Category: Nutrition

What not to tell a child: “Clear your plate or there’s no dessert!”

How not to eat your spaghettiTonight’s meal will be steak with all the trimmings and I can’t wait. Nothing – bar a heard of wildebeest running through the dining room – will stop me from finishing it. For I know it will be delicious and that the meat was expensive. My mother has taught me well: ‘waste not, want not.’

Many of us believe it is important to eat everything on our plate. I have yet to find anyone who wasn’t told by their parents at some point to “Clear your plate – and think of all the starving children in ______” It’s the kind of parenting instruction that seems common-sense but it not taught everywhere; in several East Asian cultures, for example, it is far more courteous to leave some leftovers at the end of a meal. Our peculiar attitudes to plate-clearing are almost certainly a throwback to wartime health campaigns. In years of hardship through both World Wars, government posters would read “Leave a clean dinner plate: thousands are starving in Europe”. Oh, how times change: In 2015, one in four adults in the UK are obese (in the USA, it is one in three). Frighteningly, childhood obesity is also on the rise and today a third of all UK 10-11 year olds are overweight or obese.

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Love smoothies? “2.5 of your 5 A Day” claim ruled to be false by ASA

Love smootheis poster with dubious claimYou know that you really shouldn’t believe everything you read. Especially when it’s written on an advertisement. And if it’s a science or health claim on an advert, then you really know to be sceptical. Because, for as long as man has been trying to sell something, he has tried to get one over on his would-be customer. Science and health claims just happen to be an easy way to do it.

Things aren’t as bad as they used to be (just look at some of these medical ads of the 1890s!). For the road to marketing success is now littered with the empty packets of products that tried to dupe us – companies selling anti-ageing creams have been caught out airbrushing their models, car manufacturers have been discovered revved-up their vehicle specs, pro-biotic yoghurts have claimed health benefits that didn’t exist and even the biggest brands –as in the case of Reebok’s ‘butt toning’ training shoes – have been caught with their pants down embellishing the science. Read more

Pester Power! Sweets at the Checkout: Supermarkets ban them. Again.

Temptation by Bryan Costin on FlickrParents, there are times when I feel for you. I pity you especially when you are queuing at the supermarket. You have coaxed a seven year old up and down a dozen aisles; successfully negotiated a wonky trolley past other similarly wonky trollies, and then are forced to anxiously wait to part plastic for a carefully chosen pile of food and toilet rolls. Anxious – not because the car parking is about to run out – but because little Isabel is about to notice to sweets.

Too late – she’s spotted them… “…oh, but pleeeaaaasssee!?…” No, darling, for the fifteenth time, you can’t have a chocolate bunny. Why, oh why, does food shopping have to be like this? Read more

What’s inside that energy drink? Sugar, acid, caffeine + ‘fairy dust’

Monster Troupe by MJmerry, on FlickrIt 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

Why “7 a Day” is the new “5 a Day”

Oh-ah, Love Veggies! by Mark Magnusson, on FlickrYou 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

Dr Stu’s science of bisuit dunking

044 of 366 by Pam loves pie, on FlickrGo on, admit it: you love doing it. Every morning at 11 O’clock, tens of thousands of people prise open the biscuit tin to get ready to do some dunking. It’s a worldwide tea break curiosity that has existed to since the dawn of the sweet baked treat. In America, they do it with doughnuts, while South Africans like to use rusks.

In a tonight’s BBC4 documentary, Nigel Slater’s Great British Biscuit, I explain some of the science of biscuit dunking. Here, more of the mysteries of the dunk are unwrapped… Read more

Isn’t it time that fad diets went out of fashion?

Family Plates by Mountainbread, on FlickrChannel 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

A little less money could do us some good

Straw hat and.... a cigar... by Rene Bastiaanssen, on FlickIt can get depressing to reach Wednesday and the week’s food budget has already run out. It reminds me of college life. You young folk who are going to college, you’ve got it all to look forward to: independence, parties, lectures and beans on toast (not necessarily in that order). Let’s face it, with the exception of Benedictine monks, there aren’t many of us who like being short of cash.

But living less disposable income could do our heart a world of good. Recent research shows a link between a lighter wallet, a smaller belt, and a healthier body. You never know, austerity measures and increased taxes may have a silver lining after all… Read more

Coming soon to a high street near you… horse meat burgers?

The Hillbilly Grill II by David Robert Wright, on FlickrA Findus ‘100% beef’ lasagne made from 100% horsemeat now has a market value of over £50 ($75). A bargain.

The woes of the processed meat industry may continue unabated. The exposé of recent weeks has been staggering: horsemeat and pork in ‘beef’ burgers, Non-Halal meat in ‘Halal’ meals and, staggeringly, 100% beef lasagne without a trace of beef (reported to be selling on eBay at over £70). And yet, the humiliation of the big name food manufacturers spreads outside the UK, as Europe-wide testing finds the food industry with its pants down.
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What is really in your takeaway pizza?

Via Via IV by The Pizza Review, on FlickrIt’s a Saturday night. Perhaps you shouldn’t have had that last Babycham, but it’s been a hard week and you deserve it. Now, like a Siren luring you to the rocks, the takeout calls. Will it be the kebab van, the burger joint or pizza parlour?

Unlike tightly regulated franchises, most high street vendors don’t need to consider the healthiness of their portions. What we shovel in our gob on a night out is largely an unknown. A team of calorie committed researchers braved the streets to discover what REALLY is in our favourite celebratory cuisine. In this ‘what is really in your food’ series of blog posts, the first delicacy to be brought into the cold light of day is the pizza… (next time, burgers) Read more