Teachers feeding hungry children

Chips are great - and my children had them once a week, and roasties on Sundays. But only chips, and every day - is a form of food/health abuse, as it is so bad for youngsters growing up. As part of a balanced diet, they are great.

I'm going to try them as well!

Mamie your oven chips sound so healthy I'm sure you could safely eat them every day. I shall make some myself.

Yes, it was my sixth visit to Egypt (including Marsa Alam) and I have had some good food, but this was a budget hotel, so I had no complaints. The food was just a bit repetitive and some of the vegetables were cold. I don't like buffet style food, where it is kept warm in bain-maries, but we were there for the coral, not the cuisine!

Lots of vit D deficiency this year.

Who isn't?(apart fromgreatnan who's pinched it all)

greatnan Not all food in Eygpt is like that, we have had wonderful meals in Marsa Alam with lovely salads, as much meat as you like and good fresh fruit. The little coconut biscuits were great too but I agree some of the puds can be too sweet and gooey. I'm thinking of booking again this October as I'm pining for sun.

Now you have all made me feel hungry. I have been marinating a small pork chop (all fat cut off) in garlic and mustard, but I will cooking it in the oven in kitchen foil. I have some little new potatoes and carrots and peas - I wonder how long I can hold out without starting to cook.
I found the meals in Egypt a bit odd - I would never normally have rice, pasta and potatoes at one meal! The meat was a bit thin on the ground - they seem to have very scrawy chickens -just skin and bone. No puddings though - they were nearly all gooey cakes, which I don't like, so it was just a little cold rice pudding or any mousse- type thing for me, or melon, which for some reason was to be found on the salad bar. (No, I didn't risk the lettuce).
In spite of having three meals a day I did lose a little weight - it must have been the four hours a day snorkeling that did it.

Yes. Well! You've got me a bit worried now!!!

Mmmmm!

Friday night is chips night.

This has strayed miles from the original posting. I promise to shut up about deep-frying now. It was just that I really concerned about j04 poisoning herself.

Deep-frying chips does not result in their absorbing lots of fat, if it's done properly at the right temperature. Only the outside of the chip fries, becoming golden and crisp; the inside steams because the heat of the oil causes the water in the potato flesh to boil. In turn, the steam prevents the oil from being absorbed by the "inside" of the chip. As soon as the chips are cooked, lift them out and drain well and you'll find there's very little fat. (Leaving them in the fryer for too long causes them to absorb lots of oil and become soggy.) Deep-frying is a much healthier cooking technique than pan-frying.

Oven chips are never as good!

Mamie that's 'wedges'. Not the same. I do those unpeeled, and use Fry-light.

We make "oven chips" by boiling potatoes with the skin on until they are almost cooked, leaving them to get cold, peeling them, then cutting into wedges and cooking in the oven in a bit of olive oil and course sea salt. Good with sweet potato too.
Only have them about once a fortnight, though.

No, he was a pianist.

Not a felonious one?

No jeni It's a philosophical monk.

like jeni I don't own a deep fat fryer - in fact I fry bacon only! When I visited my daugher in Bavaria we went to a local beer celler/restaurant and the smell of fat was heavily in evidence. Accordance to my daughter that part of Germany is very fond of deep fat frying everything. I was amzed to learn people still fry chips, I thought everyone used oven chips these days. Silly me!

I don't even own a deep fryer or a deep friar, is that a fat monk?

Right. I will cut it down to four times.

"Hence, the effects of foods fried in reused oils are still unknown and may warrant further research as reusing oils is known to make them more harmful, the authors report."

From this report

I don't think it's only that absent.

Was trying to avoid sweeping generalisations Bags using words like average, may, appear, and I think...
Of course teachers label kids alison but i don't think there is any reason to think that it is common for them to label thus: "They are small therefore they are slow, or no good at sport"
it is just something I have noticed...

Yes absent transfats indeed. There are fewer of them around now but it is a very good reason to avoid biscuits. Apart from all butter shortbread, which I suspect Bags and i would agree are a good thing. In moderation. Its the moderation bit i find problematic.

j04 Your Nigella link is just assessing the risk of the oil catching fire. It is not concerned with toxicity.

j04 It is best to discard oil used for deep-frying once it has cooled. This is because it has already begun to break down as a result of the high temperature (typically 180–190°C/350–375°F), producing undesirable components such as trans fats. If you must re-use it, it should be strained and stored in the refrigerator and discarded after a week or when it has noticeably oxidised. (You can recognise this by the smell and the darkened colour.) It is not recommended that the same oil should be used for deep-frying more than two or three times. Using a thermostatically controlled deep-fryer is safer from the point of view of avoiding a fire but does not make reusing the oil any safer from a health point of view.

I love celery in stews Bags.