digging holes every metre across [...]

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The assorted boxes of mars, snickers, bouty and twix ice creams have just hit rural Portugal. Hmm. Think I prefered putting the original choccy bars in the freezer to be honest….

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Diabetes epidemic affecting 350m – and western fast food is to blame See, it’s all hamburgers I tell you! A few paras down: Researchers also say that increased life expectancy is playing a major role. Ah, so maybe it’s not just hamburgers then? As to the causes, the team attribute 70% to ageing and 30% [...]

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Isn’t it just terrible? But West fears it will lead to more intensive units to produce cheap meat for Britain. An actor is worried that we might solve humanity’s oldest problem. How to produce enough for everyone to eat.

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Someone really needs to have a word with these people: We’ve overfished the “Big Five” – cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns – and now supermarkets and marine conservationists are hoping to steer us towards more sustainable seafood. Like the megrim. Both salmon and prawns are now farmed. As are tilapia, sturgeon, catfish and so [...]

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