Grandpa’s theory

Remember when for tea at night, it was meat and spuds to start,
With maybe carrots, cauli and some peas, but nothing a la Carte.
Then for pudding there’d be custard or some jelly with ice cream,
But rarely anything with chocolate or plum pudding it would seem.

And then on chilly winter nights, there’d be Mum’s veggie soup,
Or porridge on those frosty morns that gleefully we’d scoop.
There’s be vegemite in sangers, the perfect filler in white bread.
We’d eat apples, pears and oranges, and so classed ourselves well fed.

But how the times have changed from those homely meals a treat,
With our veggies from the garden and fresh eggs or home grown meat.
The world has changed in such a way. It seems we’ve lost the plot,
For near everything is take away that the microwave makes hot.

How often do we watch on telly some professor deemed as right,
On something we have eaten all our life, as something of a blight
Which makes old Grandpa now at ninety-three, give a stately smirk.
Who probably has credentials on what does or doesn’t work.

Of course healthy fads and diets bring the educated into view,
So it’s ‘round the kitchen table where the old world greets the new.
Where technology that’s modern versus what we took for granted.
Now it’s genetic engineering versus what the gardener planted.

The generations argue on the reasoning, of why their time is best
And it’s hard to find a compromise, therefore it’s bugger all the rest!
It was in amongst one heated spat, when a young’un thought it deft
To throw a verbal fist at Grandpa…“No wonder Grandma left!”

Well Grandpa flew out of his chair and forgotten was the food.
He delivered poorly chosen words, that were blatant, rough and crude,
About his life with Grandma, and how she’d driven him insane
With her nagging and harassing, for a lifetime filled with pain.

Then accusations flew from left to right, and continued being crude,
The families fighting over Grandma, instead of values in our food,
Until someone noticed in our paper, an article that’s written down
Advising a nutritionist is going to lecture in our town.

Grandpa sat between the young’uns in a row way down the back
And I was there to referee in case of any semblance of attack.
They all promised they would listen and take in the speakers view
And not go shouting out obscenities if they deemed his word untrue.

The speaker stood up at the podium with a white board at his back
And was writing down some figures either penned in red or black.
There were the words we often hear, like sugar, fat and dairy,
And if our diet’s over blessed with them, then things get pretty scary.

The speaker mentioned veggies and the wealth of eating fruit.
This made old Grandpa happy, but to the young’un’s didn’t suit.
They were waiting for the verdict on hamburgers, chips and coke,
And when he trod their path of snacking they considered him a joke!

The speaker became damning on the trend of modern diet
And mentioned that if years ago our pedigree did try it
It would have been mass slaughter with the poison in their bowels
From ingredients in soft drink and hormones in battery fowls.

Today the Chinese food is burdened with the scourge of MSG.
There’s antibiotics in our red meat…crops are changed genetically.
Our water isn’t fit to drink, so we add fluoride and chlorine,
And with preservatives and colouring, it’s brighter red and green.

The speaker in conclusion, took his claim to greater heights.
There is one thing he mentioned that provokes our greatest plights
He asked this question to his audience, “Can someone here tell me,
What food causes grief and anguish, from eating to eternity?”

The young’uns scoffed at such a food, they reckon it’s absurd,
And Grandpa listened to them all, but never spoke a word.
He grinned at their debating, or futility they make,
But in the end, stood up and yelled, “Its bloody wedding cake!”

 

Poem courtesy of liarbird