The Food Standards Agency in the UK published a report yesterday on the food children take to school. They discovered that nearly half of school lunch boxes do not contain fruit or fresh vegetables. Nearly one in five contain no sandwiches or alternative main ingredient but are packed with crisps, chocolate, biscuits and sugary drinks instead. More than two-thirds of children had a packet of crisps in their lunchbox every day. More than three-quarters contained sugary drinks.
Only 11% of sandwiches were made with wholemeal bread. A growing number of packed lunches contained highly processed dairy foods. Although marketed as healthy, these products are high in salt, fat or sugar, and additives.
Despite an extensive publicity campaign concerning the right diet for children, this appears to be having little impact on parents. For example, the average fat content of lunch boxes has risen by three grams since last year and salt and sugar levels remain well above recommended levels.
Other research by the Food Standards Agency reveal that nearly half of our teenagers are short of vital nutrients such as iron.
A joint report published recently by the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Paediatrics and the Faculty of Public Health, urged the government to put together a coherent strategy to fight the obesity epidemic in Britain. The incidence of obesity in children is growing at an alarming rate. It more than trebled in 6 to 15 year olds from 5% to 16% between 1990 and 2001.
Schools have played an important role in this development of obesity. Probably the most important factor in this was the privatisation of the school meals service. In an attempt to maximize profits these companies have encouraged students to buy unhealthy foods in schools. This has been backed up schools providing vending machines in schools selling high-fat and high-sugar snacks. When challenged on this head teachers say they need this income to buy essential things for the school. It would seem everything has its price in 21st century Britain.
I know some people believe that there is little we can do to reverse the trend in obesity. As educators, we have a responsibility to do what we can to tackle this terrible problem. We need to remind ourselves that schools can make a difference. Look for example how Finland have been able to reverse this trend in obesity in its young people. However, it does mean that the people of Finland have had to endure restrictions on their freedom. As a recent BBC report pointed out: “In this country (Britain), the accusation of presiding over a 'nanny state' is the worst form of insult that can be thrown at a politician. But in Finland politicians seem to smart less at such allegations.”
In the 1970's Finland had the highest rate of deaths from heart problems in the world, largely due to a flourishing dairy sector which played a big part in the Finnish diet.
But as a result of an assertive public education campaign - to promote exercise and healthy diet - it has escaped the escalating obesity rates now emerging in Britain.
In the 80's Finland's obesity rate was twice as high as ours - but in the years that followed, as Britain's obesity rate soared, our Nordic neighbours more or less contained the problem, experiencing only modest rises. For instance, 19% of women in Finland are now classed as clinically obese. In the UK the figure is closer to 26% and our children are getting fatter too.
So how have they done it?
Largely through assertive government campaigns and co-operation from the domestic food industry. In this country, the accusation of presiding over a 'nanny state' is the worst form of insult that can be thrown at a politician. But in Finland politicians seem to smart less at such allegations.
In Finland school kids are weighed annually and the results recorded in their end of year reports. If there's a problem the doctor is called in. Each child receives a free school lunch which must comprise one third of their calorie intake, and exercise plays a prominent part in the school day.
A recent a report written by the country’s top cancer specialists, claimed that cancer cases will treble over the next 20 years. It warns that a cancer underclass is developing (overweight poor people who smoke). The report predicts that by 2025 the NHS will have to treat 3 million people suffering from cancer. It warns that the cost of this treatment will bankrupt the NHS. They claim that unless the government acts on this issue they will be forced to introduce a semi-privatised NHS. In other words, the treatment people receive will depend on their ability to pay.
This report illustrates the dilemma facing the government. An unwillingness to introduce legislation now will result is some unpleasant decisions being made in the future. The problem we face is that governments tend to leave unpleasant decisions until as late as possible. After all, they will say to themselves, why should we make decisions that make us unpopular when future politicians will gain the benefits for these actions. It is very similar to reasons why governments are reluctant to take unpopular decisions to protect the environment. It is in fact one of the disadvantages of democratic government. All we can do is urge our governments to make decisions that are good for future generations. As intelligent individuals we have a responsibility to do that.
Full Version: Changes in Society: Childhood Obesity
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Sep 3 2004, 03:18 PM)
The Food Standards Agency in the UK published a report yesterday on the food children take to school. They discovered that nearly half of school lunch boxes do not contain fruit or fresh vegetables. Nearly one in five contain no sandwiches or alternative main ingredient but are packed with crisps, chocolate, biscuits and sugary drinks instead. More than two-thirds of children had a packet of crisps in their lunchbox every day. More than three-quarters contained sugary drinks.
Only 11% of sandwiches were made with wholemeal bread. A growing number of packed lunches contained highly processed dairy foods. Although marketed as healthy, these products are high in salt, fat or sugar, and additives.
Despite an extensive publicity campaign concerning the right diet for children, this appears to be having little impact on parents. For example, the average fat content of lunch boxes has risen by three grams since last year and salt and sugar levels remain well above recommended levels.
Other research by the Food Standards Agency reveal that nearly half of our teenagers are short of vital nutrients such as iron.
A joint report published recently by the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Paediatrics and the Faculty of Public Health, urged the government to put together a coherent strategy to fight the obesity epidemic in Britain. The incidence of obesity in children is growing at an alarming rate. It more than trebled in 6 to 15 year olds from 5% to 16% between 1990 and 2001.
Schools have played an important role in this development of obesity. Probably the most important factor in this was the privatisation of the school meals service. In an attempt to maximize profits these companies have encouraged students to buy unhealthy foods in schools. This has been backed up schools providing vending machines in schools selling high-fat and high-sugar snacks. When challenged on this head teachers say they need this income to buy essential things for the school. It would seem everything has its price in 21st century Britain.
I know some people believe that there is little we can do to reverse the trend in obesity. As educators, we have a responsibility to do what we can to tackle this terrible problem. We need to remind ourselves that schools can make a difference. Look for example how Finland have been able to reverse this trend in obesity in its young people. However, it does mean that the people of Finland have had to endure restrictions on their freedom. As a recent BBC report pointed out: “In this country (Britain), the accusation of presiding over a 'nanny state' is the worst form of insult that can be thrown at a politician. But in Finland politicians seem to smart less at such allegations.”
In the 1970's Finland had the highest rate of deaths from heart problems in the world, largely due to a flourishing dairy sector which played a big part in the Finnish diet.
But as a result of an assertive public education campaign - to promote exercise and healthy diet - it has escaped the escalating obesity rates now emerging in Britain.
In the 80's Finland's obesity rate was twice as high as ours - but in the years that followed, as Britain's obesity rate soared, our Nordic neighbours more or less contained the problem, experiencing only modest rises. For instance, 19% of women in Finland are now classed as clinically obese. In the UK the figure is closer to 26% and our children are getting fatter too.
So how have they done it?
Largely through assertive government campaigns and co-operation from the domestic food industry. In this country, the accusation of presiding over a 'nanny state' is the worst form of insult that can be thrown at a politician. But in Finland politicians seem to smart less at such allegations.
In Finland school kids are weighed annually and the results recorded in their end of year reports. If there's a problem the doctor is called in. Each child receives a free school lunch which must comprise one third of their calorie intake, and exercise plays a prominent part in the school day.
A recent a report written by the country’s top cancer specialists, claimed that cancer cases will treble over the next 20 years. It warns that a cancer underclass is developing (overweight poor people who smoke). The report predicts that by 2025 the NHS will have to treat 3 million people suffering from cancer. It warns that the cost of this treatment will bankrupt the NHS. They claim that unless the government acts on this issue they will be forced to introduce a semi-privatised NHS. In other words, the treatment people receive will depend on their ability to pay.
This report illustrates the dilemma facing the government. An unwillingness to introduce legislation now will result is some unpleasant decisions being made in the future. The problem we face is that governments tend to leave unpleasant decisions until as late as possible. After all, they will say to themselves, why should we make decisions that make us unpopular when future politicians will gain the benefits for these actions. It is very similar to reasons why governments are reluctant to take unpopular decisions to protect the environment. It is in fact one of the disadvantages of democratic government. All we can do is urge our governments to make decisions that are good for future generations. As intelligent individuals we have a responsibility to do that.
