“We didn’t used to be frightened of our food, but now people are terrified of food. It’s a total preoccupation,” chef Darina Allen from Ballymaloe Cookery school in Cork told Rachel Collins, Irish Times Magazine Editor and guest presenter of this week’s food edition of The Women’s Podcast.
November is food month in The Irish Times, and Allen joined restaurant critic Catherine Cleary, food columnist Domini Kemp and Jane Russell, whose family has been making sausages since 1863, to discuss the always-changing “rules” of food. The most recent guidelines came from the World Health Organisation report that put processed meats in the same carcinogenic category as tobacco, asbestos, arsenic and alcohol.
Allen said the report was “badly handled” and “the hysteria around it was quite damaging”.
“They are very different depending on how highly processed they are. I think it’s really important, like everything else, to eat in moderation for a start but to make sure you know how the pig is reared and how it’s processed. The less processing and nitrates, the better,” she said.
“I think people are immensely confused because there’s almost a different message every week. Now we know that good fats weren’t the demons we thought they were. As you know, I’ve always been a great proponent of butter,” Allen said, adding that lard is also “having a moment”.
Kemp talked about her year of healthy eating food column in this paper. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 and changed her eating habits to enhance her immune system.
“What people are looking for now are healthier options to have on an everyday basis,” she said.
Cleary called the column “a combination of pleasure and health – that good food can really taste delicious”.
Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this week and Kathleen Harris, a Dublin based Texan, shared her thoughts on the difficulty of maintaining family traditions when you have moved to another country.
Also on the podcast, Irish Times journalist Sorcha Hamilton talked to two women in the beer industry – Ladies Craft Beer Society of Ireland founder and president Christina Wade and Metalman Brewery founder and head brewer Gráinne Walsh.
Our question of the week was inspired by one of our upcoming guests, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of ’Eat, Pray, Love’ and her new book Big Magic which looks at how to live a creative life.
The Women’s Podcast wants to know: What is the most creative thing you have done lately?
Listeners are invited to tweet their answers to the question of the week @ITWomensPodcast, post to our Facebook page or email thewomenspodcast@irishtimes.com.
Individual episodes of the podcast are available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. Next week’s guest host is best-selling author Marian Keyes.
