As a child, I thought “go to work on an egg” was an advert for oval shaped cars. Starting soon after the end of World War II, “Go to Work on an Egg” was a long-running campaign that became one of the most successful food promotions of all time. Humorous television (see below) and newspaper ads encouraged the British public to eat an egg at breakfast and, by the 1960s, we were each dipping, scrambling and frying our way through five a week. Back then, every doctor in the land said eggs were good for health but come the 1970s our love affair with them started to crack. Medics warned that eggs could raise cholesterol levels and when Conservative MP Edwina Currie suggested that all British eggs might be infected with Salmonella in 1988, egg sales went splat – dropping by 60% overnight. Read more
Tag: nutrition
Jamie Oliver is right about sugar tax – but he’s still a hypocrite
Jamie Oliver has been stirring the pot again and getting all het up. In the run-up to a recent Channel 4 documentary Jamie’s Sugar Rush, the outspoken TV chef launched a campaign against sugary drinks and the ‘hidden’ sugars in our food. He said that a ban on sugary food ads before 9pm, rules to prevent the sale of overly-sweetened processed foods, and a 20p per litre ‘sugar tax’ on soft drinks would make us all healthier and happier.
Those of you who listened to Mr Oliver’s rantings will know that sugar is making us fatter, is putting us at increased risk of diabetes, and is costing the NHS £30 million a year in pulling out kid’s sugar-rotten teeth. His claims leave a bitter taste in the mouth but he is mostly right (with the exception of the slightly exaggerated dental health claim). Science has repeatedly shown us that eating too much sugar will ultimately cause a raft of health problems. Most of us are eat far too much of the stuff and kids are the ones most at risk. Read more
It’s official: you’re only as old as you feel (and look)
“You are only as old as you feel,” or so the saying goes. This adage is great for cheering yourself up when the grey hairs start to take root, but science has recently revealed that the time-honoured expression is alive and kicking – the younger you feel, the younger you actually are.
Ground-breaking new research has shown what happens when you follow the lives of 1,000 twenty-somethings over a period of ten years. A team of American and New Zealand scientists monitored each volunteer’s ‘biological of age’ over this period, measuring their ‘true age’ through tests for cholesterol, heart and lung health, immune system function and DNA damage (among other things). Incredibly, they found that each person’s body aged at a different rate. Read more
Why drinking milk is good for us (and our farmers)
Milk prices are sinking fast and UK dairy farmers are fighting to stay afloat. The ‘milk trolley challenge’ and supermarket protests have helped raise the profile of their plight but our appetite for the white stuff has never been lower. Twenty years ago we drank three times as much whole milk as we do today; sunflower oil spreads have all but killed the butter market, and even sales of cheddar are starting to crumble.
For the past decade, nutrition ‘gurus’ have drip-fed us the idea that all dairy is bad for and milk-free diets are healthy. Science has shown us that milk may not be the elixir of life we thought it was fifty years ago, but it is packed with nutrients that can benefit us in all stages of life. In childhood, this is especially true. Very few foods contain as much calcium as milk does and research shows that kids who drink milk end up significantly taller than their schoolmates who don’t. Bones get stronger and thicker until early adulthood, thereafter they gradually weaken. A daily dose of milk in childhood helps to ensure a lifetime of strong bones and reduces the chances of developing osteoporosis (brittle bone disease) in old age. Read more
Ditch the ‘detox’: don’t let the diet myth cleanse your wallet
Lady Macbeth kept scrubbing but she couldn’t get the marks out. Shakespeare’s character was so wracked with guilt that imaginary blood stains appeared on her hands and, try as she may, she couldn’t get herself clean. It’s not just fiction: research shows that all of us have a powerful urge to wash, bathe, shower, or purge whenever we feel we may have wronged. In the 21st Century, however, we are more likely to feel guilty about a weekend of overindulgences than we are for religious transgressions; but instead of washing our hands we go for a dietary ‘detox’ – the modern day body cleansing craze. In fact, detoxing has now become so widely believed that it is difficult to convince most people that it is utter hocus-pocus – even though the British Dietetic Association, NHS and British Nutrition Foundation all agree that it is just marketing mythology. Read more