Only 11% of sandwiches were made with wholemeal bread. A growing number of packed lunches contained highly processed dairy foods. Although marketed as healthy, these products are high in salt, fat or sugar, and additives.
Despite an extensive publicity campaign concerning the right diet for children, this appears to be having little impact on parents. For example, the average fat content of lunch boxes has risen by three grams since last year and salt and sugar levels remain well above recommended levels.
Other research by the Food Standards Agency reveal that nearly half of our teenagers are short of vital nutrients such as iron.
A joint report published recently by the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Paediatrics and the Faculty of Public Health, urged the government to put together a coherent strategy to fight the obesity epidemic in Britain. The incidence of obesity in children is growing at an alarming rate. It more than trebled in 6 to 15 year olds from 5% to 16% between 1990 and 2001.
Schools have played an important role in this development of obesity. Probably the most important factor in this was the privatisation of the school meals service. In an attempt to maximize profits these companies have encouraged students to buy unhealthy foods in schools. This has been backed up schools providing vending machines in schools selling high-fat and high-sugar snacks. When challenged on this head teachers say they need this income to buy essential things for the school. It would seem everything has its price in 21st century Britain.
I know some people believe that there is little we can do to reverse the trend in obesity. As educators, we have a responsibility to do what we can to tackle this terrible problem. We need to remind ourselves that schools can make a difference. Look for example how Finland have been able to reverse this trend in obesity in its young people. However, it does mean that the people of Finland have had to endure restrictions on their freedom. As a recent BBC report pointed out: “In this country (Britain), the accusation of presiding over a 'nanny state' is the worst form of insult that can be thrown at a politician. But in Finland politicians seem to smart less at such allegations.”
In the 1970's Finland had the highest rate of deaths from heart problems in the world, largely due to a flourishing dairy sector which played a big part in the Finnish diet.
But as a result of an assertive public education campaign - to promote exercise and healthy diet - it has escaped the escalating obesity rates now emerging in Britain.
In the 80's Finland's obesity rate was twice as high as ours - but in the years that followed, as Britain's obesity rate soared, our Nordic neighbours more or less contained the problem, experiencing only modest rises. For instance, 19% of women in Finland are now classed as clinically obese. In the UK the figure is closer to 26% and our children are getting fatter too.
So how have they done it?
Largely through assertive government campaigns and co-operation from the domestic food industry. In this country, the accusation of presiding over a 'nanny state' is the worst form of insult that can be thrown at a politician. But in Finland politicians seem to smart less at such allegations.
In Finland school kids are weighed annually and the results recorded in their end of year reports. If there's a problem the doctor is called in. Each child receives a free school lunch which must comprise one third of their calorie intake, and exercise plays a prominent part in the school day.
A recent a report written by the country’s top cancer specialists, claimed that cancer cases will treble over the next 20 years. It warns that a cancer underclass is developing (overweight poor people who smoke). The report predicts that by 2025 the NHS will have to treat 3 million people suffering from cancer. It warns that the cost of this treatment will bankrupt the NHS. They claim that unless the government acts on this issue they will be forced to introduce a semi-privatised NHS. In other words, the treatment people receive will depend on their ability to pay.
This report illustrates the dilemma facing the government. An unwillingness to introduce legislation now will result is some unpleasant decisions being made in the future. The problem we face is that governments tend to leave unpleasant decisions until as late as possible. After all, they will say to themselves, why should we make decisions that make us unpopular when future politicians will gain the benefits for these actions. It is very similar to reasons why governments are reluctant to take unpopular decisions to protect the environment. It is in fact one of the disadvantages of democratic government. All we can do is urge our governments to make decisions that are good for future generations. As intelligent individuals we have a responsibility to do that.
All we can do is urge our governments to make decisions that are good for future generations. As intelligent individuals we have a responsibility to do that. As intelligent teachers we can educate children on healthy lifestyles, including healthy eating and exercise. Myself and another university student created a unit plan, titled ‘You are what you eat’ and I believe units like these should be taught within primary schools. Children are the future, so if we teach them, they can teacher others, even their parents. Also, if a child knows that chips are bad for them and will make them overweight, they may ask their parents not to put them in their lunch boxes anymore. Also, instead of showing obese people or talking about cancer with will most likely scare the children (scare tactics), implement a challenge for a week or two where the children eat healthy and exercise and write a journal each day about how they feel, if they have more energy, if they have lost weight, etc. This way, children will learn first hand, by eating healthy and exercising that they feel better, having more energy and are happier with themselves.
I really like the strategy in Finland where the school kids are weighed annually and the results recorded in their end of year reports and if there's a problem the doctor is called in. Each child receives a free school lunch which must comprise one third of their calorie intake, and exercise plays a prominent part in the school day. Do you think schools could implement this program? Or does it depend on the government?
I would like to introduce the importance of breakfast also. I found this article at
http://www.daa.asn.au/common/news_events/csa.asp
On 18 August, a national media release announced the launch of a new DAA Community Service Announcement (CSA) to educate children, parents and carers on the importance of eating breakfast. DAA believes the CSA will be widely supported for its effective promotion of an important nutrition message. The CSA is proudly supported by DAA gold partner, Kellogg Australia and television, print and radio versions have been developed.
Research findings into breakfast
Recent findings from The University of Sydney National Children’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Study, supported by a research grant from Kellogg Australia, found that one in four children go to school hungry. The study also found that amongst high school students, females were more likely to skip breakfast than males and those from lower socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds were less likely to eat a proper breakfast than those from higher SES backgrounds.
Of major concern, are the study’s findings related to overweight and obesity in school students with:
• Children who skip breakfast or drink only fluids being significantly heavier than children who eat breakfast.
• Female children who skip breakfast being significantly heavier than female children who eat breakfast.
• Male children who skip breakfast being significantly heavier than male children who eat breakfast.
• One in four children who are overweight not eating a proper breakfast.
• One in five primary school children who are overweight not eating a proper breakfast.
• Two in five high school students who are overweight not eating a proper breakfast.
• One in two female high school students who are overweight not eating a proper breakfast.
• One in three children from low SES backgrounds who are overweight not eating a proper breakfast.
The study involved 34 schools from all States and Territories of Australia. 29 public schools, one private school and four catholic schools from urban, rural and regional areas participated. A total of 4,819 students completed the questionnaire with 49.4% of participants being male and 50.6% being female. Students ranged from Years one through to 12 with 2,026 in primary school and 2,793 in secondary school. 1,185 students from disadvantaged schools (low SES) participated and 3,634 students from non-disadvantaged schools (middle/high SES) participated.
Other scientific research from around the globe also shows that:
• Eating breakfast can have a significant effect on learning with students more able to pay attention and retain information as well as being more interested in learning.
• People who eat breakfast have more nutritious diets than people who skip breakfast with breakfast eaters tending to have lower intakes of fat and higher intakes of fibre, and many vitamins and minerals.
• People who eat breakfast have better eating habits than people who skip breakfast as they are less likely to be ravenously hungry for snacks during the day.
• Children who eat an inadequate breakfast are more likely to make poor food choices for the rest of the day and in the long-term, which may lead to an increased risk in obesity.
• Students who are overweight are less likely to eat breakfast and participate in physical activity than non-overweight students.
The importance of breakfast also need to be taught as it does have an effect on the children ability to learn and pay attention. Instead of Finland’s lunch program, I believe breakfast should be provided, because as they say, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”.
Information and stats from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2824987.stm
They believe skipping the first meal of the day increases the chances of becoming obese, developing diabetes or even having a heart attack.
The researchers believe that eating first thing in the morning may help to stabilise blood sugar levels, which regulate appetite and energy.
They suggest people who eat breakfast are less likely to be hungry during the rest of the day and are, therefore, less likely to overeat.
"Our results suggest that breakfast may really be the most important meal of the day," said Dr Periera.
Danielle Ramia
Did you know that the only reason that Mcdonalds put gurkins on burgers is because otherwise it would be labelled confectionary due to the amount of sugar in it. In my opinion advertising has a lot to do with the various foods and the lack of nutritional education in schools. In an extreme case some schools in the us are sponsored by Coca Cola and only Coke products may be sold on school grounds and students must watch 10 mins of Coke adverts per day, thats capitalism gone crazy.
