I am continuing this week with the food and drink theme. Mars have just dissociated themselves from the deep fried mars bar (DFMB). I thought now was an opportune time to reflect on whether these actually exist.
My attention was drawn recently to an Economist article "No City for Old men?" (August 25th 2012). This was the usual litany of poor heath factoids about Glasgow some of it true some of it deeply exaggerated. One part which is exaggerated was:
Glaswegians are just gloomier than other Brits and put a lower price on the future. This manifests itself in a love of deep fried mars bars and other health sapping delicacies.
No source was given for this but it's likely to be -
1. Based upon an 'article' on the Lancet website. This was NOT published in the esteemed medical research journal. It is based on phone poll of chippies by some public health researchers. Of those asked 400 (not too busy selling the general fare of a Scottish chippie Fish and chips or pie suppers) they got the following results.
2. 20% say they regularly see DFMB's. They do mention (CI) or 'confidence interval' of 95%. That means that there is only a 5% chance their result could have arisen by chance but in a phone poll that's not enough. The detailed results show 76% went to kids.
3. Most chippies 78% won't sell DFMB's. 15% because of health reasons. Most chippies won't sell DFMB's because even frozen they disintegrate and spoil the chip fat which has to be replaced.
We conclude that Scotland's deep-fried Mars bar is not just an urban myth. Encouragingly, we did also find some evidence of the penetrance (a scientific word) of the Mediterranean diet into Scotland, albeit in the form of deep-fried pizza.
This faux serious declaration of the research "findings" gives the game away. The research is quite literally a joke. Since the article appears only in the correspondence section of the Lancet but is routinely promoted as being "in the Lancet" and thus peer reviewed or clinically tested medical research it gets taken more seriously than it should.
Being kind, it's a piece of light hearted research. Being cruel it's as undercooked as a soggy DFMB. The fact that it also uses an article in the Daily Record as its main reference tells us something! Anyway bottom line, 80% of chippies don't sell DFMB's.
Here's some anecdotal evidence for you that they exist quite far down South! My local chippie in St Neots, Traditional Fish & Chips, does in fact serve deep fried Mars Bars. They sell "suprisingly many", the man said, so I tried one. It was, well, interesting.
Interesting question here. How can a brand choose to disassociate itself from something that has nothing to do with themselves?
They can't ban anyone from cooking them, so if they feel it is a negative image, it will be interesting to see how they stop this?
Mars a day for work rest and play, but not for deep frying?
Interesting question in general?
Elsabe that is intersting intelligence of DFMB proliferation to the prosperrous south. My guess is that trendy cuisine of the Heston Blumentahl variety that deep fries gooseberry leaves has collided with food irony here! The owner might be a Scot or have Scottish connections.. My guess is mostly kids practising anti-nutrition. I am not seeing a repeat purchase from you! but I could be wrong! Thanks for sharing and next time ask him how it affects his oil.. John