ScarletPlumBlossomCadiz

Hi Everyone, from Cadiz,

I just want to bring your attention to an article in “The Oracle” English language newspaper, specifically for Costa de la Luz, said to be particularly for Cadiz & Seville, Issue 3, 6 May 2008.
(The newspaper has apparently been around for some time, but has only just started to appear in Cadiz).


Page 11 has an article on “Andalucian Kids amongst Fattest” - and that could mean your young kids as well, folks!

I have been campaigning in the Cadiz area for about a year (mostly telling the authorities about the strange effects of the clocktime in Spain on various, serious aspects of life here – including the REAL reason for pre-school children getting very overweight – not to say their parents – but no offence is intended there, because this forum is hardly television!).

The quoted Professor Berthold Koletzko is understandably led up the garden path by the shyness of the authorities who never explain that the clocks in Spain have never told the time in “realtime” for about a hundred years – neither in Winter, nor in Summer!

Firstly, articles appeared in the Cadiz newspapers claiming that Cadiz Province and City children are the fattest in the land in terms of numbers and degrees of overweight! They could not seem to find a real answer to the problem – a dietician expert even thought that a “nutritional deficiency” might be the factor to increase weight!
Strangely, this article, which almost implied something wrong in the upbringing by parents particularly in Cadiz, produced no letters from readers (??).

Secondly, I did take a copy of the article on a Friday directly into the newspaper office with a brief, polite comment to explain the reason for the rotundities – but nothing appeared in the paper over the weekend (including a Sunday edition), nor on the Monday! That made me see red, so I penned the following to the newspaper.

THE PHÄRAOH`S NOT FOR SKIMPING !

There wás a thin Pháraoh, AKH-NÄTON

Whose pólicy t´wás - to put fát on.

He´d push lúnch to th´fóre,

Eat more dóughnuts at fóur -

T´consíderable gáins for Akh-náton (?)


(As expected, not a word further in the papers – except for an article somewhat later which seemed to suggest that compulsive eating was the reason!)

The basic problem in Spain, influencing a number of factors to complain about, is that the clocks in Summer always show a time throughout the 24-hour day which is effectively greater than two hours ahead of the Sun!
The situation is that B, C and I (Business, Commerce and Industry) in Spain are just not aware of the true status of the time which has been on their clocks for 90 years (as far as Summer is concerned) and more for winter (around 100).
The fact of most concern here is that true midday on the East Coast of Spain (on the “Greenwich Meridian”) is legally set at 2:00 pm during Summer (1:00 pm in Winter) – and since the Sun takes another ½ an hour to “reach the Portuguese border” in the West, it means 2:30 pm in the West! The Spanish population took the virtually unprecedented step in 1918 (probably by apathy) of having lunch and Siesta moved to those times – when, previously over the millennia, that used to be at 12:00 o´clock!
BUT, what are B, C and I having their employees (and their pre-school children) do – Why not have lunch at about 12:30 on the clocks – to match business times in BERLIN?

You can subtract 2 to 2 and ½ hours (east to west) from that time to see what the time is in realtime for lunch!
So, why are the parents and their pre-school children so hungry at about 5:00 pm on the clock?

Note that schoolchildren leave school in Cadiz at about 2:00 pm on the clocks, missing that early lunch – so they can recover slowly from their pre-school rotundity.
Incidentally, that earlier half an hour start for the populace in the West means that they are even hungrier at 5:00 pm – and so become the most rotund in the land!

Cheers.

Nosherlot

What! Surely rotundity is about calories in verses energy expended, not sure I follow the time zones argument. I thought the Spanish ate their main meal at around 9.30pm when its cooler out of choice (if they were that starving because of difference between solar time and the spanish time surely they would choose to eat when their bodies wanted to, perhaps earlier?)

Nosherlot

Ooops, I forgot to say hello ScarletPlumBlossomCadiz. Sorry if I sounded abrupt, welcome.

Spanish John

Well....I started to read your post but Iv`e gotten hungry half way through so Im`e going for something to eat.....must be the time...

Same Difference

Ive just had a big fat crunchie bar!

crispy

Welcome to BE, I'm just down the road from you in Chiclana.

I understood what you were saying although at first I thought I wasn't going to and now I understand why I have put so much weight on since moving here.. We have our main meal about 2pm if we can but some days I am ready for it at 1pm. Nosherlot, all the Spanish peeps I know have their main meal during the day on work days and often only eat very late in the evening at weekends and when they are on holiday or if they are going out for a treat.

I find in the summer I loose all track of time where meals are concerned as I tend to go by where the sun is or when my tummy says feed me, which it is saying now.

poshnbucks

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm love to watch you eating a cadbury's flake

Same Difference

You wouldnt be able to control yourself if you saw me doing that!

Now stop hijacking this thread!

poshnbucks

I thought it was a food thread you of all people should know chocky is foodddddddd of the gods

TheArmChairDetective

You'd need a web site

ScarletPlumBlossomCadiz

Hallo, Nosherlot!
Your response just previously was a good one about why the Spanish eat about 9:30 pm.
In fact, they have always eaten the evening meal without fail - either in Summer about sunset - or necessarily in Winter after sunset. They apparently hated to start that while the Sun still was shining!
Because the Government changed the clocks forward by 2 hours in 1918 (later on repeating the exercise in 1974) the people had no other option than later
Cheers

Chiclanagir

I have a Spanish friend to whom I go for merienda at 5 pm. She insists on baking loads of cake which completely ruins my dinner. Apart from the fact that she is on a diet!!!

bokeh

If this were true the children in Galicia would be the fattest, but they're not, which blows this theory out of the water.

rugbymatt

Its such an age old argument isn't it.....




oh and can I just say, I have read the Oracle, and its a bloody good read, a good read indeed....

pete_l

Hmmm, I'm not sure I follow. Is the idea that eating late in the day makes you put on weight?

One of my interests is astronomy, so time is something I take notice of. As the article says, in Spain the time of local "noon" (when the sun's highest in the sky) is around 2p.m. so from my point of view, everything in Spain is 2 hours later than it should be in nature. I had the distinct impression the spanish set their clocks this way to keep alignment with the rest of the EU - or at least the countries they did most business with.
So far as eating at 9 or 10p.m. goes, that sort of translates to 7-8p.m. in the UK - which isn't too late. My friends in the USA eat early: arounf 6p.m. and they aren't the slimmest people in the world

I have heard it said that if you go to bed shortly after eating a large meal, your body doesn't get a chance to burn off the calories, and just converts the extra stodge into fat, so you also wake up hungry and therefore eat more. However, the spanish tend to retire later, too. So in the overall balance I don't buy this argument.