In the Netherlands children are also gaining weight. I believe the biggest problem is the fact that sports are no longer a normal hobby for many children. The computer has replaced this. Also at school it's not considered cool to try your best during sportslessons.
The schoolcanteen serves mainly snacks en candy. Children start eating this food in the morning.
Schools should ban these foods from their buildings and take an active role in making sports more popular. How to do this I don't know. Maybe someone else has a idea??
The schoolcanteen serves mainly snacks en candy. Children start eating this food in the morning.
Schools should ban these foods from their buildings and take an active role in making sports more popular. How to do this I don't know. Maybe someone else has a idea??
QUOTE (Robin Groenbos @ Sep 15 2004, 08:12 AM)
Schools should ban these foods from their buildings and take an active role in making sports more popular. How to do this I don't know. Maybe someone else has a idea??
Schools can indeed ban these foods from schools. This is what Finland has done. I am sure other sensible countries have similar policies.
Here are a few stories on the subject.
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1633568&nav=0RaPKfJa
http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20040113IE15
http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20040217IE17
Why don’t British governments bring in similar legislation? The main reason is the funding of political parties. The major parties are unwilling to upset the powerful food and drink industry.
For example, in 1994 the government’s advisory Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition recommended a model diets for the UK. This included a large reduction in salt, sugar, etc. The food industry obtained a leaked draft and four of the largest food manufacturers, Cadbury Schweppes, Tate and Lyle, United Biscuits and Mars demanded a meeting with the department of health. When the government went ahead and published the report, virtually the whole of the food and drink industry cut off financial support for the Conservative Party. They got the message and made sure that similar reports were not published. New Labour of course are willing to publish reports on the subject, however, they are fully under the control of the food and drinks industry and refuse to pass legislation to enforce a change in diet. The government knows that its health campaigns can not compete with the spending employed to promote junk food to the young and the undereducated.
One of the main problems the English school has in ensuring that school meals are healthy is the requirement to put the catering contract out to private tender. Effective line management of the catering providers thus becomes virtually impossible and the private company providing the food will invariably cut as many corners as possible to make money and push the unhealthy, easy to prepare and profitable junk that kids become so readily addicted to.
This is clearly an area which would benefit from government regulation and control - remove the market and remove the "customer" choice and we can perhaps begin to take some sensible decisions about what the children eat.
This is clearly an area which would benefit from government regulation and control - remove the market and remove the "customer" choice and we can perhaps begin to take some sensible decisions about what the children eat.
McDonalds is one of those companies that are suffering because of the recent reports on the link between junk food , obesity and poor health. Last year McDonalds saw a 71% drop in its profits in the UK. It has now decided to bring in new menus that are supposed to contain “healthy” options. This includes grilled chicken flatbread, six varieties of salad leaves, porridge and low-fat carrot cake.
Apparently, McDonalds have been told that they have to change its image. This means abandoning its golden arch logo (one of the three most recognised images in the world – Coca-Cola logo and the crucifix are the others). The rebranding will be announced on Friday. A golden question mark is going to replace the golden arch. Next to the question mark will be the strapline: “McDonald’s. But not as you know it.”
I think the junk food industry is on the run.
Apparently, McDonalds have been told that they have to change its image. This means abandoning its golden arch logo (one of the three most recognised images in the world – Coca-Cola logo and the crucifix are the others). The rebranding will be announced on Friday. A golden question mark is going to replace the golden arch. Next to the question mark will be the strapline: “McDonald’s. But not as you know it.”
I think the junk food industry is on the run.
It's hard to do things about what kids eat at home, except through education. Our outomes based curriculum here allows us to address this sort of thing because we don't have an imposed national curriculum. One of the expected "outcomes" is expressed as "Personal Well-being" so all schools run units of work which incorporate learning about food/diet/health etc.
Our state DoE encourages school canteens, which are all run by P&F groups, to have only healthy food and, although there are still some which could improve, most are getting better at it. The opposition party tried to bring in one hour of compulsory PE/Sport a week, but actually when a survey was done, it showed that all schools did that or more already. (Maybe Australians are a bit more sportcentric). However, obesity is still a problem, and probably for the reasons mentioned above - too much sitting at a PC, too little exercise as in walking to school, running round all weekend, and bad food habits at home.
What you can do about all those, I don't know.
Our state DoE encourages school canteens, which are all run by P&F groups, to have only healthy food and, although there are still some which could improve, most are getting better at it. The opposition party tried to bring in one hour of compulsory PE/Sport a week, but actually when a survey was done, it showed that all schools did that or more already. (Maybe Australians are a bit more sportcentric). However, obesity is still a problem, and probably for the reasons mentioned above - too much sitting at a PC, too little exercise as in walking to school, running round all weekend, and bad food habits at home.
What you can do about all those, I don't know.
New Labour promised it would “sort out the troublesome issue of food once and for all”. However, it succumbed to the pressures of the food industry.
There are signs that they really will need to stand up to the food industry. A recent report revealed that obesity alone costs the UK around £7bn a year whereas coronary heart disease costs more than £11bn. The Health Service will eventually crumble under the burden of this government spending.
The Food Standards Agency has recently launched a £4m anti-salt campaign. The government is also spending £13m on free fruit for 4-6 year olds. However, the food industry spends over £500m a year enticing us to consume sugary, fatty, salty brands. We now know that persuasion does not work. It is time for regulation.
There are signs that they really will need to stand up to the food industry. A recent report revealed that obesity alone costs the UK around £7bn a year whereas coronary heart disease costs more than £11bn. The Health Service will eventually crumble under the burden of this government spending.
The Food Standards Agency has recently launched a £4m anti-salt campaign. The government is also spending £13m on free fruit for 4-6 year olds. However, the food industry spends over £500m a year enticing us to consume sugary, fatty, salty brands. We now know that persuasion does not work. It is time for regulation.
Yesterday, John Reid, the health secretary, launched the government’s blue-print for disease prevention. This includes measures to deal with childhood obesity. Reid rejects the idea of compulsion and instead proposes voluntary action by the food industry.
School meals will in future be inspected by Ofsted and standards will be revised to reduce fat, salt and sugar and increase fruit and vegetable consumption. The government is also considering introducing nutrient-based standards” covering meals, vending machines and tuck shops.
Reid also announced provision of pedometers, so that children can measure their own walking. He will also put pressure on schools not to sell playing fields.
At the moment only 60% of schoolchildren get a minimum of two hours of PE and sport. Reid says the government hope to increase this to 85% by 2008.
School meals will in future be inspected by Ofsted and standards will be revised to reduce fat, salt and sugar and increase fruit and vegetable consumption. The government is also considering introducing nutrient-based standards” covering meals, vending machines and tuck shops.
Reid also announced provision of pedometers, so that children can measure their own walking. He will also put pressure on schools not to sell playing fields.
At the moment only 60% of schoolchildren get a minimum of two hours of PE and sport. Reid says the government hope to increase this to 85% by 2008.
In 1947 Ancel Keys studied 283 businessmen in the Minneapolis area. He found that smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol wre more apparent in men suffering heart attacks.
In 1958 Keys published a report documenting the eating habits of 12,763 healthy middle-aged men living in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Holland, Finland, Japan and the US. It found that heart attack rates corresponded to diet and exercise. Those living in Greece and Italy were healthier than those in the US and Finland. He concluded that Mediterranean meals of fruit, vegetables, bread, pasta, chicken, fish, olive oil and a little wine, were good for your health.
Keys actually lived his life based on his research. He moved to Italy where he followed a Mediterranean diet. He also spent a great deal of time walking and swimming.
Ancel Keys died a couple of weeks ago. He was a 100 years old. His wife, who also followed this diet and exercise plan, is still going strong.
In 1958 Keys published a report documenting the eating habits of 12,763 healthy middle-aged men living in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Holland, Finland, Japan and the US. It found that heart attack rates corresponded to diet and exercise. Those living in Greece and Italy were healthier than those in the US and Finland. He concluded that Mediterranean meals of fruit, vegetables, bread, pasta, chicken, fish, olive oil and a little wine, were good for your health.
