Archive News
Big Breakfast holds the key to a new, healthier you!
Date Published: 14-Nov-2012
The darkest demons of childhood days still centre around the force feeding of cod liver oil on a spoon before being sent out into the wide world with a taste of poison on your tongue.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we should be grateful that this was the greatest injustice done to us during our formative years but just because we didn’t suffer lasting damage of an unfathomable scale doesn’t make this right.
The arrival of actual capsules was up there with the unveiling of the iPad in terms of an event that changed people’s lives for the better. Suddenly, if you swallowed fast enough and rinsed with cold water, you could enjoy an energy boost without the awful aftertaste.
Raw eggs also had their day, beaten to a pulp with a fork in a glass of milk and downed in one because, while this was good for your insides, you would never accidently sip it in the mistaken before it was a can of Coke.
Porridge was the other staple part of the Irish breakfast, at a time when cereals stretched no further than Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies. Weetabix, when it arrived, was cutting edge stuff – and as for those sugary things smothered with honey or chocolate, they weren’t even figments of someone’s imagination.
Ready Brek was a more palatable version of porridge, rather like cider was always easier to stomach than Smithwick’s – but back then, you didn’t need a separate shelf in the cupboard for cereals. A spot for the porridge would more than suffice.
The one common denominator, then and now, was that we were always told breakfast was the most important meal of the day – and yet again we have new research which underlines claims that a good breakfast could hold the key to healthiness.
Not that we appear to be heeding this advice, because apparently up to two-thirds of us skip the first meal of the day, when it fact we should be eating like kings and taking it easier later.
A research team from Imperial College London presented its findings at the Neuroscience 2012 Conference recently, having scanned the brains of 21 healthy people as they showed them a variety of foods including chocolate, pizza and salad.
They compared how attractive the foods were to people, as well as how much they ate for lunch after the scan on two days, one on which breakfast was missed and one on which they ate a large breakfast (750 calories).
The researchers found that missing breakfast increased the appeal of high-calorie foods (as measured by increased orbital frontal cortex activity on the brain scan) and that people ate about 250 calories more at lunch. The researchers said this shows breakfast takes the edge off our appetite so we don’t crave high-calorie foods.
And while the same could be said of any meal at any time of the day – as in, after we eat, we’re never as hungry – breakfast is, as young mother was killed telling you, the most important meal of the day.
The beauty of this study is that it has found some evidence in favour of a big fry first thing in the morning –on the basis that eating fats primes the metabolism to be more efficient for the rest of the day.
Where this falls down slight, however, is that the study was carried out on mice – although in fairness it found that the mice who ate a good breakfast were less likely to get chubby. So it’s even the most important meal of the day for a rat.
Better news still is that chocolate cake is recommended by researchers from Tel Aviv University who found that a 600-calorie breakfast with proteins and carbohydrates, including a sweet treat, controlled cravings for sugary things for the rest of the day and kick started the body’s metabolism.
Their study looked at 193 obese people over 32 weeks and found those who ate sweet things at breakfast lost an average of 40lb more than those who didn’t – so that’s the diet I’m going on.
As with all surveys, you take what you want from them – so I’m clinging to the claim that a big fry, followed by chocolate cake, will not alone ensure I’m not hungry for the rest of the morning at least, and I will lose weight in the process.
So goodbye to your All-Bran and your wood shavings with dried fruit and raisins – it’s a welcome return to the world of the big breakfast role.
Because, deep down, you know what’s good for you.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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