Blue Smarties, banned by the food police, have returned. So isn't it time to stop being scared of our food and start embracing the E-numbers and additives?
INCREDIBLE NEWS - the blue Smartie is back; those wizards at Nestlé have found a way to imitate that same sky-blue without all those harmful additives, and now, instead of artificial colouring, that azure shell is dyed with natural material. Possibly spider blood . . . but that doesn't matter. What matters is that blue is back, and here to stay.
But the question must be asked, what made blue disappear in the first place? And we're told that the reason is E-numbers. Chemicals in the old Brilliant Blue (E113) colouring, when combined with elements in the other synthetic colours of the old Smarties, and taken with a measured amount of arsenic during a full moon, could harm the nervous system. Or something like that.
And we see the pleasure-food sector under attack yet again from "scientists" who say that the recipe for the Big Mac must include pickle to avoid being classed as a dessert. That a 750ml bottle of Pepsi gives you 93 per cent of your RDA of sugar. That battery chickens will not only interfere with your bowels, they will also kill you. And when did everything start giving me cancer? Gone is the era when men were men, women were women, and penny sweets did not induce frenzy. There was a time when people, if ever they did catch a disease from a piece of raw chicken, or sustain a bullet wound while hanging from a helicopter and having a fist-fight with a rabid tiger (that's the kind of time it was), they would bear it with a grim smile, clutching their husband/wife/significant other close, and either die a hero, or fight through it and eventually kill Stalin. Or something like that.
So, what happened? When did the fat content of the Christmas turkey replace falling debris from a defunct satellite on the danger scale? How did we get so sensitive about food? People used to travel to see hydrogen bomb detonations, camping out in the open with a picnic rug. Kids would eat anything as long as it wasn't still moving, and parents let them. I ask again, what happened? It seems that people began asking questions. Questions such as: "What's that green bit in the middle of this sausage?" Or, "Why does this chocolate bar taste like a wet dog?" We began to turn up our noses at imperfect food, and send it back if it wasn't up to standard. Research was done, and it was discovered that a cocktail of chemicals found in Smarties could damage the nervous system. And the rest is history.
But why is there's such hysteria on this front? Let's take avian flu, for example. It's a terrible disease, but it was blown completely out of proportion. There were 17 fatalities in China. China. You couldn't get much further away unless you had a space suit. But no, Irish mothers said, it's an epidemic and must be stopped at the source. So for about a month, nobody bought poultry. But that was justified by that dead swan they found in some marsh. Aha, said the mothers. If someone had eaten that swan, they'd be dead. Yes, mothers. Yes they would.
Who said man-made substances were all bad? Anybody heard of penicillin? And for that matter, who said all natural substances are good? How about cyanide? No, it's the mothers of today who are robbing us of our taste buds, who lobby to see the vibrant, fun colours of fruit pastilles changed into the dull, monotonous tones one would find in an office block, who fail to see the harmlessness of E15247, apart from keeping junior up till four o'clock in the morning. And on top of all that, has anyone tasted these new natural flavourings? Talk about adding insult to injury.
Yes, maybe glucose, E-numbers and triglycerides are not the most nourishing food components. Maybe your life would be marginally longer without them. But your life would not be better. Who are we to deny our own sweet-teeth? Should we settle for these bland "flavourings"? I think not. We're slowly sinking into an insipid existence, without freedom, without time, without fist-fights between men and rabid tigers. Don't let flavour go too.
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• Eugene Egan is one of the winners of the Junior category of this year's Irish Times School Mag award with WTF?