Keys actually lived his life based on his research. He moved to Italy where he followed a Mediterranean diet. He also spent a great deal of time walking and swimming.
Ancel Keys died a couple of weeks ago. He was a 100 years old. His wife, who also followed this diet and exercise plan, is still going strong.
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Dec 9 2004, 06:59 PM)
Keys actually lived his life based on his research. He moved to Italy where he followed a Mediterranean diet. He also spent a great deal of time walking and swimming.
Ancel Keys died a couple of weeks ago. He was a 100 years old. His wife, who also followed this diet and exercise plan, is still going strong.
Ancel Keys died a couple of weeks ago. He was a 100 years old. His wife, who also followed this diet and exercise plan, is still going strong.
Just think how bored he must have been though
Scotland has appointed a health tsar to oversee Hungry for Success, the Scottish executive’s £63.5m campaign to improve the quality of school meals, says the government in England needs to put pressure on food manufacturers to improve their products.
The Scots now dictate that oily fish should be served at least once a week and processed meat products only once a week; that brown bread should always be on offer; and that there should be two helpings of vegetables and two of fruit on every menu each day. There are product specifications for levels of sodium and fat in processed meat, fish and some other products such as pizza.
For example, schools in Scotland have been told to drop Turkey Twizzlers from school menus. Twizzlers have 21.2% fat when cooked, more than twice the 10% maximum recommended for processed meats under Scottish guidelines. Yet this processed meat appears on the menu in schools all over England. As Gillian Kynoch, the health tsar pointed out, if the UK government was willing to put pressure on the manufacturer of this food, Bernard Matthews, he would be forced to take it off the market (he has already promised to redesign Twizzlers in order to get it back on the menu in Scotland).
The same happened to McCain’s Smiley Faces. They were banned because they were too high in salt. They were reformulated very quickly and are now back on the menu.
The government of course take more care over the meals provided to those in prison. According to a recent survey the government spends 35p a head on each school meal and 60p on each prison meal.
The Scots now dictate that oily fish should be served at least once a week and processed meat products only once a week; that brown bread should always be on offer; and that there should be two helpings of vegetables and two of fruit on every menu each day. There are product specifications for levels of sodium and fat in processed meat, fish and some other products such as pizza.
For example, schools in Scotland have been told to drop Turkey Twizzlers from school menus. Twizzlers have 21.2% fat when cooked, more than twice the 10% maximum recommended for processed meats under Scottish guidelines. Yet this processed meat appears on the menu in schools all over England. As Gillian Kynoch, the health tsar pointed out, if the UK government was willing to put pressure on the manufacturer of this food, Bernard Matthews, he would be forced to take it off the market (he has already promised to redesign Twizzlers in order to get it back on the menu in Scotland).
The same happened to McCain’s Smiley Faces. They were banned because they were too high in salt. They were reformulated very quickly and are now back on the menu.
The government of course take more care over the meals provided to those in prison. According to a recent survey the government spends 35p a head on each school meal and 60p on each prison meal.
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Dec 14 2004, 07:24 PM)
Scotland has appointed a health tsar to oversee Hungry for Success, the Scottish executive’s £63.5m campaign to improve the quality of school meals, says the government in England needs to put pressure on food manufacturers to improve their products.
The Scots now dictate that oily fish should be served at least once a week and processed meat products only once a week; that brown bread should always be on offer; and that there should be two helpings of vegetables and two of fruit on every menu each day. There are product specifications for levels of sodium and fat in processed meat, fish and some other products such as pizza.
For example, schools in Scotland have been told to drop Turkey Twizzlers from school menus. Twizzlers have 21.2% fat when cooked, more than twice the 10% maximum recommended for processed meats under Scottish guidelines. Yet this processed meat appears on the menu in schools all over England. As Gillian Kynoch, the health tsar pointed out, if the UK government was willing to put pressure on the manufacturer of this food, Bernard Matthews, he would be forced to take it off the market (he has already promised to redesign Twizzlers in order to get it back on the menu in Scotland).
The same happened to McCain’s Smiley Faces. They were banned because they were too high in salt. They were reformulated very quickly and are now back on the menu.
The government of course take more care over the meals provided to those in prison. According to a recent survey the government spends 35p a head on each school meal and 60p on each prison meal.
The Scots now dictate that oily fish should be served at least once a week and processed meat products only once a week; that brown bread should always be on offer; and that there should be two helpings of vegetables and two of fruit on every menu each day. There are product specifications for levels of sodium and fat in processed meat, fish and some other products such as pizza.
For example, schools in Scotland have been told to drop Turkey Twizzlers from school menus. Twizzlers have 21.2% fat when cooked, more than twice the 10% maximum recommended for processed meats under Scottish guidelines. Yet this processed meat appears on the menu in schools all over England. As Gillian Kynoch, the health tsar pointed out, if the UK government was willing to put pressure on the manufacturer of this food, Bernard Matthews, he would be forced to take it off the market (he has already promised to redesign Twizzlers in order to get it back on the menu in Scotland).
The same happened to McCain’s Smiley Faces. They were banned because they were too high in salt. They were reformulated very quickly and are now back on the menu.
The government of course take more care over the meals provided to those in prison. According to a recent survey the government spends 35p a head on each school meal and 60p on each prison meal.
Surely in a free society it is better for schools to offer a selection of food which reflects the choices children will later be confronted with as adults.
Education should be about empowerment rather than nannying.
Schools should certainly "teach" about healthy eating. They should teach both about the importance of freedom of choice and also the consequences of eating unhealthily every day.
The problem I have with structuring choice in the way John seems to be proposing is that the recipients will either become totally reliant on Nanny and unable to make rational decisions for themselves, or revolt against such busy bodyism and fail to appreciate the validity of some of the message. They will also tend to vote with their feet and feed at a source where there are no healthy options. After all in a market economy children can always get their lunchtime fix of fat and salt from the local shop
Is John suggesting that the government should try to kill off the excessive prison population with fatty foods? There would perhaps be fewer prison riots if the incarcerated population were all bloaters... there may well be other advantages to such a policy - fewer cases of "going over the wall" (though 'through the wall' may become an issue), escape tunnels would have to be wider and would be more difficult to dig, bars on cells could also be wider making for real savings for the tax payer on metal to name but a few
.
The food industry has claimed for some time that there is no link between fast food and obesity. They claim that the main cause of obesity is a lack of exercise and is not connected to the type of food people eat. They also deny that there is a link between fast food and type 2 diabetes, which is becoming an increasing problem in affluent nations.
Mark Pereira from the University of Minnesota and David Ludwig from the Children’s Hospital in Boston have studied the diets of 3,000 adults over a 15 year period. They discovered that those who went more than twice a week to fast food restaurants weighed an average of 4.5kg more than those who did not. They also had a twofold greater increase in insulin resistance making them more prone to developing diabetes.
Currently 30% of Americans are clinically obese. The condition is blamed for 300,000 deaths a year and costs $100bn (£51bn) in the US per year.
Mark Pereira from the University of Minnesota and David Ludwig from the Children’s Hospital in Boston have studied the diets of 3,000 adults over a 15 year period. They discovered that those who went more than twice a week to fast food restaurants weighed an average of 4.5kg more than those who did not. They also had a twofold greater increase in insulin resistance making them more prone to developing diabetes.
Currently 30% of Americans are clinically obese. The condition is blamed for 300,000 deaths a year and costs $100bn (£51bn) in the US per year.
The incidence of obesity among adult men has nearly doubled in just over ten years (13.2% in 1993 to 23.6% in 2004). For women it has increased from 16.4% to 23.8%. The real problem is with children. A recent study shows that one in three 11 to 15 year olds are obese. This has resulted in a large increase in type 2 diabetes. We are heading for an epidemic similar to that in the US. The long-term effects of diabetes can include blindness, amputations, kidney disease, heart conditions and stroke.
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Dec 31 2004, 06:55 PM)
The food industry has claimed for some time that there is no link between fast food and obesity. They claim that the main cause of obesity is a lack of exercise and is not connected to the type of food people eat.
