WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Stanley]

Not often I slip up with my cooking but yesterday was a bit of a disaster. I had the two shear and onions in the pressure cooker on the electric hob cooking slowly on a low light and when I opened it up at 9AM to de-bone the breast it had dried out and my onions were carbonised! Luckily the meat was on top so I could rescue it and pick the charred onion off. I rescued it, started again with chopped onions and the meat in bite sized chunks, added celery and cabbage at dinnertime and by teatime I had some food thick leafy stew. The pressure cooker is still soaking with water and Fairy Liquid in it.....

[Stanley]

I finally got the pressure cooker clean yesterday....
I overdosed on some lovely steamed cauliflower yesterday and was reminded of it this morning when I had a nose bleed. Almost certainly due to the shock of the cauli! It's a useful reminder of how what we eat affects our bodies.... Because of my Cod Liver Oil each day I am always on the verge of a slight nose bleed and there must have been enough Omega3 perhaps in the cauli to shove me over the edge....

[Stanley]

See THIS for a WHO report into obesity in Europe. It's a shocking indictment of our eating habits and paints a gloomy picture for the future. Very clear that it is all down to bad nutrition and lack of exercise, two things that on the face of it are so easy to put right and the benefits so enormous. Perhaps the human race is in self destruct mode.....

[Tizer]

It's certainly getting bad with obesity but I wouldn't trust the figures given for overweight. The latter are based on a BMI range of 25 to 29 and there are lots of people who we'd never define as overweight who have a BMI in that range. We've discussed this in detail before, BMI wasn't designed to judge overweight or obesity and it's a poor measure for that purpose. But those in the obese category are definitely in an unhealthy situation regarding longevity and diseases such as diabetes. For our ancestors, food was almost always scarce and that was the natural limiting factor on our calorie intake. Now, for much of the world population that limit has disappeared and we have to rely on our self-control to limit intake of calories - and that depends on parents teaching self-control to children. But parents who don't have self-control and are obese are unlikely to teach their children to eat less; in fact the evidence is that they are blind to their children's obesity.

[Tripps]

For those with a less than iron will - here's a bit of hope. . .

be overweight and live longer

[Marilyn]

Tizer, in response to overweight children, I have to express my thoughts that all kids grow differently and there is a fair bit of difference in the way some do. I noticed times in my son's childhood when he seemed tall and lean compared to his peers, and other times when he seemed to have halted growing up and was getting quite stocky ( which was always followed by a hefty growth spurt! ). So, sometimes I referred to him as " tin ribs" and sometimes I worried he may be taking in more calories than he needed, then a month later his long pants were two inches above his ankles. Fun times keeping up, as his feet grew at an incredible rate too. A lot of it is nothing to worry about, all normal. So I get a little annoyed when people don't look at the bigger picture...and "label" kids as overweight. He is a very slim man now, but there were times in his youth that he could eat me out of house and home.

[Stanley]

I always remember the doctor who told me that every young person ought to have a period in their early teens when they worked and ate like a horse as this encouraged bone mass and more marrow. He reckoned this was the best guarantee of health in later life. I've always been heavier than I look and could certainly eat in the days when I was working hard.
The thing that equally concerns me is the slight build of so many young people who have obviously never done hard physical work. I the days when we had to fight hard for our food everyone worked hard, to day, as Tiz says, it is too easy... That may, in the end, be just as dangerous as obesity.

[Tizer]

Marilyn, I understand what you're saying...I probably should have been more specific and said I was referring to very young children. Studies here are now showing that obese parents don't accept that their obese children are actually obese. Some of the parents eventually admit it and have then spoken out to warn others.

[plaques]

the slight build of so many young people

You must be joking. Down at the sports centre every one of the buggars is taller and bigger than I am. And I'm only an average 6ft 0" .

[Stanley]

Bad sample, look at the ones outside the sports centre....

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS. The finding emerged from studies conducted by Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London. My attention was drawn after I had logged off and was on my way into the shed when I heard Professor Spector asked a simple question by James Naughtie "Should we eat processed food?" His answer coincided with mine, a quick "No!". His argument is that we should eat as naturally as possible and as varied a diet as we can manage, He is dead against the modern trend of cutting foods out of our diet 'because they are bad for us'. By eating a varied natural diet we encourage the trillions of microbes in our gut to do their job properly, converting raw materials into the vitamins and micro-nutrients on which good health depends.
RIGHT ON1 How refreshing to hear such a straightforward and sensible argument based on evidence gained from good research. I wish him and his project success!

