Curious Cook: Fruit and vegetables, cows and gas, and more fodder for thought

Our columnist analyses some food studies and other reports, including the fact that eating five portions of fruits and vegetables is linked with longer life spans.

It is springtime and I am writing this in the UK, where I returned a fortnight ago for the first Covid-19 inoculation last weekend. It was a tiring journey by car, not improved by the requirement for multiple Covid-19 tests every few days and a mandatory 10-day quarantine period at home.

After the vaccination, I felt a little rough, but nothing troubling, a bit like the feeling one gets when overeating and over-drinking the day before. Well, mostly like over-drinking to be more accurate and my upper left arm also feels like it had encountered a degree of blunt force trauma.