There is of course a great deal of truth in this.
Just look at how children get to school (in mummy's people carrier), how little children these days engage in active "play" at break time, the low participation rates in school sports and sports outside school. We must also factor in the largely unfounded fears parents and other assorted busybodies have in ever letting their children venture outside on their own.
Perhaps John and others of a like mind should be nagging us about moving about more? I am sure the world would be better and thinner place if we just did as we were told.
Article in our local paper today in which a dentist says he is beginning to see scurvy in patients whose diet is largely sugar and fat. He says he is seeing " third-world mouths" - another horrifying result of unhealthy diets.
I have just noticed who our sponsors are today (probably requested by Andy Walker):
Certified Pure Hoodia
Desert burn 750mg South African diet pills. Curb hunger naturally. Watch 60 minutes clip plus hoodia news headlines and faq. Lose weight and feel great with pure hoodia diet pills.
Slimming Pills. com
Highly successful all natural diet pills, money back guarantee.
Slimming and Weight Loss Supplement
The Extreme Transformation System provides a personalized diet, exercise, and supplementation plan based on various individual body types and desired goals. Start losing weight today.
Lab88 Slimming Diet Pills Success
Metabo-Speed XXX diet pill of the stars. Lose up to 20 lbs in 30 days. Powerful fat burner, appetite killer, metabolism booster. 30-Day multi-bottle guarantee. Get 1 free with 2 bottles.
Certified Pure Hoodia
Desert burn 750mg South African diet pills. Curb hunger naturally. Watch 60 minutes clip plus hoodia news headlines and faq. Lose weight and feel great with pure hoodia diet pills.
Slimming Pills. com
Highly successful all natural diet pills, money back guarantee.
Slimming and Weight Loss Supplement
The Extreme Transformation System provides a personalized diet, exercise, and supplementation plan based on various individual body types and desired goals. Start losing weight today.
Lab88 Slimming Diet Pills Success
Metabo-Speed XXX diet pill of the stars. Lose up to 20 lbs in 30 days. Powerful fat burner, appetite killer, metabolism booster. 30-Day multi-bottle guarantee. Get 1 free with 2 bottles.
QUOTE (John Simkin @ Jan 17 2006, 12:26 PM)
I have just noticed who our sponsors are today (probably requested by Andy Walker):
Certified Pure Hoodia
Desert burn 750mg South African diet pills. Curb hunger naturally. Watch 60 minutes clip plus hoodia news headlines and faq. Lose weight and feel great with pure hoodia diet pills.
Slimming Pills. com
Highly successful all natural diet pills, money back guarantee.
Slimming and Weight Loss Supplement
The Extreme Transformation System provides a personalized diet, exercise, and supplementation plan based on various individual body types and desired goals. Start losing weight today.
Lab88 Slimming Diet Pills Success
Metabo-Speed XXX diet pill of the stars. Lose up to 20 lbs in 30 days. Powerful fat burner, appetite killer, metabolism booster. 30-Day multi-bottle guarantee. Get 1 free with 2 bottles.
Certified Pure Hoodia
Desert burn 750mg South African diet pills. Curb hunger naturally. Watch 60 minutes clip plus hoodia news headlines and faq. Lose weight and feel great with pure hoodia diet pills.
Slimming Pills. com
Highly successful all natural diet pills, money back guarantee.
Slimming and Weight Loss Supplement
The Extreme Transformation System provides a personalized diet, exercise, and supplementation plan based on various individual body types and desired goals. Start losing weight today.
Lab88 Slimming Diet Pills Success
Metabo-Speed XXX diet pill of the stars. Lose up to 20 lbs in 30 days. Powerful fat burner, appetite killer, metabolism booster. 30-Day multi-bottle guarantee. Get 1 free with 2 bottles.
They all worked for me
(By the way as John as rightly discerns we can change the key words for the sponsored listing appearing at the bottom of the site. I felt that "diet" might be an appropriate one for the New Year given the tendency for us all to gain a little adipose tissue during the Christmas festivities!)
Did you hear the terrible news? The Coca-Cola Company are threatening to withdraw their vending machines from UK schools:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4771676.stm
It rather puts the spotlight on the sponsorship schools receive for allowing unhealthy drinks and snacks to be purveyed on their premises, doesn't it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4771676.stm
It rather puts the spotlight on the sponsorship schools receive for allowing unhealthy drinks and snacks to be purveyed on their premises, doesn't it.
Article by John Carvel in today's Guardian.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/news/0,,1758947,00.html
More than a quarter of children in English secondary schools are clinically obese, almost double the proportion a decade ago, and an official survey released yesterday also showed that girls were suffering more than boys from a crisp and chocolate-fuelled life of too much eating and too little exercise.
Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said that the figures showed a "public health timebomb" in the making: children who were obese in their early teens were twice as likely to die by age 50, he said.
Researchers measured the height and weight of 11-15 year olds, and found 26.7% of girls and 24.2% of boys qualified as obese - nearly double the rate in 1995. Among children aged 2-10, 12.8% of girls and 15.9% of boys weighed above the obesity threshold - also well up on 10 years before.
The figures, based on 2,000 children, come from the National Health Survey for 2004, and have alarmed doctors as well as casting doubt on the government's ability to achieve its target to halt the rise in childhood obesity.
Amanda Eden, care adviser at Diabetes UK, said: "We will soon be seeing our children growing up losing limbs and becoming blind, as they develop the serious complications of having the condition. A firmer line needs to be taken to force the food industry to adhere to foodlabelling guidelines, so people know what's in the food they buy.
"They also need to ban junk food advertising to kids, and find more ways of encouraging people to exercise."
The increase in obesity accelerated sharply in 2004, especially among girls, the survey said. Figures for the 11-15 age group showed the proportion of obese girls grew from 15.4% in 1995 to 22.1% in 2003. But in 2004 it shot up to 26.7%.
Over the same period, the proportion of girls who were overweight, but not enough to qualify as obese, increased from 12.6% to 14.8%. In 2004 a total of 46% of girls and 30.5% of boys were either overweight or obese.
A report by the National Audit Office in February said that the government would fail to halt the rise in obesity without clearer leadership from the top.
The target of stopping the rise by 2010 had been set in 2004, but plans to change children's diet and exercise at school and home had hardly got off the starting blocks, it said.
Caroline Flint, the public health minister, said yesterday: "We have taken huge steps forward and are starting to change attitudes through the Five A Day campaign, the school fruit scheme, and more investment in school food and sport."
However, she added that the government recognised that it needed to do more to meet the target.
Prof Waine said that the latest obesity figures were disturbing. "This is serious news, because obesity in adolescence is associated with the premature onset of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
"It really augurs very badly for the future health of the population as these children move from adolescence to adulthood. We are in danger of raising a generation of people who have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."
He said that increased inactivity among children, such as not walking or cycling to school, coupled with more "energy dense foods" was fuelling the crisis. "Being obese at adolescence increases the cancer risk by 21% for girls and 14% for boys.
"In my youth, playing cricket and tennis were the norm. These have now been replaced by watching television and playing video games."
The survey also found that the obesity rate among adults had risen to 24%, in spite of people exercising more and eating more fruit and vegetables.
The proportion of men eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day increased from 22% in 2001 to 24% in 2004, while the figure for women went up from 25% to 27%.
However, more men gave up smoking than women, and in 2004 there were for the first time more women smokers (23%) than there were men (22%).
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: "In the last decade, British children have got fatter faster than anywhere else in western Europe. We are at risk of an epidemic of vascular diseases as a result. We need active and competent, cross-governmental measures, and we need them now."
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/news/0,,1758947,00.html
More than a quarter of children in English secondary schools are clinically obese, almost double the proportion a decade ago, and an official survey released yesterday also showed that girls were suffering more than boys from a crisp and chocolate-fuelled life of too much eating and too little exercise.
Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said that the figures showed a "public health timebomb" in the making: children who were obese in their early teens were twice as likely to die by age 50, he said.
