Don't be a drip with your cheese

These studies are important things. Just think, the world's first. How impressive is that? The clever people at Tesco will have frustrated similar studies being conducted all over the world in the race to discover the scientific truth about cheese on toast.

Life is cruel and nobody wants to go down in history for having produced the world's second study into cheese on toast. Being first is what counts. Also-rans are left to stare in disappointment at their half-cooked fate.

I feel cheated, having spent years making cheese on toast without ever having had that moment of inspiration. Why did I never think of turning all those snacks into a study? How come the smoke alarm going off again as the cheese-topped toast turned to charcoal round the edges didn't set my own mental alarm bells ringing?

Never mind, because this is one of the stupidest studies I've heard of since at least the day before yesterday.

According to this research, the average family of four wastes "as much as an incredible 168 grams of cheese each week because of badly cut slices that hang over the bread and drip on to the grill".

I do like that "an incredible 168 grams", with the excitable "incredible" running into small but precise measurement. During a whole cheese-dripping year, the bill for wasted cheese runs to £72.80, according to Tesco.

A spokesman sorrowfully mentioned all the "cheese needlessly dripping off the side of the bread on to the grill".

Tesco didn't go to all this trouble merely in the interests of satisfying our curiosity. No, the supermarket group has introduced "bread sized" slices of cheese which will eliminate unnecessary drips.

Here are a few thoughts. Aren't the drips of cheese hanging off the grill pan or hardening into crisp little discs one of the reasons for making cheese on toast? First you have the meal, then the illicit extra - all that delicious molten spillage.

Tesco's cheese slices would take all the fun out of making this lovely snack.

Then there is the bread. How do they know what size the slice is going to be? Presumably, they assume an average sliced white loaf will be used. Being a strange sort who makes all his own bread, these slices would not match with my random-shaped loaves.

Mass-produced bread is not much to my taste because it is too doughy, stuffed with too much yeast and assorted other hidden extras, including hydrogenated fats.

Most of the sliced white bread made in this country is produced by something called the Chorleywood method, which was developed in the Sixties to speed up the lengthy, bothersome process of making bread that actually tasted good.

Lots of air and water is pumped into the dough to produce that springy white bread that turns to play-dough inside the mouth.

This bread is sold by supermarkets at ridiculously low prices, with loaves generally priced below the cost of making them. By this economic madness, supermarkets conduct bread wars and convince shoppers they are getting a bargain.

What they are in fact getting is cheaply-produced rubbish that has put many proper bakers out of business. What's more, this cheapo bread may even be bad for them.

According to a theory put forward by Felicity Lawrence in her book Not On The Label, published in paperback earlier this month, the hurried process of making bread could explain the rise in people who appear to be intolerant to the gluten in bread.

By speeding everything up, the long fermentation time has been cut, making the wheat in the bread less digestible.

All this in the week when Nestl in York announced its intention to produce low carb KitKats, thanks to the frankly puzzling popularity of the meat-chomping Aktins diet.

It all seems a bit unnecessary. A proper KitKat eaten occasionally as part of a healthy diet won't do much harm. But now Nestl is bringing out a diet KitKat to go along with all those horrible everything-removed, food-free yoghurts you find in the supermarket chiller.

How dispiriting.

Updated: 11:18 Thursday, May 27, 2004