This morning I decided to try something a little
different. Last night was the first night when I was quite aware of how hungry
I was as I went to bed, and this gave me an idea. They say that you should
never shop when you’re hungry because you’ll buy lots of stuff you don’t need,
and I adhere rigidly to this rule whenever I’m not hungry. However, there’s
nothing in the rule that says that you can’t go window shopping at a
supermarket to see what you can find, and do genuine science out in the field
to determine how having not eaten flavoured food for three days affects how I
feel about a selection of foods. For an added bonus, I decided to go before
breakfast to get the full hunger experience.
Naturally, with it only having been three days, most
cravings are still in a relatively early stage (you can live for three weeks
without food), but that means in order to investigate this properly I’d need to
keep this diet going for weeks, and that’s definitely not going to happen!
The supermarket of choice was Morrisons, due to the very
scientific reasoning of it being my closest large supermarket. This is not an
official endorsement of Morrisons, though, so if any supermarkets are reading
who want to sponsor me, feel free to. I’m not the sort of person who can be
bought for any price. However, I am the sort of person who can be bought for a
certain range of prices.
And so without any further ado, let us enter the realm of…
A Very Special John Craving’s Newsround – Morrisons Edition!
For this, I will present a selection of foods, plus a
rating out of 5 for both usual level of craving and current level of craving.
My rankings are as follows:
·
0 – If this was all that was left on Earth, I
would seriously consider moving.
·
1 – I don’t really use this very much and do not
like the taste at all.
·
2 – Something I like, but don’t buy all that
often.
·
3 – This would normally be in my cupboard, and I’d
probably make use of it at least weekly.
·
4 – I would probably consume this every day if I
could get away with it.
·
5 – If this is in my house I will consume it
almost instantly, like matter and antimatter annihilating each other.
Grapes
 |
| Grapes, aka pre-wine |
Usual: 2/5
Current: 3/5
Grapes are pretty cool. They basically feel
like a healthy version of sweets in that they’re filled with sugar but they’re
good for you. Some sugar would be nice.
Bananas
 |
| Bananas also double as a glacially-changing traffic light at an intersection where you never want traffic to stop. |
Usual: 3/5
Current: 3/5
I eat bananas more frequently than grapes, but at this
point probably want the same things from them. (Except for it to turn into
wine, I don’t think banana wine would be especially appealing).
Mushrooms
 |
| According to the internet, approximately 20% of mushrooms are poisonous. If I got a punnet of these I'm not sure which I'd be hoping for. |
Usual: 1/5
Current: 1/5
I don’t really get mushrooms. I like most vegetables, but
this is just rubbery and a bit strange (not to mention the fact that if you see
one in the wild, it will almost certainly kill you.) (Not even just by eating
it; in some parts of the countryside there are wild gangs of mushrooms roving
around with knives and shotguns picking off lone foragers). No change in my
mushroom stance today.
Doughnuts
 |
| They sometimes have jam in, so they're healthy. |
Usual: 2/5
Current: 5/5
For these, the price was almost as tempting as the food
itself – 10p for a doughnut, I’ll take that! This was a 4/5 initially, until I
got a bit closer to the bakery section and smelt some doughnuts cooking. At
that point holding up the shop in exchange for a doughnut seemed like a relatively
reasonable trade.
Bread
 |
| Always nice to have a food you could either eat or juggle, depending on your mood. |
Usual: 3/5
Current: 5/5
For me usually, I get through a fair amount of bread but
usually as a vessel for other food which I like more. Bread by itself is usually
not particularly engaging, but the smell of the bakery again did funny things
to the taste buds that I didn’t think were there anymore.
Cheese
 |
| This picture was taken from a slight distance for the safety of me and those around me. |
Usual: 5/5
Current: 5/5
If you’ve known me for any length of time, you will know
that I love cheese. If you don’t know me at all, you’ve probably heard of me as
“that guy who likes cheese”. If you know me but not cheese, you will know
cheese as “that thing that I like”. If you don’t know me or cheese then to be
honest you’re missing out on two pretty great things, but you should get to
know cheese first. I’ll wait.
Pizza
 |
| This picture is making me too hungry so let's just all pretend I wrote something amusing here and move on. |
Usual: 4/5
Current: 5/5
Pizza is essentially bread and cheese stuck together,
with more delicious stuff put on top. I’d eat it raw at the moment if that was
socially acceptable.
Olives
 |
| Tomatoes with cream cheese not included in the below analysis, mostly because I love both of those things and thinking too much about the beautiful combination might be unhealthy for me. |
Usual: 0/5
Current: 2/5
Olives are salty and packed with calories and taste. It’s
a disgusting taste, but the sheer quantity of it at this point almost makes up
for the fact that I’d immediately regret it if I actually tried to eat them.
Olive oil
 |
| Crisp AND dry? Those are my two favourite types of spring day! |
Usual: 2/5
Current: 2/5
I suspect a nice tall glass of olive oil would replace
all of the calories I’ve lost this week.