Researchers measured the height and weight of 11-15 year olds, and found 26.7% of girls and 24.2% of boys qualified as obese - nearly double the rate in 1995. Among children aged 2-10, 12.8% of girls and 15.9% of boys weighed above the obesity threshold - also well up on 10 years before.
The figures, based on 2,000 children, come from the National Health Survey for 2004, and have alarmed doctors as well as casting doubt on the government's ability to achieve its target to halt the rise in childhood obesity.
Amanda Eden, care adviser at Diabetes UK, said: "We will soon be seeing our children growing up losing limbs and becoming blind, as they develop the serious complications of having the condition. A firmer line needs to be taken to force the food industry to adhere to foodlabelling guidelines, so people know what's in the food they buy.
"They also need to ban junk food advertising to kids, and find more ways of encouraging people to exercise."
The increase in obesity accelerated sharply in 2004, especially among girls, the survey said. Figures for the 11-15 age group showed the proportion of obese girls grew from 15.4% in 1995 to 22.1% in 2003. But in 2004 it shot up to 26.7%.
Over the same period, the proportion of girls who were overweight, but not enough to qualify as obese, increased from 12.6% to 14.8%. In 2004 a total of 46% of girls and 30.5% of boys were either overweight or obese.
A report by the National Audit Office in February said that the government would fail to halt the rise in obesity without clearer leadership from the top.
The target of stopping the rise by 2010 had been set in 2004, but plans to change children's diet and exercise at school and home had hardly got off the starting blocks, it said.
Caroline Flint, the public health minister, said yesterday: "We have taken huge steps forward and are starting to change attitudes through the Five A Day campaign, the school fruit scheme, and more investment in school food and sport."
However, she added that the government recognised that it needed to do more to meet the target.
Prof Waine said that the latest obesity figures were disturbing. "This is serious news, because obesity in adolescence is associated with the premature onset of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
"It really augurs very badly for the future health of the population as these children move from adolescence to adulthood. We are in danger of raising a generation of people who have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."
He said that increased inactivity among children, such as not walking or cycling to school, coupled with more "energy dense foods" was fuelling the crisis. "Being obese at adolescence increases the cancer risk by 21% for girls and 14% for boys.
"In my youth, playing cricket and tennis were the norm. These have now been replaced by watching television and playing video games."
The survey also found that the obesity rate among adults had risen to 24%, in spite of people exercising more and eating more fruit and vegetables.
The proportion of men eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day increased from 22% in 2001 to 24% in 2004, while the figure for women went up from 25% to 27%.
However, more men gave up smoking than women, and in 2004 there were for the first time more women smokers (23%) than there were men (22%).
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: "In the last decade, British children have got fatter faster than anywhere else in western Europe. We are at risk of an epidemic of vascular diseases as a result. We need active and competent, cross-governmental measures, and we need them now."
In a recent article in the Guardian, Alex Renton investigated the subject of trans fats. Here is a brief extract from the article:
The brick of vegetable fat is tacky to the touch, grey-white and translucent - like the skin on a corpse, I think, but this is unscientific. We are here to test the semi-solid vegetable fat Cookeen against butter and we must be objective. But the butter looks so much prettier on the baker's rolling board: its genteel yellow makes you think of primroses and little-girls' dresses, not of morgues.
Drew Massey, the baker, makes his mind up pretty quickly. "It just doesn't feel right," he says, as he rubs the vegetable fat into the flour and baking powder. "It's really tough." But he smiles when he turns to do the same with the butter. "That's better." When the eggs and milk are mixed in and both lumps of dough are lying like deflated footballs on the board, ready for cutting into scones, Massey tries to articulate the feeling. "I haven't got the words - it's 30 years of doing it that tells you. This one is ropey, tough. It's not going to be a nice product. But this is nice - it's short. There's no pull on it."
Pull is bad and short is good if you are a scone-baker: the scone will have a crumbly texture because the butter has properly coated the gluten molecules, preventing it from making the chains that will result in "pull" - the elasticity you want in bread but not scones. The hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) of the Cookeen, by contrast, seems to have penetrated the gluten.
While the two sets of scones bake, Massey reveals his philosophy of ingredients: "I do what my dad did and he did what his dad did."
Massey's father, Ivan, was a traditional master-baker with a chain of shops around Lincoln. He held out against the rise in the 60s of the mega-bakeries, which exploited the new technologies. "He just didn't do any of the new things - no vacuum-processors for the bread, no instant yeasts, no industrial fats - he just didn't see that he was going to bake better."
With these principles as their business plan, Drew and his two partners opened the Manna House in Edinburgh just over a year ago on Easter Road, not the smartest street in central Edinburgh. But despite the presence of a chain-store baker, Gregg's, and a Co-op half a minute's walk down the road, there are queues every morning outside Manna House for rye loaves, bloomers, sourdough and pains au chocolat.
Curiously, when the scones emerge from the oven after 15 minutes the vegetable fat one is a clear winner on looks. It's gold and brown on top, with that classic toppled look, aching to be filled with cream and strawberry jam. Massey starts looking nervous for his butter scones, which are rather squat. But when it comes to the taste test there is no contest. The butter scone melts on the tongue. It crumbles. It's sweet and nutty. The Cookeen scone is sort of rubbery when broken and the taste is metallic, a tap- water flavour: if I hadn't watched the process I would swear it was made with different flour. The Cookeen scone has hydrogenated vegetable oil in it. The Food Standards Agency describes what hydrogenation means: "Hydrogenation is one of the processes that can be used to turn liquid oil into solid fat ... During the process of hydrogenation, trans fats may be formed. This means that foods that contain hydrogenated vegetable oil (always declared in the ingredients list) may also contain trans fats."
When Massey's father was baking in the 50s with eggs and milk, Canadian flour and butter, his colleagues were modernising. That meant using chemical bread-improvers, preservatives such as ascorbic acid, powdered eggs - "My dad hated those" - and, of course, the new hydrogenated fats. These were the result of a simple process perfected at the end of the 19th century. By attaching hydrogen atoms to oil molecules in the high-temperature process called hydrogenation you could raise the melting point of all sorts of previously useless oils - thus making them more stable and suitable for manufacturing everything from soap to axle grease.
In 1911 Procter & Gamble, then a soap and candle-maker, spotted how hydrogenation could be applied to food oils. It made a vegetable fat, Crisco, from cottonseed oil, using unwanted seeds from cotton mills. Tinned Crisco was an immediate hit in US households, cheaper than the lard it replaced and with a life of two years at room temperature before it went off. A replacement for butter followed: the oils for margarine precisely hydrogenated to remain solid at room temperature but giving the sensation of melting in the mouth.
The hydrogenated fats usefully mimicked the properties of pork and beef fats so they went into halal, kosher and vegetarian foods. By the 60s, 60% of American vegetable oils used in food were partly hydrogenated, and some research declared the trans fats actively healthy. In the baking business, the oils were crucial for the new fast-mixing and proving techniques, that needed oils that kept their solidity at widely different temperatures. The fact that these fats didn't go off, like butter or lard, gave bread and pastries a longer shelf life. They also had higher flashpoints, making them safer for frying. And best of all was that the hydrogenated oils - whether they first came from whales or palm trees, soya beans or rapeseed - were fabulously cheap.
Before, the process of baking was designed around the ingredients: now the ingredients were altered for the process. As with so many additives, once the food industry had found the cheapest method (and catering fats based on hydrogenated oil are about 12% the price of butter) it set about justifying it in other ways. Always ready with a euphemism, the industry sold HVOs as "vegetable fats" or "shortening", which certainly sounded nicer than animal fats. And it worked. British home cooks turned from lard and butter to margarine and vegetable fat.
To ascertain what an ordinary consumer might be told about this, I rang the Liverpool helpline of Princes Foods, Cookeen's manufacturers, and asked if I should be worried about the hydrogenated vegetable oil listed on the back of the wrapper. "It's been used for years and we haven't had any problems with it whatsoever," said a friendly woman on the customer-care line. "It's not a health issue."
But, I said, I had read about coronary disease. "Oh, it's just had some adverse publicity. There's been some newspapers talking about heart problems. But it's been used since the early part of this century."
Despite what the helpline said, Cookeen has announced that it will be "reformulating" in the autumn to remove trans fats.
