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| Feeding
an OV sufferer almost always places an intolerable
financial burden on their family. Whilst we
encourage all OV sufferers to take steps to break
their addiction, there is always a time when the
only answer is a cooked breakfast or better still
a mixed grill. In order that we may continue
to help selected individuals pleas make a donation
below. We
guarantee that every penny donated will be spent
directly on providing cooked breakfasts for known
OV sufferers.
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 Weblog - The Recovery Paths of Selected Sufferers
Friday, March 05, 2004
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There but for the grace of God...
I received this heart-rending missive in the email tonight and thought I would share it with you. I have also decided to invite Greg to contribute to our pages and sent him a blogger invite. I hope he joins, but either way I'm going to post him some sausages.
Dear "breaking free" Webmaster,
Your site is pure torture.
I had to overcome my ovulo carbonaresis cold turkey, and mine is genetic. My father passed it down to me, and encouraged its development with years of cooked breakfasts before school, mixed grills with beans for dinner, kippers for an any time snack, and pork chops galore with an assortment of suitably cooked potatoes. I was born to do it, having been blessed with a ridiculously high metabolism that actively prevents me from putting on weight. Just hope my heart has a similar protection against cholesterol.
I relocated from the good ol'UK to sunny (but completely crap) Florida. Naples, to be exact. I've been here three years. I still haven't recovered. Think I can get decent cooked breakfast here? Not on your life. They have no idea what black pudding is, they don't fry tomatoes, they don't fry bread, sausages come in patties, looking and tasting like mini-burgers and as close as they come to ours is little "links" (which still taste like burger).
If you ask for tea, beware - it'll come iced. Be specific and ask for "Hot Tea". Oh, and request some milk, too. It won't be PG Tips, but if you're lucky, it's passable. And the single biggest issue: their bacon is a strip of fat. Obviously, it's not the same cut of pork as ours is. Yes, it's one and a half inches of fat, and a half inch (if you are VERY fortunate) of stringy pork. It's always cooked the traditional way, the way the Americans treated the Japanese; burnt to a cinder. If you don't break a tooth on it, it's not cooked right.
Fat annoying elderly women sit on stools, order a waffle, with ham on top, and cover the thing in syrup.
Anyway, love the site. Just wish I could get a brekkie. I'll be living on fried bread and fish'n chips when I come back over for a visit...
Regards,
Greg
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Dave
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Tuesday, March 02, 2004
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Drawn In
Following Jon's enthusiastic review I decided to try the IKEA breakfast so me and the wife set off to find the Cardiff branch. After a long winded tour of Cardiff City Centre we found the store, much bigger than the Bristol branch and almost empty. The breakfast was excellent, Sausage, Bacon , 2 Hash Browns, Fried Tomato and Beans, with coffee and free refills. After I finished I went back for a bacon roll and a soft drink for another £1.
I would vote this the best value breakfast in the country if not for the fact that we spent over £50 in the store while we were there.
No sign of any mushrooms.
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Dave
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Thursday, February 26, 2004
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Ikea £1 Breakfast. Wow!
I found myself in Ikea Bristol on Saturday morning before 11am. In time for their bargain breakfast.
I can't fault it. Bacon (not overcooked), sausage (weird but delicious), beans, 2 hash browns (with a georgeous crispy texture that can only be achieved by keeping them warm in a big tray for ages), half a tomato and my favourite ingredient, a thick slice of plain omelette as the egg constituent. It really is only one pound!
Approaching the till I saw the sauce. I selected a couple of sachets of brown and presumed that their placement immediately before the cashier, combined with the ridiculously low price of the meal, meant they would cost extra. Nope - they were included too as was my drink. Being slightly scared of caffeine I expected to be faced with a limited choice but instead found a good selection of teas, some herb teas and a machine that pumped out hot choc. I couldn't believe my luck when the choc actually tasted good, having expected that foul, watery concoction that usually spills from drinks vending machines. And I was allowed unlimited refills.
I finished my meal and glanced at the table next to me. The man had mushrooms! I didn't have mushrooms! Where where my mushrooms! Then I remembered that I had just enjoyed a fantastic breakfast for ONLY ONE POUND. If the mushrooms had temporarily run out as I passed the counter, so what. To complain really would be churlish.
I had enough energy to actually assemble the new shelves when I got home.
Tip: If you're a bit fat or just plain greedy, buy two breakfasts. It's still only two quid and well worth it!
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Jon
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Oh the shame.
By Saturday I we had finished a large chunk of the computer room so I took sprogs 3,6,7 & 8 out for McDonalds. We had the following between us:
- 2 Hot Chocolates
- 2 Coffees
- 4 Orange Juices
- 6 Hash Browns
- 3 Sausage Burgers
- 2 Scrambled Egg Portions
- 12 Pancakes
- 5 Syrups
- 2 Muffins
- 11 Sugars
Not bad considering three of us were 7 and under. But I let the side down I'm afraid - I had to leave half a muffin to make room for the pancakes.
