A council has sparked festive fury on Twitter after telling residents how many brussel sprouts they should have with their Christmas dinner.
In a bid to cut down on wasted food, Leicestershire County Council tweeted to followers: ‘Six sprouts = ONE portion. Don’t overbuy and they won’t go to waste. #Christmastip #wastefreexmas.’
But locals were not impressed with the comment, accusing the authority of acting like a nanny state.
Leicestershire County Council sparked festive fury on Twitter after telling residents how many brussel sprouts they should have with their Christmas dinner
The tweet, sent out on Saturday evening, also sparked a host of Brexit-related replies, with one user posting: ‘If we want to leave Brussels we will.’
One follower wrote: ‘Councils need to focus on collecting bins and fixing street lamps, not offering this mind boggling dull and irrelevant nanny state drivel. That’s your official portion of common sense for the day.’
Another said: ‘Looking forward to a string of prosecutions of ordinary Leicestershire folk in the new year as many will fail to heed this advice/warning/veiled threat.’
And Natasha Rossiya added: ‘Are you going to prosecute Leicestershire residents if they have seven or, heaven forbid, eight sprouts? Will their be a ‘Sprout Officer’ (circa 42k per annum)?’
Other replies included, ‘A portion is as many as I want. Which is several times more than six’, ‘We’re not having sprouts as we don’t like them. ‘
‘Can we transfer our allowance to other people provided they live within LCC jurisdiction?’, and, ‘A man like me likes at least 16 sprouts – shall I expect to hear the sound of jackboots on the stairs?’
One tweeter pointed out: ‘Brussels sprouts have fantastic health properties, it’s a shame you are telling people to limit the quantity they buy and eat. Maybe suggest recipes for using leftovers?’
A council spokesman today appeared to admit the authority had slipped up when it offered the advice.
He said: ‘We send out thousands of tweets, including messages about food waste, and sometimes we get it wrong.
‘We want residents to enjoy every aspect of Christmas Day, including the sprouts!’
The tweet came as Asda predicted 1.5 million bags of British brussel sprouts will be sold in the Christmas week alone, an increase of 30 percent compared to last year.
Around 100 tonnes of sprouts are produced per day, with farmers working from dusk to dawn to ensure they end up on plates in time for December 25.
Although there is evidence that sprouts have been grown in some parts of Europe since the middle ages, they didn’t become popular in Britain until the 19th century – although historians disagree as to why.
It’s thought Victorians may have liked to novelty of eating ‘miniature cabbages’, while others believe sprouts arrived in the UK just when the idea of ‘feasting’ at Christmas became popular.