I associate food with pleasure - fun, chat, sharing and love. I really enjoy food but loath eating anything that wobbles!!

Speech & Language Therapy Manager

"I grew up on a farm, where a lot of food was home produced and my Mum was both health conscious and necessarily thrifty. In the '70s my Mum discovered TVP ( texturised vegetable protein) and used it extensively to bulk out mince, stew and the like. None of us were keen on it, and in the end my Dad rebelled!

I went to boarding school in p7, where the rule was of course that you had to eat everything. A lot of the food was good, and plentiful... not too good for my waistline. However, I do remember that if you really hated something you were allowed to ask for a "Mini minute" portion". I'd never been a milky pudding fan, and asked for a mini minute of porridge on the first morning. I took the first mouthful which reappeared almost instantly, fled from the diningroom, and wasn't asked to eat porridge again for the next 7 years!

My 6 year old son also abhors food of that kind, and I'm sure I made faces when I was trying to wean him with baby rice etc!"

Education and Training Officer

"My worst memory of food from my child hood is onions I hated the texture of onion in my mouth,even today at 56 I sometimes gag when I eat large pieces of onion that is in mince in particular.

My favourite memory of food is boiled eggs. I remember being in hospital the egg were boiled in the sterilizer. Over the years my food habits have changed, I go on overseas holidays each year and i am always keen to taste local food stuffs. On holiday meal times are probably a highlight of the holiday as we tend to experiment with the food.

Over the years I have become less picky over what I will eat, I will put onion in my mince but it is always finely chopped. Its a shame that we have on the whole lost the practice of eating at the table at home. I have put weight on over the years and I suspect it has something to do with not having much as a child. I am not a greedy eater but I think I could do with putting less on my plate. I suppose it a bit compensatory for having, at times, when I was a child, very little on your plate.

Thinking about not eating at the table, there is a sense of lack of emphasis on the importance it had for family unity. I often wonder if this has an impact on the attitude towards food in hospital. Especially when it come to older people in hospital. If there is a sense that meal times are not as important as they used to be, then less emphasis is applied to the need for good eating habit and a good diet. This transpires in practice as loss of care and less attention to the needs of older people in relation to meeting a basic human need for food.

Any way these are my thought for the day."

Lecturer in Nursing Studies

“After morning mass on a Sunday morning, we used to go to grandmother’s house where we would all sit round the fire.

My grandmother would be in the kitchen preparing a large bloomer loaf. She used to remove the top and inside she would place smoked bacon and a tin of baked beans. She would then put the top back on the bread, wrap it in tin foil and place it in the oven.

While waiting on the bread, we would all discuss what we had done during the week. This became a weekly gathering. The best bit was biting into that hot bread. The smell and the taste have never left me.”

“I was brought up by my grandparents. I was so hu ngry I ate the pig’s food. Not out of the bucket, but I had to fight the pigs for the scraps in their pens.

Now I can take or leave food but I do enjoy a good dram.”

“Drinking alcohol was not a part of my up-bringing. At a very young age my Mum took me to meetings where I was informed about the evils of alcohol. Later, I because a member of The Little White Ribbon’ers.

I took a pledge to abstain from strong drink and to this day I find it difficult to drink more than two alcoholic drinks.”

“We were so hungry that Mum encouraged myself, my brother and sisters to eat the carrots and neeps from the fields. The fear of being caught just wasn’t an issue, I was just so glad to have food in my belly.

Now I just can’t abide food going to waste.”

“Tuesday was family allowance day. On coming home from school the smell of home baking assailed your nostrils, and made your mouth water. It brought, and still brings, the feeling `all’s right with the world’.

To me that smell means security, family togetherness, happiness. I don’t know what I would have done if Tuesdays home baking didn’t take place!”

“When I was a little girl I always remember visiting my gran and granddad at the weekend. Every weekend we always had porridge for breakfast and for our lunch my gran and I would have Fish ‘n Chips. So every time I have my Fish ‘n Chips I think of my gran.

When I have my porridge it reminds me of all the times I chatted with my gran and granddad about any problems I would have. My gran is my best friend and second mother to me since I lost my mum. So she is very special to me. So we still often have our Fish ‘n Chips on Saturdays.”

“I remember when I was a little girl of about two and I stayed on a farm with my auntie in Forfar. Every Sunday we would have bacon and eggs. It was really nice because it was the only time the whole family got together.

We would chat about how our week was and we would have fun. When we moved back to Dundee we would visit every month and have our bacon and eggs and catch up with my aunt.”