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Dave
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Monday, February 16, 2004
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Plans for a bigger breakfast
It's half-term and I usually try and take a different sprogg out for breakfast each day as part of their social education. Today I was travelling to Wickes to buy the materials to build the new school computer room, and as number seven is the best building assistant, plus he has the Bob the Builder trousers, he got to come with me. As I had promised Ginge some pancakes we went to the dreaded McDonalds for breakfast, it was getting pretty scary in Wickes as the cashier took yet another phone call while we waited to pay and the clock ticked ominously round towards 10:30 and the McD cut-off time for breakfast, so we offered to come back and pay after eating, left them to cash up and got to McDonalds with 3 minutes and 45 seconds to spare. I had the Big Breakfast Meal with coffee and number 7 had the Sausage and Pancakes Meal with Hot Chocolate. I had never tried their pancakes before but they were delicious and serving them with a sausage burger is pure inspiration. While watching Ginge finish the last syrupy mouthful I hit on a great idea for my next visit, order myself a Big Breakfast meal and a Sausage and Pancake Meal, that way I get:
- A Muffin
- Two Sausage Burgers
- Two Hash Browns
- Scrambled Egg
- 3 Pancakes with Syrup and Butter
- Coffee
- Orange Juice
This might mean going without a meal the night before so as a practise I decided to take number 6 (The best breakfast eater on my team) and start off training with a Big Breakfast Each and a Pancake Meal to share.
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Dave
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Thursday, February 05, 2004
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Having a traditional cooked breakfast in the morning can be a healthy choice
At least that's what they say at the food standards agency. But they do mention cooking without fat which is a bit like Italian food without garlic.
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Dave
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Thursday, January 22, 2004
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Putting Breakfast on the map.
As promised we have added the facility to post breakfast reviews to the site, in the form of our breakfast locator map. Please feel free to add any breakfasts that you feel the world needs telling about whether becuase they were mind-shatteringly satisfying or they should be avoided like the plague (or nouveau cuisine).
Make sure you click on the pins to get the full details, not just the pop-up text, this might be easier if you zoom in. Happy posting.
This map may of course require you to conduct extensive research in your area and if necessary we will write you a note for your spouse/teacher/parents/parole officer to explain your absence whilst working on this project of national importance.
Once we have a load of entries in by this method I will republish the data in a searchable form.
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Dave
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Wednesday, January 07, 2004
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News Update
McDonalds have extended serving breakfast to 11.00am on Sundays, thanks for the extra lie-in. IKEA have reduced the breakfast offer from FEB and Coffee to a Sausage or Bacon roll and Coffee, available to 10:00am - cheapskates.
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Dave
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Sunday, December 07, 2003
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Review Section
I am currently in the process of setting up a section of this site to review FEB's from various Cafes across the country. If you leave it up to me then of course most of those will be in South Wales and of little use to anyone outside my imediate vicinity. So lets have your reviews of your favourite (and least favourite) venues for a fry-up.
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Dave
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Full Swedish
 IKEA are currently offering a cooked breakfast until 11am for only £1! From memory it includes Scrambled Egg, Bacon, Sausage, Toast, Beans and Coffee!
No pictures of the breakfast on IKEA's website unfortunately as they fail to understand what the British public are really interested in, they do however have a section entitled how to shop for all of you out there lacking in basic lifeskills.
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Dave
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Full Scotch
 I received this postcard from a repentant but anonymous OVy yesterday morning. Anyone trying to guess his or her indentity should be aware that Jon has just returned from a short break in Scotland.
The text of the card reads as follows: Couldn't help myself. 3 serious lapses in as many days. Tis card doesn't show that all Scottish breakfasts come with hash browns - lovely!
Anon.
p.s. Had to have fried as cereal was 12 steps away! 
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Dave
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003
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Artist to become 'full English'
A performance artist who used his nose to roll a monkey nut for seven miles has announced his next stunt - turning himself into a full English breakfast.
Mark McGowan, from Peckham, south east London, has said he will sit in a bath of baked beans, with two chips up his nose and sausages wrapped around his head for 12 days to celebrate English culture and food.
read more (from the bbc)
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Dave
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Little Chef
On a long trip today I stopped off at the Little Chef just outside Barnstaple where I had the Steak Breakfast and th'spouse had Sausages Eggs and Chips (Little Chef serve 26 millions sausages a year). I was less than delighted with the fare, but will hold off moaning untill I have Little Chef's response to my complaint. In the meantime you might like to download a  breakfast desktop from the Little Chef website or alternatively you can print out your own 15% discount voucher, which will be welcomed by anyone who has seen their prices lately.
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Dave
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Saturday, October 04, 2003
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McBreakfast
It's been a long time since I last posted and it cetainly feels like it. I have depending on your viewpoint, either had a very bad couple of weeks or have been very active in affirming my lifestyle choices. The trouble is that now the kids are back at school the wife will often entice me out of the house (to visit a garden centre or whatever) by reminding that certain places that she wants to visit serve a particularly good breakfast. I have never yet stood my ground and refused to go, my objections melt away as the image of a breakfast floats in front of my eyes. Her latest trick is to remind me that McDonalds breakfast is only available upto 10:30 in an effort to get me to leave the house promptly.
