The Haggis Kerfuffle, Britain

Haggis is hot news this week with reports that exports of Scotland’s fabled dish are under threat as young people are no longer interested in being butchers. 

For the uninitiated, the ingredients for this dish include using the sheep’s stomach bag to hold a mixture of sheep’s liver, heart and lung, oatmeal, suet, stock, onions and spices.  This calls for only those with strong stomachs to try it.  Being a vegetarian, I’m mercifully spared, however even if I were not a vegetarian, no amount of fanfare would incite me into trying haggis and it certainly wouldn’t fall into my list of “10 Foods you must Taste before you Die”.

Apart from the shortage of butchers, is this dish really healthy?  Just from the ingredients alone, one would assume not and from recent debates, it appears that haggis is in hot water.  In its drive to contain childhood obesity in the under-fives, the British Government has placed haggis in the list of restricted foods for nursery schools.  Being classified as retricted foods means that haggis should only be eaten once a week.  If you ask me, even once a week is too much for such young children.

Haggis producers are up in arms claiming that haggis have got all the best of ingredients, which are all fresh and no harm can possibly come out of eating good haggis.  The government spokeman disagreed saying that haggis has high saturated fat and salt and is therefore not desirable for children.  Producers, how about taking up the challenge of reducing the fat and salt content and making healthier varieties.

Helen