The 5pm Dining blog has been enjoying this week’s food related news stories.

Not least the welcome revelation that saturated fat won’t immediately kill you if you so much as sneak a glance at a bacon buttie.

Lashings of butter

While health officials are not giving everyone the all clear to gorge 24/7 on lardo and dripping, it seems that some of the fears about the dangers of saturated fat may have been overstated.

We will be celebrating this weekend by slathering extra butter on our breakfast toast.

Tomorrow, many of us will be spending Valentine’s Day trying to butter up our significant others.

Regular blog readers will know that we have no shortage of Valentine’s gift ideas or suggestions for romantic places to eat in Glasgow or Edinburgh.

We also have a proposal for next year’s Valentine’s feeding frenzy.

A Swiss company called Lubera has been developing a range of six edible Dahlias or DeliDahlias.

Named Hoamatland, Black Jack, Kennedy, Sunset, Buga Munchen and Fantastic, not only do their flowers look stunning but their roots have been developed to taste like asparagus, celery or fennel.

Aztec dinner

Apparently, eating Dahlia tubers is nothing new. When the less photogenic spud was introduced to Europe, it was accompanied by various flowers which were prized for their edible roots – a habit that Europeans picked up from the Aztecs.

Over time, the flowers became more prized and gardeners cultivated the plants for their blooms rather than their tubers.

The Swiss company aim to reverse the trend. Apparently, the Dahlia roots should be treated liked potatoes and carrots – ideal for boiling, baking and steaming

The plants will go on sale in the UK in March – regrettably too late for this year’s Valentine’s celebrations.

‘Say it with tubers’ may lack the romantic finesse of ‘Say it with flowers’ but this blogger would be happy to have a flowering plant which can be turned into a snack at a later point.

Especially one which is baked and covered in butter.