Your mum always used to say that eating your crusts would make your hair curl, but chewing on bread crusts may help protect against bowel cancer.
Parents who commonly cut the crusts off of their children’s sliced bread may want to think twice. An antioxidant called pronyl-lysine, which is released during the baking process, prevents changes in the body that can potentially lead to a tumour and is eight times more present in the crust than any other part of the bread.
The research, which took place at the Annamalai University in India, also found that by eating the crusts on a daily basis, the development of pre-cancerous cells was reduced by 72%.
While chomping on crusts should be on the rise, the use of double-handed cutlery is on the decline.
It has already happened to the cup and saucer – when the saucer fell out of favour with the arrival of the mug – and now it looks like another iconic dining coupling is coming to an end: the knife.
Modern day diners are opting for the single handed option and deciding not to fork out on knives. As a result, forks are outselling knives by two to one.
The abandonment of the dining knife has been blamed for the rise in casual eating trends where ready meals and takeaways reign supreme over traditional dining. Debenhams has been so concerned to find that forks are outselling knives that they are hiring ‘etiquette experts’ to teach shoppers about proper dining habits. “Burgers seldom require the use of a knife, and ready meals are presented using pre-cut, bite sized portions which slip easily on a fork. Using a knife and a fork to eat is one of the mainstays of being British,” Ed Watson, the spokesman for Debenhams, has said.
Leaving etiquette experts in a state of panic, these findings have come at a time where it is estimated that only a third of families eat their meals together at the table. This means dining manners and proper use of cutlery isn’t being passed onto the younger generation.
How do your family mealtimes fare against the findings? Do you eat and go? Or do you think that a fork without a knife just doesn’t cut it? Let us know below…
