Working with an empty belly and the worm running is not a good idea. Friends of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have revealed that every week he fasts completely for 36 hours, from five in the afternoon on Sunday to five in the morning on Tuesday. And both the press and the opposition highlight that many of his worst decisions (too many to list) are made precisely on Mondays… A lot of coincidence.
Sunak, 43 years old, of Indian origin and Hindu religion, has no weight problems, but strictly follows the so-called monks’ diet, to acquire discipline, age more slowly and live longer, although for the latter there is no magic formula that works. (and of course disappointments such as being twenty points behind in the polls and on the way to a historic defeat are not recommended, something capable of souring the character and breaking anyone’s digestion).
Sunak’s willpower, not his ability to govern, has been amply demonstrated, since from mid-afternoon on Sunday he stops eating masochistically, and until very early on Tuesday (God helps those who get up early) he does not Feed more than water, tea and coffee. He even abstains from his favorite vice, Mexican Coca-Cola made with sugar cane that he has brought from the North American country, and of which he consumes an average of seven cans a day! The conservative leader is totally teetotal, but sweets are an irresistible temptation. When he gets up he has yogurt with blueberries for breakfast, although a couple of hours later (when in Catalonia one stuffs a tortilla sandwich between his body and back), he has a cinnamon bun or a chocolate croissant. But all Monday, nothing at all. And it is there – he is studied – when he decides to send immigrants to Rwanda, reduce social subsidies, raise taxes or end free meals in schools.
Diet can be high politics. The current Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, completely eliminated bread after being photographed in a swimsuit with a belly, and acknowledged that snacking between meals was his downfall; Gordon Brown exchanged three KitKat bars a day for seven bananas during the 2010 election campaign, at the insistence of his wife; Joe Biden eats like an American child, with peanut butter sandwiches, pizza, cookies, and spaghetti with bolognese sauce; and Donald Trump boasts that he would live two hundred years if it weren’t for his passion for Coca-Cola (a can every two hours).
But it’s not just about what politicians eat, but what they stop eating (or recommend eating). In both the United Kingdom and the United States there is a great intellectual and philosophical debate about whether the potato should be classified as a vegetable, a starchy food, a bulb, a tuber or a type of grain. The decision is not trivial, because it affects whether or not it is included, and how many servings, in the meals subsidized by the Government (each Briton consumes one hundred kilos of the eleven varieties produced in the country each year, with their load of carbohydrates). , vitamins and minerals, and is a hundred billion dollar global industry).
Staunch defenders of the potato (such as Idaho producers in the United States and their representatives in Congress) insist that it is a vegetable, as botany says, and that therefore it should be included in the five daily servings of fruit. and vegetables recommended by food experts. With that interested criterion, a child can turn purple from French fries and will be eating a “healthy” diet, even if he turns like a seal… But it is a cheap product and, if it is not included on the menu, schools will It will cost a kidney.
The potato, like the diet, is political (and that’s without going into the fact that in 2003, due to France’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq, French fries were renamed freedom fries in the cafeterias of the North American Congress). It is no longer just a question of whether it is a vegetable, but of how much potato component a potato must have to be a potato. The British Treasury considers that papadam, pringles, doritos and the like are, at least for tax purposes, although their components are different. It’s like asking if a hot dog is a sandwich.
Dolly Parton said that all her diets had failed because she couldn’t live without potatoes. Rishi Sunak lives on water from Sunday to Tuesday, and so she does…
