No cake at work!
It is not DOGE run amok, it’s England! When Katie Mulligan baked a beetroot cake for her colleagues at a London advertising agency, she was focused on getting the recipe right NOT whether it was acceptable to bring treats into the office. With a passion to bake and cook, Mulligan says her cakes help colleagues beat the afternoon slump – and her carrot cake made with beets is a relatively healthy option. If you work in an office, you know the drill. It’s someone’s birthday and the unwritten rules mean a fellow employee or a generous boss supplies cake for all. But is it time to kick the cupcakes? England’s Food Standards Agency chairwoman Professor Susan Jebb compared being around bakery in the office to passive smoking. She said: “If nobody brought cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes.” Speaking in a personal capacity, she said workers should stop testing the willpower of colleagues.
Lou Walker, who authored a report on office cake culture, said that sweets were becoming an everyday occurrence and was “no longer special. It comes from a place of generosity and kindness, wanting to share,” she said. “There’s something very important about sharing food with colleagues. It is a rare workplace that breaks the tradition and supplies a fruit platter. And who wants to be known as the one staff member who brings in healthy nuts rather than chocolates as they regale colleagues about their weekend in Switzerland?” The research surveyed almost 1000 UK office workers about their attitudes, habits and opinions around workplace cake culture. It found cake was available to most respondents (86%) at least ‘once or twice a week’. 31% said office cake had contributed to weight gain. But wait. 61% thought office cake was a good thing, 81% said it brings people together and 83% said it cheers people up. The ‘wow!’ data that brought all this together was that, asked what they thought was the ideal frequency for office cake, 95% of the respondents said once a week or less.
“It does feel like we’re trying to control everything. At the end of the day you’ve got to have a little bit of willpower.” “But because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making this choice as bad as going into a smoky pub.” Parliament published a report that said 25.9% of adults in England were obese and a further 37.9% were overweight, citing a 2021 survey. The United States ranked highest in the world for obesity levels with 43%. Prof Jebb, who is on the Times Health Commission, expressed frustration that after a year-long study by the paper into the future of health and social care in the UK, the government still delays the introduction of limits on TV junk food advertising.
Don’t let them eat cake
Life is like a box of donuts.
It doesn’t last long if you’re fat.
At a party, a young wife admonished her husband, “That’s the fourth time you’ve gone back for ice cream and cake. Doesn’t it embarrass you?”
“Why should it?” answered her spouse. “I keep telling them it’s for you.”
I was in Navy boot camp and the food was not at all like at home. Mostly I ate all the snacks and glasses of milk. One day I went through the chow line and all I had was a big piece of cake on my tray. One of the cooks eyed that and asked, “Would you like two pieces of cake, sailor?” I eagerly said, “Yes.” With that the cook leaned over, took his knife and cut my cake in half.
Refusing dessert after eating Chinese food…
Will cost you a fortune.
March 21st Birthdays
1986 – Sonequa Green, 1965 – Cynthia Geary, 1979 – Rani Mukevji, 1979 – Melissa Gorga
1685 – Johann Bach, 1962 – Matthew Broderick, 1987 – Scott Eastwood, 1958 – Gary Oldman