A chocolate a day (may possibly) keep the doctor away
The Easter eggs don’t last long in our house. It wouldn’t have always been that way though: as I child, I would diligently squirrel away Easter chocolate, treating myself only on special occasions. I now have no such willpower and, by the looks of it, neither do the rest of you. A recent survey has shown that 43% of us hide chocolate wrappers to conceal how much we eat while 37% of Britons tell outright lies to our spouses about the amount they scoff. Presumably the world’s chocoholic scientists also share our guilt because over the years, chocolate has been one of the most intensively researched foodstuffs in nutritional science. Thousands upon thousands of research papers have searched for health-giving virtues in our favourite indulgence – over 1,600 studies look at cocoa’s effect on the heart alone. The prospect that excusing our chocolate addiction just seems too tantalising to resist. Read more
What’s inside that energy drink? Sugar, acid, caffeine + ‘fairy dust’
It is 7 a.m. and I am investigating the world’s most popular mind-altering drug. Having scrutinised the latest data, it’s time for a hands-on experiment. The substance in question is a potent white powder called 1.3 7- trimethylxanthine. Its use has reached endemic levels in children – and health care professionals are concerned. You will know this drug as caffeine. And the formulation under scrutiny is called an ‘energy drink’.
Ever since highly caffeinated energy drinks charged onto the scene twenty years ago, they have been branded “dangerous” and “harmful” by the media. Today, one in ten British teenagers drink an energy drink on most days, and a frightening 25% of children under ten have drunk one in the past year. I’ve decided to discover out what’s really inside them – and find out what they taste like. Read more
‘Breastfeeding is best’ unless you’ve been drinking alcohol
Being a medically trained doctor, I have learnt to always be on my guard. Not only for those inflight medical emergencies (of which I have experienced) and people collapsing in the street, but for the less urgent “will you have a look at my rash?” questions posed by neighbours. Even at parties I must be ready to give impromptu answers to medical questions.
And so it was at one jovial celebration that a good friend, glass of red wine in hand, asked me: “When I drink alcohol, does it get stored in my breast milk?” (She had recently given birth.) It was a time of celebration and she had finally managed to get her baby tucked up in his cot. It was certainly not the time for me to be a party-pooper. Sometimes, however, people say they wish they had never asked… Read more
Why “7 a Day” is the new “5 a Day”
You probably saw the news last week that you should “Forget five a day: You need SEVEN portions a day for a long life”. Yes you read that correctly, research now tells us that should eat seven – or possibly even ten – portions of fruit and veg every day to help keep disease at bay. I’m guessing the prospect of getting that much leafy stuff every day leaves you a little green about the gills. And if not, then I dare say you are getting a little irate about yet another example of joyless ‘experts’ telling us to “eat this” and “don’t eat that”. Don’t they realise how hard it is to get the family eating more carrots and peas as it is? But I’ll let you in on a little secret… most doctors weren’t in the least bit surprised at the news. For we have long known that ‘5 a Day’ was never really enough to ward off the worst of disease. Read more
Isn’t it time that fad diets went out of fashion?
Channel 4’s Supersize vs Superskinny is back on the telly. The long-running health show, which challenges two ‘extreme eaters’ to swap diets for a week, used to be my TV-watching guilty pleasure. Previous series’ were known for the infamous ‘feeding tube’ – a huge Perspex cylinder into which a week’s worth of food is emptied. It was a startling and vulgar visual representation of how much (and how little) some people can eat. And while Supersize vs Superskinny has been widely criticised for trivialising serious eating issues, it nevertheless reveals just how topsy-turvy attitudes to food have become. We now live in a world of extremes – and extreme times call for extreme weight loss diets. Read more