[plaques]

Cooking is basically chemistry. You add ingredients and then process them to give the desired flavour and texture. The cooking process will alter the nature of the ingredients either in a positive manner, to aid digestion kill of pathogens, or negatively by virtually destroying the beneficial properties of the food. A good chef will select the best quality foods and through experience cook them to a gourmet standard. One would think that by following the same process but applying some basic controls over the contents, timing, heating, cooling, standing etc: a perfect product could be achieved every time. I suppose in many instances this logic is correct and can produce a product equal to that of a casual baker. The problem with 'automation' is that the bottom line is price and profit. Cheaper ingredients can be made to taste to an acceptable standard and with further enhancements can be made to look the part. What is never disclosed is what is being lost through all this advanced chemistry and what long term harm is being inflicted on the consumer. My simple opinion has always been that the more mechanical processing goes into food the worse it will get. Its the old 'KISS principle' but applied to food.

[Stanley]

Exactly right P. The driver for the modern food processors is profit and there are two main routes to this, the cheapest ingredients and shelf life. This is the basis of the whole of the anti saturated fat movement and the use of cheaper and cheaper fats on the spurious grounds that they are 'good for us' this mantra being reinforced by dodgy 'scientific evidence' often financed by the industry. It is no accident that the advent of the Western Diseases and the obesity problem coincided with the rise of the food processors and the modern supermarkets. There are encouraging signs, such as this report, that good evidence based science is gaining ground in the argument but in the end the main weapon is going to be education of the consumer and this should start in the schools.

[Tizer]

Just released today by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) - the results of testing for Campylobacter food poisoning bacteria in 4000 samples of raw chicken on sale in all types of shop during the period February 2014 to February 2015. They show 73% of chickens tested positive for the presence of Campylobacter, as did 7% of the packaging. The data show variations between the retailers, but none has met the target for reducing levels of Campylobacter. In the UK 280,000 people become seriously ill from Campylobacter each year. LINK

Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Co-op and Waitrose have today published their own results of recently implemented campylobacter reduction plans. The tests were carried out on more recent samples than those in the FSA survey. The FSA says the data show significant decreases in the incidence of campylobacter on their raw whole chickens.

[Stanley]

But the bottom line is that as I understand it, the incidence of harmful bacteria and mass produced raw chicken meat can never be reduced to zero. However, am I right in saying that cooking thoroughly makes it perfectly safe? I seem to remember that the producers got into trouble for using a chlorine based wash to reduce infection.

[Tizer]

Birds and reptiles in general carry Salmonella in their gut, regardless of their health. Campylobacter in food began to be noticed around the 1970s/80s in the Far East and then later in the West - we don't know if it was always in birds. You will only have chicken free of bacteria if you dose them with antibiotic and that's not good for us or the birds. Yes, thorough cooking easily kills both these species of bacteria but the other danger comes from handling the chicken and the contaminated packaging. Most of the human infection will come from insufficient cooking and failure to wash hands after handling raw chicken and its packaging, whether this is in the home or in the kitchens of restaurants, pubs, canteens etc. I guess that modern husbandry, processing and packaging of chickens and chicken pieces causes transfer of bacteria from the gut to the rest of the carcass, which increases the chances of infection.

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Tiz.... that's how I understood it and I am always careful after handling raw meat. An old fashioned scalding of the chopping board is no bad thing and the occasional soak in hot bleach water does no harm either. I look back at the predilection of some for 'hanging' game, in my terms, allowing it to start to rot! They tell me that it was done because the connective tissue breaks down first and so hanging makes the meat more tender. . I suppose they cooked it well. I remember at the end of the war one of father's mates sent us a large turkey by parcel post and when it arrived it stank to high heaven. Father washed it thoroughly with vinegar and mother cooked it until it was dropping off the bone. Possibly the most tender and tasty turkey I ever had.
Modern fast cooking methods worry me. I suspect that many of these practices stem from the fact that commercial kitchens are always trying to cut down cooking times, why else should customers be persuaded it is fashionable to eat 'blue' steaks? My personal preference is for long slow and thorough cooking with enough acid (wine or vinegar) in the gravy to start to break down the structure until it is tender. You can cook shoe leather like that..... Freezing isn't always as safe as it is cracked up to be. I remember delivering block butter to commercial cold stores when there was a glut and I was told that whilst it stopped bacterial activity other processes still continued like oxidisation. For that reason it was only stored for about six months and then taken out and put back in the production chain.
By the way, another thing I learned was that many of the old cold stores were only held together by the accumulations of ice on the structure. I was told that if they were allowed to thaw out, many would be structurally unsafe!

