Neither health nor pleasure in a goblet of the red stuff

Country Living with Francis Farragher

For the record, I’ve never been a fan of red wine, and that’s putting it mildly. I’ve sipped it once or twice in my life, and scented it a few times since, just to reaffirm my distaste for the stuff but here and there, acquaintances have chided me mildly for not having a glass of the red stuff each night before bedtime to help me sleep soundly and to prevent me from picking up a variety of ailments.

It probably all goes back to a humble rural upbringing, where the nearest we ever came to red wine was at Christmas time when a bottle or two of sherry would be stored in the cupboard for the special guests that would call only once a year. Here and there, with one of my siblings, we’d chance an odd swig from the bottle but even then, the taste was ghastly, and an early vow was taken to leave wine out of any future drinking plans.

Over the last couple of weeks, I took a little bit of quiet satisfaction at reading the observations of  a learned medic in the UK who consigned the supposed benefits of red wine consumption into the old wives’ tales category.  Not really worth a jot in terms of reducing weight gain or in preventing certain cancers, according to Britain’s Chief Medical Officer with a name to match her status – Dame Sally Davies.

So as the weeks merrilly roll on, we’ll read one headline after the next with a range of contradictory health messages. One week potatoes are a vegetable and good for you: the next they’re not a veg and they have too many ‘carbs’ in them for those of us who want to try and fasten a tight belt. Having said all that, thank God, I had a narrow escape from forcing a glass of the red stuff down my throat every night to try and keep off a bit of weight.

At the turn of the year, I thought all of my morning menu problems could be solved when the humble black pudding was given the title of a ‘super food’ by a website with the title MuscleFood.com. Every morning I could have the pan hopping with thick discs of black pudding, content in the knowledge that this was my early morning health kick, full of iron and protein oil, that would keep me healthy as well as full for the best part of half a day.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.