WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Cathy]

That does sound to be a lot, its 615g a week, about 3 large blocks. I love my chocolate but I'd never get thru that much (I wonder who is eating the rest of my 'share' ).
I read recently that being addicted to chocolate and biscuits is as bad as being addicted to some drugs that are hard to give up.

[Marilyn]

I don't have a "sweet tooth" and despite being closely related to my chocolate loving sister ( ) , I rarely am tempted to eat the stuff.

[Cathy]

I still have some Minnie Wagon Wheels left, you enjoyed those the other day.... Fancy a coffee? Hehe

[Marilyn]

I was running on empty, Cazza, and did enjoy the sugar hit. Needing a sweet fix is not a regular thing for me.

[Stanley]

I like chocolate especially the high cocoa content dark chocolate but only occasionally indulge on the grounds that a varied diet is good for me. It doesn't half encourage strange dreams....

[Stanley]

I like chocolate especially the high cocoa content dark chocolate but only occasionally indulge on the grounds that a varied diet is good for me. It doesn't half encourage strange dreams....

[Tizer]

"A study led by researchers at McMaster University has found that trans fats are associated with greater risk of death and coronary heart disease, but saturated fats are not associated with an increased risk of death, heart disease, stroke, or Type 2 diabetes." LINK

A reprieve for saturated fats and another knock on the head for trans fats, although the researchers still suggest "replacing foods high in these fats, such as high-fat or processed meats and donuts, with vegetable oils, nuts, and whole grains". Canadian research published in the British Medical Journal.

[Stanley]

There will eventually be a study showing that smoking good tobacco in a pipe has beneficial effects..... especially when compared with cigarettes... You heard it here first!

[Wendyf]

Pipe smoking was obviously beneficial to this chap.....LINK

[Tizer]

I'll bet he wasn't so calm when they told him to take off all his clothes!

[Stanley]

What else do you do if you have just driven into a lake and your tobacco and matches are still dry? A pipe is a wonderful aid to reflection and thought....

[Stanley]

Of late I have got into a habit of cooking meat the same way all the time, stewing and plenty of added ingredients. I'm very careful about adequate cooking times and normally have no problems. However, yesterday I was not as other men so I ditched the two shear I had just cooked and went on to very plain food and not much of it. Have decided that for a while I shall roast meat instead of stewing. I'm pretty sure that there was nothing wrong with the stew but am not talking any chances!

[Tizer]

In it's usual manner the Daily Express is telling us this morning in its front page headline that diabetes is about to become extinct after a discovery by scientists. The paper should be called the Daily Hype. The story is garbled but what it boils down to (no pun) is that wheat milled to a coarser particle size yields sugar more slowly on digestion than finely milled wheat. The Express has confused starch and fibre, making it sound like the effect is something to do with bran when it isn't. The real story is that in coarsely ground wheat the starch granules remain bound up within cells whose walls are composed of soluble dietary fibre - very different to the crude fibre in bran. The Express implies that the current outbreak of diabetes is due to the fine grinding of wheat flour but seems to forget that wheat has been ground in this way, in roller mills, since the late 1800s whereas the high incidence of Type 2 diabetes only began in the last 20 years. Coarsely ground wheat is not new, of course. The semolina used to make pasta is exactly that.

[Stanley]

I hadn't seen this report Tiz but it seems to be a classic example of chasing sales by sensationalism and not letting the facts get in the way. At it's root it is yet another example of how the public is bamboozled by industry in an effort to ally fears and get them to spend more.
The truth is of course that the rise of what we call the Western Diseases coincides neatly with the advent of the modern food processing industries and their outlets via advertising and the supermarkets. They are probably the biggest lobby group active at the moment and will promote anything that diverts attention away from uncomfortable facts like their business practices. One well-used ploy is to promote the quick and easy fix and the truth is that there isn't one. Look at the way statins have been hailed as a cure-all.
The bottom line is most likely to be that the most effective defence against these ailments is to ignore the hype and take the trouble to control our own lives, cooking and eating natural foods. Modern society is so obsessed with 'saving time' and pursuing increasingly frenetic lives that common sense measures like this are bad news. What 'the public' wants are quick fixes.... They see themselves as 'time poor' and the ready meal and take-away food become the obvious choice. They will pay dearly for this later in life.....

[Stanley]

See THIS for the latest news story about transfats. The research is quite clear but some 'nutritionists' are questioning the figures. I put nutritionists in inverted commas because being a cynical old git I can't believe that the food processors haven't got a finger in this debate somewhere. It is in their interests to avoid an outright ban because even though use of them has halved since 2001 they still contribute to profits as a help in extending shelf life. Time we stopped nit-picking about what sort of transfats are bad and simply banned them all as an ingredient in processed foods. Any that we still ingest via normal cooking of fatty foods are not going to be a major problem. The basic problem we face is still the same, the power of the food industries and supermarkets which is used to influence diet in the pursuit of profit. I include the 'just eat!' campaign which tries to persuade people to avoid cooking, pop out to the nearest fast food joint and buy all their food....

[Tizer]

Judging by what Tom Sanders says in the article I think the concern among some nutritionists about that report could be that it doesn't distinguish between natural and industrial trans fats. The natural trans have a different molecular structure and are harmless; if we tried to ban them too we would have to stop eating all dairy products and meat.

