Crispy Chris

Sadly my hero Keith Floyd passed away this week and will be greatly missed by the millions of viewers like me who have been inspired and encouraged by, in my opinion, the greatest TV chef of all time.

I remember as a young child watching Fanny Craddock cooking her fancy European dishes using ingredients that were inaccessible to the average family living in the post war austerity of  fifties and early sixties Britain but she didn’t make me feel like cooking.  I remember as a teenager watching “The Galloping Gourmet” Graham Kerr and enjoyed seeing the expressions of extacy on his face as he tasted his own cooking.  This made me want to eat good food but his slight campness (which would go unnoticed these days) didn’t exactly inspire me to take up the spatula.

Then in the seventies, when I was a young adult, Keith Floyd burst onto the scene and I was hooked and to this day, like so many others, a glass of wine is as essential a cooking aid as is a sharp knife (except for breakfast of course).  Keith made cooking a fun and joyous occasion without the rigidness of traditional recipe books – “a dollop of cream, a splash of cider vinegar, a handful of chives and a good slosh of red wine”.  This made cooking intuitive and helped me develop a sensitive and discriminating palate.  This was jazz to Fanny’s chamber music!

If there can be a silver lining to this tragic loss then it is that we are likely to see more of Keith on the TV in the near future.  For those of you who are new to cooking I urge you to get onto Youtube and check out Keith in full flight.  You may recognise the influence he has had on that other great TV chef Jamie Oliver with his “bish-bosh” attitude towards measuring ingredients and the simplicity and accessibility of his recipes (but you need to slurp a bit more of the old vino my son!).

Here is a video of what is possibly the last interview with Keith and in typical style there are no holds barred, political correctness goes out the window and he takes no prisoners so if you are of an overly polite or sensitive disposition then cover your ears!!!!

Goodbye old friend – without you Crispy Chris would have been just plain old Chris.

CHEERS!!!!!

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Like the vast majority of the population of the first world I have long believed that cholesterol is the major cause of heart disease in the world.  Why? Because the doctors, the media, the advertisers, the drugs companies and the people around me say so.  So, in an effort to live longer I have moved to semi-skimmed milk, tried to leave the fat on lamb chops and rump steak (to my mind the best part taste-wise) on the side of my plate, have avoided eating more than two eggs in a day and use mostly olive oil in my cooking etc,.

This has made my life not quite as joyful as it could have been so you can imagine my elation when I found out that the whole cholesterol thing is a complete myth and we (including the majority of health professionals) have all been conned for years and years. Why?  Because the pharmaseutical industry makes billions of pounds a year selling statins designed to reduce cholesterol levels in the blood, to the NHS and global equivalents.

Thanks to the work of Dr. Malcolm Kendrick the whole con has been exposed and the true cause of heart disease has been revealed in his book entitled “The Great Cholesterol Con” available from Amazon and the usual outlets.  To me, a confirmed foodie, it is the best news I have heard in a long time. I now eat whatever fatty foods I like without worrying about my heart or feeling guilty and I haven’t even put on any weight. 

In a nutshell, the cholesterol from the food we eat that finds its way into our bloodstream has no bearing on heart disease whatsoever – none – zero- zilch!  In fact women over 50yrs old shouldn’t be without it and should not take statins full stop according to the good doctor’s research. So what is heart disease and what causes it?  If you thought it was “the furring up of your arteries” then you would  be wrong.  I don’t wish to do Dr. Kendrick out of book sales.  This man has stuck his head over the parapet (while the majority of the medical profession keep their heads down and get on with earning a living without rocking the boat – as if they had time anyway) and he deserves his dues.

So, I highly recommend you get yourself a copy of “the Great Cholesterol Con” and find out the truth for yourself.  I would be very grateful if you would share your thoughts on this or any other subject with me and the other readers by posting a comment on this site.  If you really can’t get a copy of the book then email me and I will tell you what causes heart disease or check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPYaVcXo1I 

Of course there is a whole army of people and organisations with a vested interest in keeping us in the dark and you can see they are running scared when you read their scathing attacks on Dr. Kendrick - just check them out on the web for yourself.  All I can say is life for me is sweeter thanks to Dr. Kendrick.  I hope yours will be.

I wish you a long life and very good health.

Chris Eadon.

P.S.  The book has good news for people who like a drink too!

Thought for Food Add new tag, cholesterol, con, heart disease, kendrick, saturated fats, statins