The festive food frenzy

2100 hours 24 December - Life force, known as humans, continuously consuming what appear to be sweet edible objects and drinking liquids of all colours that appear to be causing erratic movements accompanied by music but in no observable rhythmic motion.

1300 hours 25 December - Consumption appears to have spiraled out of control. At one sitting the humans appeared to eat huge amounts of all possible foods- fish, bread, animal, vegetables, baked goods, dairy products and then unbelievably, more sweet things. It's incredible!

To an alien species, the activities of the festive period must appear bizarre. This is consumption writ large.

The average person will gain 5lbs (2kg) over Christmas, having eaten their way through 6000 calories on Christmas Day alone - three times the necessary amount.

For food retailers this Christmas were expected bring a record groceries take of £3.3 billion in the week up to the big day, according to market analysts at TNS.

While Deloitte's Christmas spending survey shows that across the whole Christmas period, British shoppers will spend a massive £7.6 billion on food and drink.

The mountain this buys will include 30 million turkeys with a market value of £305 million, along with almost 3,000 tonnes of aluminium foil to wrap the Christmas birds.

Even the love-or-hate brussel sprout will sell to the tune of 15,000 tonnes: 14 for every British man, woman and child.

And a whopping 175 million mince pies will be bought, worth £45m, together with 5.5 million jars of mincemeat.

The Christmas pile of mince pies alone, if stacked on top of each other, would stretch 3262 miles high - almost 600 times the height of Mount Everest.

But if aliens are truly searching for the greatest signs of excess, they must head to the north-east of the UK, and watch the men.Folks from the North East of England will be investing £178 per household on Christmas fare, compared with £119 among the moderate East Anglians. And across the UK, men will consume £167 in food and drink, compared with £153 for women.

Which sets up January for the ethnographic study of dieting in action.

Leah Vyse, FoodandDrinkEurope.com​