The recent announcement by the makers of Dolmio and Uncle Ben’s, advising consumers that their sauces should only be consumed once a week, struck me on two levels. Firstly, as the manufacturer was not required to make this declaration, I wondered what could have motivated it to take such a unilateral step. Ever the cynic, I believe this move was less about serving the interests of consumers and more about […]
Last month a rather bizarre court case commenced and ended abruptly in Los Angeles, USA. On one side was the refined sugar industry, represented by a group of major sugar refining companies. On the other was a consortium of manufacturers of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), including global giants Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland. The lawsuit brought by the sugar manufacturers claimed that the HFCS manufacturers were guilty of “false […]
Three weeks ago the charity Diabetes UK warned that diabetes “threatens to bring down the National Health Service” unless we tackle the obesity crisis through better food regulation. This warning echoed a similar prediction by the Chief Executive of the NHS, Simon Stevens, who in May this year called for sugar to be taken out of food and fizzy drinks to help tackle the obesity epidemic. He went on to […]
At the start of 2015 I made a decision to remove processed (“refined”) sugar from my diet. This was not as straight forward a proposition as you might think because there is a huge range of foods that include processed sugar. As a further consequence of my decision none of the recipes I have posted this year have included processed sugar. Where sweetness has been needed I have used just […]
Tomorrow marks the start of National Vegetarian Week, and this year the theme is “sharing”. If you normally eat meat, why not use the opportunity to try going a week without it? If you make the effort to look up and cook some decent vegetarian meals during the coming days you may be pleasantly surprised by the rich variety of flavours and textures which vegetarian cuisine can offer. Ethical considerations […]
We live in a world where choosing to eat healthily is becoming more and more of a challenge. Everywhere, it seems, we are surrounded by cheap, processed and unhealthy foods, many of which are causing our bodies harm – it is diet that is the principle cause of conditions such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Treating type 2 diabetes already costs the UK’s NHS a massive £9 billion per […]
For many decades, cigarette manufacturers refused to accept a growing body of scientific evidence which suggested a clear association between their products and diseases such as cancer. With the benefit of hindsight, it now seems extraordinary that anyone should have ever regarded smoking as anything other than an unwise and unhealthy activity. Ultimately, though, it was through decisive governmental action – restrictions on sales, enforced labelling, high taxation, restricted advertising, […]
For decades official nutritional guidelines have warned us that saturated fats cause heart disease. This guidance was based upon the findings of a single, biased research project carried out in the 1950s, but it has taken the best part of sixty years to overturn those findings. Earlier this year Cambridge University became the latest respected institution to publish research which concluded that saturated fats are not, and never have been, […]
There’s a common misconception that “healthy” foods are more expensive than other foods. That perception is encouraged by the fact that manufacturers of unhealthy foods receive billions in taxpayer subsidies each year whilst producers of healthy foods do not. This is how the market is distorted in favour of the multinational food producers, and why highly processed, unhealthy food often seems the cheaper option compared to freshly picked, unprocessed food. […]
In a relatively short period of time high fructose corn syrup has replaced natural sugar as a sweetener right across the food industry. It is now widely used in products such as cereals, breads, cakes, crackers, soft drinks, soups, yoghurts, baked beans, ice creams, ketchups and salad dressings. In fact, so pervasive is this product that it might be just as easy to list those commercial food products that don’t […]