Trans fats, or trans-fatty acids, are the more popular name for HVOs (which, confusingly, are more correctly PHVOs, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils). They have been the food scare of this summer. TF or TFAs are - a quick Google will tell you - the "killer fat", the "Franken-fat that will not die", "more deadly than saturated fats", "furring up our bodies like old kettles". Look a bit further and you can find trans fats "linked" - that dangerous health campaigner's verb - to disorders from Alzheimer's to autism. "Over the years there has been some very good research on TFAs," says Tom Sanders, professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College, London. "And there has been some ridiculous crap written about them."
But it seems generally agreed that trans fats, like saturated fats, can raise cholesterol levels, put "plaque" on our artery walls and thus in some cases bring about heart attacks. Our bodies find the hydrogen-altered oils hard to break down - in a standard campaigner's formulation: "Would you melt Tupperware and put it on your toast?" Or as the Food Standards Agency puts it, in less loaded language: "The trans fats found in food containing hydrogenated vegetable oil are harmful and have no known nutritional benefits. They raise the type of cholesterol in the blood that increases the risk of coronary heart disease. Some evidence suggests that the effects of these trans fats may be worse than saturated fats."
Alex Richardson is senior research fellow at Oxford University's department of physiology, and director of the campaigning charity Food and Behaviour Research. She believes that Britain should follow Denmark, which has had legislation since 2003 limiting the amount of trans fats in food. "There's nothing to say in trans fats' defence," she says. "They appear to be more dangerous than saturated fats, they have no nutritional value, they are an artificial, toxic fat that we don't need. I don't see just why we can't have them out of the food supply. We have a major public-health problem here with diabetes and heart disease, and losing one contributory fat is a step towards the solution."
The novelty of trans fats in Britain, as opposed to the US, is that they are virtually invisible, lurking on most food labels only in the gap between the number given for "total fats" and the sum of poly-unsaturated, mono-unsaturated and saturated fats listed. If they are listed. Thus, unless you shop with a calculator and a magnifying glass, you are consuming unknowable quantities of trans fats in "healthy" butter substitutes, pastries, cakes, breakfast cereals, snack bars, pizzas, doughnuts, processed cream and ice cream, prepared food designed for vegetarians and, most significantly, deep-fried food.
There is more. Trans fat-laden pastries are abnormally stable - there is a campaigning nutritionist in Chicago who goes on television with a 22-year-old cupcake that still looks as fresh as the day it was baked. And - get this - the invention of the hydrogenation of oil was the trigger for the mechanised slaughter of whales during the 20th century. Whale oil, stabilised by the hydrogenation process, became the most valuable part of the animal. It provided up to 40% of margarines such as Stork and Echo whose taste spoiled so many childhood sandwiches in the 50s and 60s. And so campaigners such as Oliver Tickell, who runs the British anti-trans fat campaign, TFX, now maintain that butter may be healthier for you than trans-fatty margarine.
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/food/sto...1881919,00.html
The brick of vegetable fat is tacky to the touch, grey-white and translucent - like the skin on a corpse, I think, but this is unscientific. We are here to test the semi-solid vegetable fat Cookeen against butter and we must be objective. But the butter looks so much prettier on the baker's rolling board: its genteel yellow makes you think of primroses and little-girls' dresses, not of morgues.
Drew Massey, the baker, makes his mind up pretty quickly. "It just doesn't feel right," he says, as he rubs the vegetable fat into the flour and baking powder. "It's really tough." But he smiles when he turns to do the same with the butter. "That's better." When the eggs and milk are mixed in and both lumps of dough are lying like deflated footballs on the board, ready for cutting into scones, Massey tries to articulate the feeling. "I haven't got the words - it's 30 years of doing it that tells you. This one is ropey, tough. It's not going to be a nice product. But this is nice - it's short. There's no pull on it."
Pull is bad and short is good if you are a scone-baker: the scone will have a crumbly texture because the butter has properly coated the gluten molecules, preventing it from making the chains that will result in "pull" - the elasticity you want in bread but not scones. The hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) of the Cookeen, by contrast, seems to have penetrated the gluten.
While the two sets of scones bake, Massey reveals his philosophy of ingredients: "I do what my dad did and he did what his dad did."
Massey's father, Ivan, was a traditional master-baker with a chain of shops around Lincoln. He held out against the rise in the 60s of the mega-bakeries, which exploited the new technologies. "He just didn't do any of the new things - no vacuum-processors for the bread, no instant yeasts, no industrial fats - he just didn't see that he was going to bake better."
With these principles as their business plan, Drew and his two partners opened the Manna House in Edinburgh just over a year ago on Easter Road, not the smartest street in central Edinburgh. But despite the presence of a chain-store baker, Gregg's, and a Co-op half a minute's walk down the road, there are queues every morning outside Manna House for rye loaves, bloomers, sourdough and pains au chocolat.
Curiously, when the scones emerge from the oven after 15 minutes the vegetable fat one is a clear winner on looks. It's gold and brown on top, with that classic toppled look, aching to be filled with cream and strawberry jam. Massey starts looking nervous for his butter scones, which are rather squat. But when it comes to the taste test there is no contest. The butter scone melts on the tongue. It crumbles. It's sweet and nutty. The Cookeen scone is sort of rubbery when broken and the taste is metallic, a tap- water flavour: if I hadn't watched the process I would swear it was made with different flour. The Cookeen scone has hydrogenated vegetable oil in it. The Food Standards Agency describes what hydrogenation means: "Hydrogenation is one of the processes that can be used to turn liquid oil into solid fat ... During the process of hydrogenation, trans fats may be formed. This means that foods that contain hydrogenated vegetable oil (always declared in the ingredients list) may also contain trans fats."
When Massey's father was baking in the 50s with eggs and milk, Canadian flour and butter, his colleagues were modernising. That meant using chemical bread-improvers, preservatives such as ascorbic acid, powdered eggs - "My dad hated those" - and, of course, the new hydrogenated fats. These were the result of a simple process perfected at the end of the 19th century. By attaching hydrogen atoms to oil molecules in the high-temperature process called hydrogenation you could raise the melting point of all sorts of previously useless oils - thus making them more stable and suitable for manufacturing everything from soap to axle grease.
In 1911 Procter & Gamble, then a soap and candle-maker, spotted how hydrogenation could be applied to food oils. It made a vegetable fat, Crisco, from cottonseed oil, using unwanted seeds from cotton mills. Tinned Crisco was an immediate hit in US households, cheaper than the lard it replaced and with a life of two years at room temperature before it went off. A replacement for butter followed: the oils for margarine precisely hydrogenated to remain solid at room temperature but giving the sensation of melting in the mouth.
The hydrogenated fats usefully mimicked the properties of pork and beef fats so they went into halal, kosher and vegetarian foods. By the 60s, 60% of American vegetable oils used in food were partly hydrogenated, and some research declared the trans fats actively healthy. In the baking business, the oils were crucial for the new fast-mixing and proving techniques, that needed oils that kept their solidity at widely different temperatures. The fact that these fats didn't go off, like butter or lard, gave bread and pastries a longer shelf life. They also had higher flashpoints, making them safer for frying. And best of all was that the hydrogenated oils - whether they first came from whales or palm trees, soya beans or rapeseed - were fabulously cheap.
Before, the process of baking was designed around the ingredients: now the ingredients were altered for the process. As with so many additives, once the food industry had found the cheapest method (and catering fats based on hydrogenated oil are about 12% the price of butter) it set about justifying it in other ways. Always ready with a euphemism, the industry sold HVOs as "vegetable fats" or "shortening", which certainly sounded nicer than animal fats. And it worked. British home cooks turned from lard and butter to margarine and vegetable fat.
To ascertain what an ordinary consumer might be told about this, I rang the Liverpool helpline of Princes Foods, Cookeen's manufacturers, and asked if I should be worried about the hydrogenated vegetable oil listed on the back of the wrapper. "It's been used for years and we haven't had any problems with it whatsoever," said a friendly woman on the customer-care line. "It's not a health issue."
But, I said, I had read about coronary disease. "Oh, it's just had some adverse publicity. There's been some newspapers talking about heart problems. But it's been used since the early part of this century."
