When the health-enhancing properties of booze are accepted, it will be worth batting for cheaper food

And having bought your medicinal tipple here, you can move on to the health food shop.

Alf applauds the Public Health Association and Agencies for Nutrition Action for pressing the government to take concrete steps to reduce the cost of nutritious food – particularly the basics like bread, milk, fruit and vegetables.

He will support them, provided they include whisky (above all) on their list of healthy foods along with other alcoholic beverages with health-enhancing properties.

He enthusiastically goes out to promote whisky, which by the way happens to be one of his favourite tipples, although this is neither here nor there when it comes to the serious business of legislating in the public interest to improve the nation’s health and nutrition.

Fat chance they’ll wean Alf from butter

The “food miles” concept, encouraging people to buy local foods rather than foods shipped in from afar to reduce carbon emissions, isn’t the only threat to this country’s dairy exports to Britain.

The Food Standards Agency there recently launched a multimillion pound advertising campaign featuring TV adverts and cooking tips to encourage consumers to cut down on their saturated fat intake.

More ominously, an outfit called The Fat Panel – which is leading a sort of culinary temperance movement – has struck a blow against butter by urging consumers to beware of the recipes from celebrity chefs.

It reckons a single serving from a recipe by Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein can contain more than 100 per cent of the recommended daily allowance of saturated fat. Swapping butter for margarine or a vegetable oil spread would reduce the fat content of some recipes by at least half, they advise.

Making a meal of the Greens

Wanna know if Anne Tolley sought advice from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, or Sport and Recreation New Zealand on her decision to remove the National Administrative Guideline requiring schools to sell only healthy food; if so, what concerns, if any, were raised?

Of course you do, after Alf teased you into becoming curious.

A nicely cooked policy

Green MP Sue Kedgley only ever looked good to Alf when she leapt into a sow crate for a photo opportunity some years back (actually, she was reported to have elbowed aside some Green colleagues for the privilege).

So he will quietly busy himself with something – like read his Dominion-Post – when she gets to quiz the Minister of Education at Question Time today.

Her question to Anne Tolley:

Did she seek advice from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, or Sport and Recreation New Zealand on her decision to remove the National Administrative Guideline requiring schools to sell only healthy food; if so, what concerns, if any, were raised?

It’s a huge waste of breath. Alf knows you don’t have to consult with all those people to come up with a good policy.

He wonders real hard about Kedgley and her preoccupations. The Department of Personal Opinions, before the 2008 election, credited her with having

“a commitment and passion for ensuring the food we eat is safe.”

Does anyone not worry about their food being safe?

Alf certainly does. But he doesn’t force his concerns on others or turn them into cumbersome regulations. He simply asks Mrs Grumble (nicely) to please sample his food before he tucks in.

Lard laws take a battering

The nutrition Nazis just don’t get it.

The Government has not made pie-eating – or gluttony – compulsory for school children.

It has simply scrapped a daft regulation requiring the availability of nothing but “healthy” food options for sale in schools.

It regards these – and rightly so – as unnecessary and a bureaucratic burden.

The scrapping of the lard laws gives school boards of trustees the freedom to make their own decisions about what are appropriate foods and drinks.

It does not permit them to advocate, preach or champion the spawning of a nation of Billy Bunters.