EU healthy food symbol.
When I travel, I become more conscious of how stress, drink and food affects my mood.
As you travel you discover interesting foods to eat. But there are also foods you prefer not to eat.
Fresh Food UK, England and Scotland
My parents always avoided processed drinks and foods, especially meat and fish. They tried to avoid higher prices and food ingredients you did not need and could not identify. They did not want their food, chopped up, disguised, watered down with water and sauces, cheating them of the basic product.
Fish and Salmon
We had no idea that grilled fish or battered fish might be more or less healthy.
Fresh salmon was a rare treat.
But so was smoked salmon. Our one mistake was eating smoked salmon, a party treat. Later as we grew more affluent, we ate more of it, on bagels, along with more food from delis and supermarket food,
I had never realised that smoked salmon was literally smoked, preserved by adding smoke from fire, which dried the fish and made it less friendly to tiny life forms, 'germs', which we later identified as bacteria, which created illnesses treated with anti-biotics.
Fresh Fruit
My late father lived to 93. He was born in WWI. From childhood he had eaten an apple a day for lunch all summer.
I recall hotels and restaurants had trolleys of desserts, which included fresh fruit salad.
My father, as a child, had a potato in its jacket, containing vitamin C, in winter. The potato in your pocket kept you and your hands warm at school, where there was no central heating.
Bread and Potatoes
Nowadays restaurants serve bread while you wait for your meal.
When I was a child, you either had potatoes, or bread, not both. You had bread in home made sandwiches for a quick lunch.
Diabetics and Sugar
After my mother died in the year 2000, I used to go out to eat with my father and prepare meals for him. He had late onset diabetes, which meant avoiding foods contaoning sugar. I made fresh fruit salad for dessert.
I read the labels of everything to avoid sugar.
He said he like marzipan. That is basically ground almonds with sugar. I gave him a tiny amount once as a birthday treat. I bought it from the supermarket.
My husband had lymphoma, a form of cancer. I take thyroxine medicine for thyroid failing to function.
He looked at the diet advice on the Cancer Research websites. For the five years whilst he was in remission we were very careful what we ate.
I read, and was told by friends, that food blackened caused cancer. Burned toast. Grilled meat and fish.
Browned Food
My husband tried to avoid browned food.
All the grills.
Fast food with the outside heated to a crisp and the inside raw.
Toasters dry out bread and cook it, turn toast brown with black edges when the toaster set to a different thickness of bread.
Does heating the bread in toasters kill off bugs, or burn the edges to charcoal?
Raw And Uncooked Food
Raw food such as raw fish in sushi and sashimi,
and steak tartare,
and gazpacho,.
Heated Food
British tourists to Spain are apprehensive about luke warm food. We think that food should be heated to destroy germs.
Covid And Diet
In addition to restricting travel, Covid drew our attention to the fact that being overweight made you more vulnerable.
I still reduce the number of times a day I shake hands, and use elbow bumping instead.
In 2026 I still use toilet paper to wipe toilet seats, toilet handles, taps, toilet cubicle handles.
Health & Holidays in Hot Mediterranean Countries
Everybody loves the sun. Indulging in good food and drink.
What must you and I watch out for? Stress.
Too much food.
Too much drink. Too much alcohol.
Gas in Drinks
Bubbles. You think of Champagne. But gas is not only in Champagne,
which started as gas as a by-product excreted by yeast, like burping bacteria.
Like aligote - my favourite, but it is made with sweet fruit syrup to balance the acidity of the white wine.
spumante, (sparkling). I love it.
fizzy drinks
gassy water instead of sin gas.
Do as I say, not as I do. I love Champagne, Asti Spumante, Prosecco.
Stress limited
We now have newspapers and news on phones all day. My friend S is a jolly person whose husband is in a wheelchair, he was an ear nose and throat specialist. She recently told me she no longer watches the news, nor lets him watch the news, because it is too stressful.
A measure between the two extremes of having the news flashing past every minute, and never knowing what is going on, would be to go back to the old system of reading printed newspapers, checking morning and evening news.
Sufficient Sleep
Many studies have shown that sleep is vital. The signs on motorways no longer merely warn that speed kills. They say tiredness kills. They tell you to stop for rests.
Review your home and holiday behaviour. I try to cut out flights and ferries at times which require my losing sleep. Alternatively, I catch up on sleep before driving or going out.
Rest, relax, stay healthy and happy.
Useful Websites about diet and health
Cancer research
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/food-additives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_additives
The Daily Mail online has many articles on health.
Please share links to your favourite posts.