Despite what the helpline said, Cookeen has announced that it will be "reformulating" in the autumn to remove trans fats.
Trans fats, or trans-fatty acids, are the more popular name for HVOs (which, confusingly, are more correctly PHVOs, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils). They have been the food scare of this summer. TF or TFAs are - a quick Google will tell you - the "killer fat", the "Franken-fat that will not die", "more deadly than saturated fats", "furring up our bodies like old kettles". Look a bit further and you can find trans fats "linked" - that dangerous health campaigner's verb - to disorders from Alzheimer's to autism. "Over the years there has been some very good research on TFAs," says Tom Sanders, professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College, London. "And there has been some ridiculous crap written about them."
But it seems generally agreed that trans fats, like saturated fats, can raise cholesterol levels, put "plaque" on our artery walls and thus in some cases bring about heart attacks. Our bodies find the hydrogen-altered oils hard to break down - in a standard campaigner's formulation: "Would you melt Tupperware and put it on your toast?" Or as the Food Standards Agency puts it, in less loaded language: "The trans fats found in food containing hydrogenated vegetable oil are harmful and have no known nutritional benefits. They raise the type of cholesterol in the blood that increases the risk of coronary heart disease. Some evidence suggests that the effects of these trans fats may be worse than saturated fats."
Alex Richardson is senior research fellow at Oxford University's department of physiology, and director of the campaigning charity Food and Behaviour Research. She believes that Britain should follow Denmark, which has had legislation since 2003 limiting the amount of trans fats in food. "There's nothing to say in trans fats' defence," she says. "They appear to be more dangerous than saturated fats, they have no nutritional value, they are an artificial, toxic fat that we don't need. I don't see just why we can't have them out of the food supply. We have a major public-health problem here with diabetes and heart disease, and losing one contributory fat is a step towards the solution."
The novelty of trans fats in Britain, as opposed to the US, is that they are virtually invisible, lurking on most food labels only in the gap between the number given for "total fats" and the sum of poly-unsaturated, mono-unsaturated and saturated fats listed. If they are listed. Thus, unless you shop with a calculator and a magnifying glass, you are consuming unknowable quantities of trans fats in "healthy" butter substitutes, pastries, cakes, breakfast cereals, snack bars, pizzas, doughnuts, processed cream and ice cream, prepared food designed for vegetarians and, most significantly, deep-fried food.
There is more. Trans fat-laden pastries are abnormally stable - there is a campaigning nutritionist in Chicago who goes on television with a 22-year-old cupcake that still looks as fresh as the day it was baked. And - get this - the invention of the hydrogenation of oil was the trigger for the mechanised slaughter of whales during the 20th century. Whale oil, stabilised by the hydrogenation process, became the most valuable part of the animal. It provided up to 40% of margarines such as Stork and Echo whose taste spoiled so many childhood sandwiches in the 50s and 60s. And so campaigners such as Oliver Tickell, who runs the British anti-trans fat campaign, TFX, now maintain that butter may be healthier for you than trans-fatty margarine.
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/food/sto...1881919,00.html
There was a follow-up article in the Guardian by Prof Rod Bilton and Dr Larry Booth, of the School of Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University. They are also the authors of Get Healthy, Beat Disease:
Tuesday October 3, 2006
The Guardian
Alex Renton's article on trans fats was excellent, but further to his comments, we believe there is overwhelming evidence to support the case for banning plant derived trans fats from all foods (Grease is the word, September 27).
Trans fats can be considered cumulative poisons: they are only slowly broken down by the body and are difficult to excrete - this means they build up in our arteries and cell membranes.
A recent scientific study demonstrates this with the finding that up to two-thirds of fat found in arterial plaques at autopsy in heart attack sufferers is trans fat. Trans fats are also particularly harmful to diabetics as they interfere with insulin receptors that are responsible for control of blood sugar. It has also been proven that consumption of trans fats increases the ratio of "bad" cholesterol in the blood, which is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity. A worrying quality of trans fats is that their dangerous health effects take time to develop and are hard to detect until a disease condition arises - and we've all been eating these fats every day for years!
An extensive literature review for our book Get Healthy, Beat Disease, revealed some highly alarming misconceptions regarding the consumption of saturated fat.
Contrary to popular opinion, total blood cholesterol is no longer considered an accurate indicator of heart disease risk. The Framingham heart study, conducted over 50 years, was unable to establish a link between total blood cholesterol and heart disease. In fact, 40% of patients suffering heart attacks have "low" total blood cholesterol.
It is becoming apparent that the ratio of "good" cholesterol to "bad cholesterol" in the blood gives a far better indication of heart disease risk. And eating natural saturated fats, as part of a calorie-controlled diet and exercising regularly, can actually improve your good blood cholesterol.
Better still, a far more accurate indication of heart disease risk can be achieved by measuring Lipo protein A, homocysteine and C reactive protein levels in the blood. The Framingham study also revealed that Lipo protein A was the component of "bad" cholesterol which sticks to the artery walls.
Total blood cholesterol receives massive publicity and has become almost a national obsession. We have reached a stage where some physicians are recommending statin therapy for healthy middle-aged subjects. This is an extremely questionable alternative to healthy diet and exercise: some statins have very toxic side effects and have been withdrawn from the market; and other anecdotal evidence from statin users indicates a rapid loss of energy and disinclination to exercise.
Junk food is unhealthy, in fact, because of the high levels of sugar, refined carbohydrate and trans fat it contains. Sugar and refined carbohydrate have been found to raise blood cholesterol, particularly "bad" cholesterol, and trans fats have been seen to do the same. Eating this kind of rubbish and not exercising will really increase your chances of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1885983,00.html
Tuesday October 3, 2006
The Guardian
Alex Renton's article on trans fats was excellent, but further to his comments, we believe there is overwhelming evidence to support the case for banning plant derived trans fats from all foods (Grease is the word, September 27).
Trans fats can be considered cumulative poisons: they are only slowly broken down by the body and are difficult to excrete - this means they build up in our arteries and cell membranes.
A recent scientific study demonstrates this with the finding that up to two-thirds of fat found in arterial plaques at autopsy in heart attack sufferers is trans fat. Trans fats are also particularly harmful to diabetics as they interfere with insulin receptors that are responsible for control of blood sugar. It has also been proven that consumption of trans fats increases the ratio of "bad" cholesterol in the blood, which is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity. A worrying quality of trans fats is that their dangerous health effects take time to develop and are hard to detect until a disease condition arises - and we've all been eating these fats every day for years!
An extensive literature review for our book Get Healthy, Beat Disease, revealed some highly alarming misconceptions regarding the consumption of saturated fat.
Contrary to popular opinion, total blood cholesterol is no longer considered an accurate indicator of heart disease risk. The Framingham heart study, conducted over 50 years, was unable to establish a link between total blood cholesterol and heart disease. In fact, 40% of patients suffering heart attacks have "low" total blood cholesterol.
It is becoming apparent that the ratio of "good" cholesterol to "bad cholesterol" in the blood gives a far better indication of heart disease risk. And eating natural saturated fats, as part of a calorie-controlled diet and exercising regularly, can actually improve your good blood cholesterol.
Better still, a far more accurate indication of heart disease risk can be achieved by measuring Lipo protein A, homocysteine and C reactive protein levels in the blood. The Framingham study also revealed that Lipo protein A was the component of "bad" cholesterol which sticks to the artery walls.
Total blood cholesterol receives massive publicity and has become almost a national obsession. We have reached a stage where some physicians are recommending statin therapy for healthy middle-aged subjects. This is an extremely questionable alternative to healthy diet and exercise: some statins have very toxic side effects and have been withdrawn from the market; and other anecdotal evidence from statin users indicates a rapid loss of energy and disinclination to exercise.
Junk food is unhealthy, in fact, because of the high levels of sugar, refined carbohydrate and trans fat it contains. Sugar and refined carbohydrate have been found to raise blood cholesterol, particularly "bad" cholesterol, and trans fats have been seen to do the same. Eating this kind of rubbish and not exercising will really increase your chances of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1885983,00.html
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.