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS for a description of the 'Scoville Index' which grades the hotness of peppers. I was triggered into looking at this by the news that a man who rejoices in the by named 'Iron Belly' because of his predilection for very hot pepper spiced foods is having a spell in hospital with a damaged stomach lining.
Now I'm all for spices but have always shied away from hot peppers as I have no tolerance to them. I remember once getting a blistered mouth in California after indulging in tortilla chips and a pepper sauce while waiting for a meal. I think it was made worse by the fact I had eaten an apple not long before and had a perfectly clean mouth. ( The reason why wine dealers always buy on apples and sell on cheese) So I don't understand what the attraction is for peppers so hot that I am sure they would make Tiz and me very poorly. 'Iron Belly' has, I'm afraid, a self-inflicted industry.

[Stanley]

Bad news in my opinion in a report this morning of explosive growth in the computer tech industry in London because one of the star performers is the 'Just Eat' website. This site moved from Denmark to London because of the huge UK appetite for takeaway food. Remember the first adverts? "Don't cook, just eat". Anathema to me and an indication of how the food industry is winning the fight to sell more and more substandard food to the public. I say substandard because, apart from the suspect source of some ingredients, anything that moves public taste away from home-cooked fresh food is, to me, a matter of regret.

[Tizer]

Another bad development is a report suggesting how food manufacturers can make rice `nutritionally better' by cooking it with water containing coconut oil then refrigerating it overnight. They found that this reduced the calorie contribution of the rice by 50%. The report speculates on how the oil might bring about this change but really it's nothing new - if they read up on their food science they'd realise that it's a well-known effect due to conversion of the starch to `resistant starch' (starch which cannot be broken down by the gut enzymes). It's probably more due to the heating followed by cooling and then reheating again than anything to do with coconut oil. I expect the only reason for throwing in coconut oil is that it's being heavily promoted by companies in the Far East with all sorts of magic unfounded claims for nutritional benefit. If we want to eat rice with less calories and more healthy then why not brown rice? Or even more simple - eat less rice with our meals! But that doesn't put money in the pockets of the rich business owners.

[Stanley]

I didn't know that about rice Tiz and it makes sense. The thing that puzzles me is that any loss in the calorific value of the rice will be at least partially replaced by the coconut oil which must contain calories. It's a nonsense and a good example of the 'healthy eating' advice used by interested parties which only has one goal, getting people to eat their products....
No wonder overall nutritional standards are being damaged!
In contrast I watched the late Mary Berry cooking the other day on a TV programme.... Now there was a woman who knew about good cooking, no gimmicks, just good food properly cooked and appreciated.... Never a mention of calories....
Also, ask yourself why the sudden surge of TV programmes about fried chicken and pizza joints?

[PanBiker]

In contrast I watched the late Mary Berry cooking the other day on a TV programme.... Now there was a woman who knew about good cooking, no gimmicks, just good food properly cooked and appreciated.... Never a mention of calories....

Mary Berry is still alive and well Stanley, she's 80 but still presenting baking programs on the TV Judging the various competitions that are on TV.

[Wendyf]

Stanley probably meant to say Marguerite Patten, who died a week or so ago. Predictive text strikes again!

[Stanley]

You're right Wendy, not predictive text but predictable rustiness in my memory banks!
See THIS for a BBC report on the ban on transfats in the US. The surprising thing is that some customers are objecting on the grounds that they don't want the government telling them what to eat! I can understand protests from food processors whose lives are made difficult but the damage that transfats can do is well known. High time we had a total ban in the UK.

[Tizer]

They've been frightened of banning trans fats because it will cause a rise in the intake of saturated fats. If people want to eat pastry, biscuits, cakes etc then they have to ingest either saturated fats or partially hydrogenated oils (PHO), both of which have the essential physical properties for making these products. While the health advisers still worry about saturates they'll be loath to reduce the use of PHO (which are the source of the trans fats). I think the US is taking a different view now after reading the scientific reports which will lead to the 2015 US Nutritional Recommendations - they appear to be going to admit that they were wrong about fats and saturates in the diet.