Salmon
 |
| Unfortunately, I'm not quite ready to cook yet. But it's good to know that the salmon is. |
Usual: 3/5
Current: 3/5
I’m a pescetarian (a word which Word does not recognise
as real and suggested “desecration” as an alternative), which is essentially
vegetarian plus fish. I do find salmon delicious, and today is no exception, but
perhaps it’s because through the oats and the beans I’m probably getting way
more protein than usual anyway, but the salmon didn’t look any more appealing than
usual.
Steak
 |
| True story - despite being a vegetarian, I once managed to accidentally enter and win a meat raffle. |
Usual: 0/5
Current: -1/5
Being a vegetarian means I just don’t understand steak.
There are loads of delicious vegetables in the world – steak seems to be for
people who say “Why don’t you take all those delicious vegetables, put them in
one animal and then I’ll just eat that animal and cut out the middle man. How
do I want it cut? Just lop a chunk of it off and pop it in some packaging, I’m
not too fussy”.
Milk
 |
| On the right, we have a bottle of milk. On the left we have a bottle of water in a milk costume. |
Usual: 3/5
Current: 3/5
This is what you get if you take the previous point, and
say “You know what, I don’t really want to eat my food second hand. Why don’t
you take that animal you’ve just put all those vegetables in, squeeze it really
hard and feed me whatever comes out?”. But milk is delicious so it gets a pass
from me.
Selection of desserts
 |
| This title explains why I got fired from that menu-writing business. |
Usual: 2/5
Current: 3/5
This is basically what you get if you take all the things
you’re probably not supposed to eat, and mix them together in a bowl. And they taste
so good for it.
Juice
 |
| If only there was some idiom for comparing the differences between these two types of juice. |
Usual: 3/5
Current: 4/5
I drink a fair amount of fruit juice usually, and I
genuinely think this is what I am most likely to trip up on in the last couple
of days. A couple of times, I’ve got myself a glass and got halfway to the
fridge before remembering that juice is out – it’s my go to non-water drink.
(And if you’re a juice manufacturer, feel free to use that as your slogan).
Crisps
 |
| Apparently the average house price in Leamington is £318,230. I'm not sure if I'd rather have a house or 318,230 multipacks of crisps. I think the only reason I'd choose the house is in case I needed somewhere to store all of my crisps. |
Usual: 5/5
Current: 6/5
People often put sliced bread, penicillin or Stephen Fry’s
voice as mankind’s greatest inventions. I pity such people for they have
forgotten the wonder of the potato crisp. One of my greatest regrets in
starting this challenge was not forcibly removing all of the crisps from my
house before starting it.
Toilet paper
 |
| Because nothing says "notoriously clean" like a puppy. |
Usual: 3/5
Current: 3/5
I’ve had pretty much the same desire to use this during
this week as I have during any other. If I were going for another week or two this
would increasingly start to look like a viable dinner option.
Canned soup
 |
| "The nation's favourite", eh? Heinz, are you really suggestion that people prefer your soup to the Queen, Wimbledon or complaining about the weather? |
Usual: 2/5
Current: 4/5
Canned soup is often pretty dull, especially when
compared to homemade soup (I like any recipe which consists of “Take all of the
ingredients in the title of the recipe, plus stock, boil them until you can
squish them, and then blend it”). But I suspect that the flavours in canned soup
would make a fine addition to any of the meals I’m eating today.
Herbs and spices
 |
| Each pot is its own little flavour experience. |
Usual: 3/5
Current: 5/5
I cannot state this enough – herbs and spices are wonderful.
I genuinely think that the rice and beans meals I’ve been eating this week,
with the right mixture of herbs and spices, would make a very tasty and filling
dish. If I take nothing else away from this week, at least I’ll know how great
these guys are.
De-icer
 |
| For some reason this photo is way darker than all the rest. It's the Christopher Nolan's Batman of these photos. |
Usual: 1/5
Current: 1/5
If having too much ice was one of Jay-Z’s problems, he
could buy this and be down to 98. Otherwise I think the description of 1/5 at
the top is entirely apt for this.
Wooden train set
 |
| I choo-choo-choose this one! |
Usual: 5/5
Current: 5/5
Hello? It’s a wooden train set! I’m never not going to
want one of these.
Book about cooking
 |
| The fact that she has so many show-stopping recipes perhaps means she's less likely to get invited onto cooking programmes. |
Usual: 1/5
Current: 4/5
I could be tempted by either the contents of the book, or
simply eating the book.
And that was John Craving’s Newsround – extra-long edition! This evening’s update will cover all of today’s meals.
Thanks to a series of very generous donations, I have now
hit my stretch goal of £350, which means I’ll be continuing the blog on to
Saturday. This means there are still three days of the blog left to go, and so
three more days of shamelessly asking for money. If anybody has any suggestions
for further stretch goals that they think people might be willing to pay for,
do let me know!
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