When a man is tired of biscuits, as Samuel Johnson almost said, he is tired of life. And during these bleak months, many have learned that the way to whet your appetite for one is to secure and consume another supply—especially at work. If the biscuits cannot be found, the cake will be finished.
But someone ruined our fun. Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford and chair of the Food Standards Agency, suggests that we are harming the health of our colleagues by bringing sugary treats to work. Comparing the effects to passive smoking, Jebb called for a “supportive environment” for healthy habits, explaining in an interview with the Times: “If no one brought me a cake to work, I wouldn’t eat bread during the day, but because people bring cake in office. , I ate it.”
This moral killer message, delivered when many have faced the failure of their New Year’s resolutions, is not dry January, but just-sad-and-can’t-take-it-again January. “Why isn’t anyone eating Professor Jebb?” there was one angry reaction on Twitter.
Boris Johnson gave “cakeism” a bad name, but some of us have stout hearts and iron will and have carried on regardless. My own protest involved consuming more homemade Battenberg cake than was good for me. One of our national characteristics noted stubbornness when told what – the backbone of steel bolshie walking through sugary dough. Even with 17 percent food inflation and two-thirds of Britons battling weight, we can expect the Office of National Statistics to record a spike in biscuit sales as the intervention of Jebb backfires.
Rebellious tendencies, let’s deal with the false analogy with passive smoking. Yes, I might work on shortbread for my friends from some jaunt, but this post-holiday gifting tradition can’t force sweet, sweet morsels down my gullet. These are adults who exercise free will. And if I sneak back in and grab a lot for myself (be patient, it’s so good with a cup of tea), I will surely save him from becoming a victim of the obesity crisis. Will the effect on me spread to others? Some kind of miasma snack, perhaps, or the transfer of insulin-increasing ingredients by osmosis from table to table.
Enlightened management recognizes the place of biscuits and cakes in our work culture – and as a productivity boost. It’s a simple question of input and output, if you like. And we did. The good management of the Financial Times has provided staff with slices of the pie every week since the financial crash of 2008, when the news machine was at full throttle every hour and needed fuel. My favorite perk even has its own Twitter account.
Jaffa cake is used as a newsroom bribe. The promise of biscuits after completing a task or project is a useful motivational tool. And treats can even be a channel to bond with withdrawn or tired colleagues, a sign of appreciation or a lure for an uncomfortable meeting. One columnist admitted he only stopped by to give us an idea in person because we had a good supply of stuff. I don’t like the chance that we invite him for celery and hair dress to wear while eating.
Unfortunately, the question I hope to make, that the low temperature and prohibitively high heat costs can justify gorging on the extra cake during the cold snap, is a bit half-baked. It’s true that Victorians consume more calories than we do – up to 5,000 per day – but this is generally healthy with very little sugar in their diet (combined with very high activity levels).
It doesn’t matter. This is one area where we have progressed as a society – from the moldy bread and lard bitten into at dawn before the factory whistle blows to the tray of delicious brownies on the mid-afternoon table.
For joyless health tsars – wintry smile. For the rest – let’s eat cake.
miranda.green@ft.com