source: The Times.
There needs to be a recipe book for those on diet drugs — filled with tiny portions of caviar and ortolans
ou’re almost certainly sick to death of reading stories about the new diet drugs. Because you’re either rich and fat, in which case you’re already taking them. Or you’re not, in which case you aren’t. So what else is there to say? Aha. Well, that’s just it. I’ve thought of something.
Last weekend, we had a few friends round for Sunday lunch and, to be fair, none of the women were taking any kind of shape-shifting medicine. There is no need in Oxfordshire because here, thanks to a combination of Pilates, lettuce and Instagram, women have already achieved genetic perfection. The men, however, haven’t. So every single one was injecting himself thin. You could actually see the weight loss happening, in real time.
Hilariously, however, not one of them has an exit strategy. They just accept that they will have to buy a new suit on a Monday morning, and the following week they will have to buy another. And they don’t seem to have realised that one day they will die weighing less than when they were born.
But this lack of a happy ending doesn’t seem to be holding anyone back. My vet is on the programme. So is the man who services my tractor. And I am too. I began two years ago on Ozempic, but that didn’t work. My body lost the ability to deal with gluttony but once the initial enthusiasm had worn off, my mind still wanted to breakfast on Cadbury Fruit & Nut. This meant I was sick a lot. And after I had vomited, I figured I was empty and could have another bottle and maybe another bar of chocolate too. Ozempic turned me into a bulimic version of Henry VIII and, after six months, having put on half a stone, I gave up.
Three months ago I started a course of the other one. Muntjac, I think it’s called. And this is better because even though I’m only microdosing at the moment, I can open the fridge, look at all the goodies in there and then close it. I haven’t lost any weight but it seems inevitable that, as I no longer want to eat my own body weight in chocolate and beef, I will.
So well done me? ’Fraid not. There was a time when weight loss required both an iron will and a steely spine, and if you could pull it off, you were applauded. Not any more. Losing weight now is like winning a marathon. By going around the course in a car.
There’s another problem too. And this is the one that got me thinking. When you are on Muntjac, you can come down in the morning and idly help yourself to a small handful of sunflower seeds. And it’ll feel like you’ve just finished a massive Christmas lunch. You’re stuffed.
So you find yourself living a minibar existence. Tiny packets of milk, sachets with only three grains of sugar in them, vodka in thimbles. That’s not living, though. That’s existing.
And when you go to a restaurant, it becomes an even more serious problem because no matter how small the starter is, you will not then want a main dish, let alone a pudding. And you certainly won’t want a bottle of wine. I’m surprised restaurateurs don’t ban anyone on a diet drug from coming through the door.
Certainly, I was a bit peeved when my friends came round for Sunday lunch. I’m used to the women eating one bit of cress but can normally rely on the men to want another Yorkshire and maybe a few more roasties. However, it was as if they’d all arrived after a night in Pablo Escobar’s man cave. They didn’t eat a thing.
And neither did I, which saddened me. Because making food and sharing it with your friends should be a joyful thing. And celery isn’t even on nodding terms with joyful. Hence my Big Idea, which is this: there needs to be a new recipe book, and certainly a restaurant, that creates recipes and food for people who are no longer able to eat very much. Think of it as a children’s menu, but with tuna carpaccio instead of fish fingers.
I’m already practising. Yesterday I placed a fried quail’s egg on a see-through shaving of exquisite Ibérico ham. It was delicious and satisfying and, in my condition, very filling.
Tonight I’m having caviar. Ordinarily, this would cost me thousands and thousands of pounds, because I’ve always fed it into myself using a shovel. It’s the most moreish food on earth. But in my current condition it’s moreish no more, so I can make a tiny 100g tin last for a week.
I’ve also discovered snail caviar, which is a) white and b) no such thing. It’s actually unborn snails. But weirdly it does taste and feel like the real deal. So you can pop a teaspoon of that onto half a Ritz cracker and you have yourself the 21st century’s answer to a mediaeval banquet.
Cost? It’s a lot. I think I’m right in saying it’s the only foodstuff on earth that is more expensive than cocaine. And normally it takes the sheen off the dining experience when you know that each mouthful is costing you £50. But when that mouthful is a meal, it’s not so bad. And that’s the genius of my idea. You can eat like a king, dining on peach and peacock, and because the quantities are so small, it won’t break the bank.
Other things I’d like to see in my recipe book, and mouth, are ortolans, those freshwater sardines that only live in Lake Como, bone marrow, boned pigeons and heart. Not a sheep’s heart obviously. That would be like eating an elephant. Maybe a rabbit’s heart. I bet that would be delicious. Or a sparrow’s.
In short, I want to live in a tiny tapas and micro-sushi world where quantity is of no consequence. Just taste. Because while the diet drugs allow you to survive on a handful of sunflower seeds and some celery, you don’t want to. Because when all is said and done, you are not a gerbil.