 Now I know a lot of people don't regard a McDonalds breakfast as a "proper" breakfast, but I am quite partial to their big breakfast. Granted the pink cardboard soaked in smoke flavour that they pass for bacon is all but inedible, but their big breakfast of sausage burger, scrambled egg, muffin and hash brown is consistently good and I do like a good muffin in the morning.
I think the consistent quality from one restaurant to another is a big part of the appeal, it is clean and straight forward, if a little boring, and at £2.00 including coffee, tea or orange juice is good value, even more so since they have added free drink refills. Mind you there are ov sufferrers out there who despise ''clean' and like the dirty feeling they get at a real greasy spoon, for my part I prefer it if my baked beans started out their working life on my plate rather than having been scraped back into the pan from the leftovers of previous diners, (incidently I find this image quite good for building up my will power when trying to avoid an FEB). I am also aware that many people have grievances with McDonalds over other issues than the authenticity of their cooked breakfast, so I have included a link to the mcspotlight website that sums up the issues in the famous mclibel trial as this cover most peoples concerns about the big golden m. McDonalds official website can be found at http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk.
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Dave
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Saturday, September 13, 2003
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What a week
 What a week. Monday (first Monday with out a child at home for many many years) I went with th'spouse to a local garden centre where I had - wait for it - a full English breakfast. Tuesday off with the spouse again to the market - bacon rolls and a shared cup of coffee. Wednesday my will power was doing ok, until the bank turned out to be closed until ten, just time for another bacon roll while I waited. Lunch on Wednesday was at Hay-on-Wye, the town of books, and despite being away from home unaccompanied with every chance to eat the Full EB, I had A HUMMUS AND SALAD SANDWICH!. Read more about my day at Hay here. Thursday off to college and while I noted that Sausage, Egg, Beans and Chips was only £1.15, I restricted myself to Bombay Potato in Pitta Bread. My will power seems to function so much better when I am on my own. Friday, in town with th'spouse again and Iced Coffee with Scrambled Egg and Bacon. Then today, Saturday, the wife was out to college and I had eight kids screaming for food, two of ours where away but Scab had kindly arranged for two friends to stay to keep the numbers up. So what did we have to eat? Yep you got it - Sausage, Egg, Bacon, Hash Browns and Toast (see above). The one with the hat is the Evil One, who has the misfortune of being both ginger and a trainspotter so I hope he doesn't inherit Ovulo Carbonaresis as well.
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Dave
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Monday, September 01, 2003
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Gym slip
Ha! I've only been and gone and joined a gym. Brilliant excuse for overeating. The mere thought of exercise feels like perfect justification for another blowout. Actually attending the dreaded place and moving more than one of my limbs guarantees guilt-free face stuffing. So I've been once now on Friday evening and Saturday morning was a brek-fest of mammoth proportions: toast, fried bread, 2 poached eggs, 3 rashers of bacon, 2 sausages, black pudding, baked beans and whole load of brown sauce. Mmmmmm.
And I'm sure I've lost weight!
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Jon
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Hi from Mike
Hi guys
You might have read some of my comments on this site (before reblogger lost them all), if so then you will know that I differ considerably in my views on OV from the webmaster and many contributors. I have not yet persuaded Dave to remove the word "sufferers" from the title of this page but have made a small inroad by getting him to add the polls on the left hand side of each page. Hopefully this will go some way towards lightening up the mood of the site and eventually help lead us towards a more positive attitude to the way we live.
Remember - Start the day you mean to go on!
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Mike
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Thursday, August 28, 2003
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Housekeeping
You may or may not have noticed that a lot of the comments on this page have dissapeared. This is because the remotely hosted blogger app we were using (reblogger) went down and we have changed to a locally hosted system posterchild which I can thoroughly reccomended, certainly in terms of ease of use and setup time (about 5 minutes). Here is a brief summary of the contents of recent posted comments in order that the site continues to make sense to you, if it ever did!
ImagesSeveral people have pointed out that the presence of numerous photos of food all over the site is not helping the will power of struggling ov's. Whilst I, as much as any of you, find the images can be unnecessarily tempting I should like to point out that the prime purpose of this site is to raise awareness of the plight of ov sufferrers and needs as much eye candy as possible to offset the low attention span of the average surfer.
Coming OutMike, a regular commentator over recent weeks, has put forward the (not entirely new) viewpoint that Ovulo Carbonaresis is a lifestyle choice as much as an affliction and we should all "come out". As this is a valid viewpoint I have invited Mike to become a regular contributor to this blog which should make for some lively discussion.
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Dave
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If you feel
that you or someone you know may be suffering from this
condition then contact us now
for further help & information. |
Selected books on eating disorders available at amazon.co.uk are listed below |
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breakingfree is part of Library of the Lost
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