Rye’s been on TV again.
This time Clive Myrie, the acclaimed British journalist and news reader, recently presented a TV episode of Just One Thing, an homage to the late Dr Michael Mosely, the much- loved and respected champion of evidence-based health advice.
This programme focusses on the needs of Sam, a busy young working mother who suffers from endometriosis. She has recovered and wants to manage her weight while making sure she does her best to prevent another bout of this debilitating illness. She has lost two stone and needs help with maintaining her weight and her focus as she also suffers from ADHD.
Clive offers encouraging statistics about the benefits to our brains, overall weight management and prevention of heart attacks and strokes from eating at least three portions of oily fish a week. We see Clive and Sam wheeling a shopping trolly to the fish counter in Jempson’s reciting a mantra called SMASH…S for Salmon, M for Mackerel, A for Anchovies, S for Sardines and H for Herring.
Sam is not used to eating oily fish, but she is up for the challenge, and she brings a group of equally cautious but curious friends to meet Clive at The Rye Fish Market at Simmonds Quay in Rock Channel. They all don waterproof clothing to unload the daily catch from the quayside and to meet the Chapman’s brilliant chef Alan Irvin. Alan demonstrates a number of ways to cook fish and the group try a variety of their own oily fish recipes at home over a week. One reluctant participant admits he “thought anchovies are a vegetable” and another says he couldn’t manage three portions a week but one “is just possible”. All agree, however, that they are very surprised and pleased with their tasty fishy experiments.
Clive says one quarter of the population in the UK “don’t eat fish like we used to” so his advice, considering the myriad of overall health benefits “is definitely a no brainer!”
This reviewer was, I should say, a bit dismayed at how many of the images on screen were of Morrison’s fish in plastic wrapped packets when the fish counter at the Rye Fish Market is offering a wide variety of freshly caught fish every week from one of the few working harbours in the UK. But all credit to the TV production company when the Chapmans of the fish market at Simmons Quay refused payment (which was offered) but instead asked for a donation to be given to The Fisherman’s Mission.
You can see the programme on the BBC iPlayer
Image Credits: BBC Studios/Martin Campbell .