I have a friend in NZ who is an oils & fats expert and he sands me a copy of his newsletter written for the NZ Institute of Chemistry. Here are some interesting snippets from the latest issue.

1. Tom Sanders (mentioned above) says the replacement of fat with carbohydrates has been of nil or negative benefit and in fact healthy diets such as the Mediterranean style diet may contain up to 47% energy as fat (unsaturated oil). He believes that despite there being no direct correlation between total saturated fatty acid intake and heart disease, replacing saturated fat with unsaturated oils still results in a lowering of risk.

2. "Two researchers are urging the government to eliminate restrictions on total fat intake in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. "Modern evidence clearly shows that eating more foods rich in healthful fats like nuts, vegetable oils, and fish have protective effects ... while many low-fat foods, like low-fat deli meats, fat-free salad dressing, and baked potato chips, are no better and often even worse than full-fat alternatives. The paper, published in JAMA is written by the well respected Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian from the Friedman School of Nutritional Science & Policy at Tufts University and Dr. David Ludwig from the Boston Children's Hospital."

3. Consumers in Asia have noted the nutritional value of olive oil and are seeking it in their shops. This is resulting in a boom in exports of Australian olive oil to Asia. Australia and NZ are becoming regarded as more reliable suppliers of authentic olive oil than the traditional European sources. (A bit like the way it went with wine!). In some Asian countries, especially China, consumers don't trust their domestic supplies and prefer to have foods imported from USA, Europe, Australia, NZ.

[Stanley]

Interesting stuff Tiz..... I think that the root cause of most of the seemingly conflicting reports we get is because nobody has been able to nail down what I see as the single most likely cause of the explosion of 'Western Diseases'. It is no coincidence that it started with the rise of the supermarkets and food processors but they have the clout to continually defend their position. There is always risk and some natural foods are worse than others but if we eat a varied, natural diet we balance out most of the risks. This served us well for millennia but doesn't fit in with modern profit maximising concepts. I shall continue with my idiosyncratic diet on the grounds that it has served me well for eighty years..... I am not obese, am controlling my Type 2 well and feeling great! Let's hear it for fatty bacon!

[plaques]

Eating insects poses no special risks to humans.
A headline that I really don't wish to think about at breakfast time. Using food waste to feed insects and then turn them into edible protein begs the question as to why there is so much waste. The end product will probably be sold under a camouflaged name extolling the virtues of 'organic' protein. Link. Not for me thank you.

[Stanley]

And yet we happily use a food colouring made out of crushed insects. I've forgotten which one it was.....

[plaques]

I think you mean 'cochineal' a red dye. Now replaced by a synthetic colouring. Link.

[Stanley]

That's the one P! It had slipped me.... Another use for crushed insects was in making a food supplement 'Karswood's Poultry Spice' which you added to the hen grub. In those days it was common to give hens a warm mash of cereals and when you were mixing it with the spice it smelled wonderful. Here's an interesting LINK on poultry keeping that mentions the spice. The last time I saw it used was in the 1970s when Hargreaves Haworth at Blackburn used it to help persuade poorly cows to eat. He swore by it and knew what he was doing, I never saw him fail to bring a beast back to condition.
I never discount these old wife's tales, there is so much we don't know even now about the effects of micro-organisms and trace minerals on our bodies. That's why I always advocate as varied a diet as possible. Even the residual dirt on vegetables could be vital so if possible don't peel them, the boiling water will sterilize them.... If I remember rightly, most of the vitamin content is in the skins.....

[Tizer]

The WHO's report on processed meats and cancer is now available. There's a balanced view here from the BBC's health reporters: LINK

[Stanley]

"Processed meats do cause cancer". So does incense, barbecues, and traffic fumes.... I get so annoyed by reports like this which, whilst scientifically accurate, are only appreciated for what they are by people like us who have taken an intelligent interest in these things for many years. The vast majority of people who hear this will only take in the keywords 'bacon' and 'cancer' and immediately go into a decline. Worry increases the likelihood of cancer so perhaps headlines such as these should be declared carcinogens as well!
I shall have my bacon butty and bugger the odds....

[Tizer]

Through the lens of the news media....could it be that the news media have passed their sell by date and do more harm than good?

[Stanley]

We live in an imperfect world Peter, 'the media' will never be totally accurate or objective. The key is to educate the consumers so that they can assess the information in the light of their own experience. I was blind until I did a course at Open College on Study Techniques which was an eye-opener for me. I was asked later what the greatest benefit of it was and I said it was that I could no longer listen to a political speech without mentally doing a forensic analysis of the language and often bursting out laughing. I am struck so often by the clever use of language in advertisements which on the face of it, if you only absorb the keywords, promise you a benefit but on closer examination is hedged with qualifications... This applies to political speeches as well, they always leave an escape route... ( Well almost always.... Cameron must wish he had dropped smug and confident when he was asked that question about tax credits and lifting kids out of poverty.)
The biggest problem with preserved meats is the additives. What surprised me about that list was that they seem to have ignored all smoked products. My understanding is that in traditional smoking there are always small amounts of carcinogenic residues, that's what gives them the flavour! I shall not be giving up kippers and the most memorable butty I ever had was at Dordrecht from a stall where they were hot smoking the new season's eels from the Ijsselmeer. Nectar!