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Fat in food is like salt. It's yummy and healthy and generally great. But its also something that you tend to become accustomed to having present at a certain level and major deviations from this can cause distress.

We had some friends in a previous life, when I was a woodsman in Depression-era Illinois, who would invite us round for dinner every now and then. We would secretly dread it because their fat barometer was set way below ours.

We generally like fatty foods. This is because my Smaller Half is Chinese and as for me, I am a greedy bastard. So we tend to load up on butter and oil when we cook. Perhaps the bed sheets do accumulate a yellowish tinge over time but we aren't too out of control.

Anyway, these friends were on a mission to cut down on fat. They would buy the leanest piece of pork they could then roast it at 4000 degrees on a rack so every molecule of fat was drained or destroyed. Then just before serving it on a delicious bed of shredded sandpaper they'd give it a light dusting with, well, dust, to really dry it up.

Not really our style.

Tonight we were eating out with friends and I ordered some roasted pork belly, an extremely fatty cut at the best of times. When it came it was quivering on the plate. There were pieces of meat the size of my hand which seemed to be nothing but fat.

Even I quailed somewhat. But not wanting to waste good food, I found that if you had equal parts fat and rice that it was great. Fatty and smooth and flavoursome and packed full of vitamin F. I really enjoyed it, somewhat to the horror of my friend opposite who is a cardiologist and knew that I should know better.

But nature has a way of interfering with mankind's fun. Just like drinking gallons of water is fun until you get cerebral oedema and die, just like bungee jumping is fun until your retinas detach and you get atlanto-axial dislocation and your skull falls off - there's only so much belly pork you can eat before your liver and pancreas stop playing along and you develop anal leakage. Not so fun now eh?

So the next time you try to show off by eating your own body weight in lard, remember my tragic tale and think to yourself, what do I value more: the smooth moist fatty feeling in my mouth or the smooth moist fatty feeling in my pants? Because you may end up with both.