My diet

I read somewhere that Buckingham Palace has a computer with a database of the dietary preferences of heads of state, royalty and other notable figures who have visited or might visit the palace. I suspect that other European royal palaces and presidential estates keep similar records, at least manually.

To help the record keepers, and for the information of anyone else who might be interested, here is my data.

Meat

No meat. I do not eat red meat or poultry. No exceptions. I find the idea unappealing. Also, nutritionally speaking, hanged meat, with its high concentration of uric acid, and having already been half decomposed by putrefication bacteria, does not sound like a great idea to me.

Seafood OK. I do eat fish and other seafood. This may seem like a contradiction to the above—and to a small extent it is—but for practical reasons this is where I draw the line. I am quite fond of, for example, trout, sole and arctic charr. Many others too.

Eggs

I will eat eggs of hen, but for ethical reasons they must be at least free-range eggs but preferably organic eggs. I do not want to take any part in the exploitation of animals.

Milk

If the cows have been fed clean food (no hormones or other nastinesses) and are generally well treated, products made out of cow's milk will do fine.

Fruit

I am allergic to certain raw fruits. These include at least apple, plum and peach. But not, for example, banana, orange, mandarin, kiwi or lemon. When prepared/heated, any fruit will do fine. I prefer to eat plain fruit in an empty stomach, not as a desert.

Deserts

An ideal desert should use unrefined sugar. But I am not picky about this.

Beverages

Tea. I drink tea. Never coffee. I prefer green tea. I never add anything to my tea: no sugar, no milk, no spoon. At the moment, my favourite is China Organic Chun Mee. If you are curious you can buy this from, for example, Stockmann in Helsinki (€6,90/100g on 2006-02-28).

Soft drinks. I enjoy both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola (no preference), but refuse to drink Diet Coke or Pepsi Max. The same goes for any other product that contains aspartame. I don't want that in my system.