WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Stanley]

Bumped

[EileenDavid]

I'm with you Stanley everything is about money no matter how they wrap it up. The packaging problem is even worse here but the bread only seems to have a shelf life of about 8 hours. They do a long life sliced loaf but it's sweet something to do with the preservative they use. When people come out to site they usually bring us a Warburton's toasty can't wait for the next influx we are getting low. Eileen

[Stanley]

Funny thing about bread keeping is that as soon as my loaves come out of the bread-maker I put them into a plastic bag to keep them soft. I use the same bags over and over again until they wear out and have never had any stale or mouldy bread. Mind you, the ducks benefit from shop bread that has gone off!
I know that I am so far out of step with modern foods that some could, quite rightly, see me as a dinosaur but I really do care about what I eat and try to keep as close to natural foods and home-cooking as possible. As a character said once in a TV programme "My body is a temple and I care about what goes in the front door"!

[Tizer]

The dinosaurs didn't become extinct through eating bad foods, but the human species might!

[Stanley]

One of the trends fostered by the food processors is ready made fillings for children's lunch boxes. Catch 'em young! What happened to jam butties and an apple? I remember my shock many years ago when I saw hard-boiled eggs for lunch boxes on sale in a US supermarket. A favourite from the US which has hit the UK market is the chocolate Oreo, Serving Size: 1 Cookie (34g) Calories: 160 Total Fat: 7g Carbs: 24g Protein: 1g. According to my calculations this is 20.6% fat and an enormous amount of sugar. If this is the sort of thing we feed our kids we deserve the consequences.

[Tizer]

New York City's mayor is getting concerned about the gigantic soft drinks being sold in the USA...
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18271120

[Stanley]

I heard that as well. I have never been able to understand the obsession with 'soft drinks'. I suppose my generation were lucky, they weren't available when we were young and so we never got hooked. Mind you, the US has always been the home of 'the bigger the better'. I still remember being in an ice cream parlour in the States when a man won the prize for eating a half gallon bucket of ice cream, it was another half gallon. This was a normal event. I also remember being in the Blue Horse Saloon in Minnesota and being told "Sorry, the 32 ounce steak is off". No problem!

[Tizer]

I'm lucky to have been sent by my employer to science conferences in the USA, the experience was great and it gave me lots of contacts with other scientists over there...but I dreaded the meals! I especially tried to avoid going to `diners' where many of the others would eat at lunchtime - large plates piled high with animal protein. If you asked for fish they'd probably throw you out! In the visits to the US I often lived on confectionery bars (Snickers!) and hot dogs (in their infinite variety).

[Stanley]

One of the strange things I noted was the absence of peas in main courses. I used to raid the free salad bars to get some! Another eccentric request was for bread to mop my gravy up. I was once out for dinner with a company consisting mainly of psychiatrists in California in the 80s. I managed to persuade the waitress to find me a slice of bread and mopped up the gravy from my steak leaving a clean plate. I realised that everyone was watching me in something very close to horror. I asked them what I had done wrong and I was told that my behaviour showed that I was orally obsessive and probably anal retentive! I kid you not, it happened. I told them they had it wrong, I had been reared under rationing and we didn't waste anything, especially superb meat gravy. I don't think they got it...... Try ordering boiled eggs for breakfast in the States, they don't understand them and it can be an interesting experience. Can't resist one more.... Up early one morning so I went in a 2nd Avenue Deli in NY and ordered a BLT on a bagel. The bloke looked at me and reminded me it was a Kosher Deli! He cut off my apology by saying that seeing that we were alone he'd make me a BLT at the same time he fried his own breakfast bacon but I had to eat it quickly before anyone came in!

[Tizer]

This so not about food but rather about how companies choose names for themselves. Kraft Foods Inc is changing its name to Mondelez International Inc. It's this quote in the company's press release that had me laughing:
Irene Rosenfeld, Chairman and CEO said: "Mondelez has an appealing international sound that perfectly evokes the idea of a 'delicious world.' That's the essence of our global snacks company." What a load of tripe! I wonder if they'll have all the staff singing "On the Road to Mondelez"? (By the way, Irene Rosenfeld is the lovely lady who lied to us about the future of the chocolate factory in Bristol when they took over Cadburys.)
Press release here: LINK

[Stanley]

As I said on another topic, all evidence of the fact that Membrane Theory is accurate. There must indeed be parallel universes out there and these people are the inhabitants.
The brand name that always chokes me is 'Smeg'. (LINK)

[Tizer]

It always makes me think of the `Red Dwarf' TV series. And that makes me think of the `speaking toaster' sketch, remember it? `Want some toast?'...`Have some toast'....`Toast'...[silence]...`More toast?'.... And somehow that then reminds me of the way banks marketed credit over the last 20 years.

[Stanley]

I once saw a BUM watch on sale for $10 in the States. I bought it immediately even though I didn't need it. Despite the fact it's a bum watch it works well.....

[Tizer]

One of the American authors who wrote books for me in my publishing days had the surname Bimbo and that led to some interesting situations.

[Stanley]

I watched the BBC2 prog 'Who Made Us Fat' last night and liked it. I think there are two more episodes to come and it's theme coincides with everything I have read on the subject over the years. They were concentrating on sugar v fat and the lobbying that made fat the culprit last night. Good stuff and getting near the truth.

[Tizer]

The BBC news is carrying the story this morning `Global weight gain more damaging than rising numbers'. The journal article is summarised on the following web site and I think the full article can be downloaded as a PDF from the site. The summary is here: LINK

For once they have taken an ecological rather than a medical view and have assessed the human impact in the same way as ecologists estimate the impact of other animal species.
The results and conclusions in the summary are:
"In 2005, global adult human biomass was approximately 287 million tonnes, of which 15 million tonnes were due to overweight (BMI > 25), a mass equivalent to that of 242 million people of average body mass (5% of global human biomass). Biomass due to obesity was 3.5 million tonnes, the mass equivalent of 56 million people of average body mass (1.2% of human biomass). North America has 6% of the world population but 34% of biomass due to obesity. Asia has 61% of the world population but 13% of biomass due to obesity. One tonne of human biomass corresponds to approximately 12 adults in North America and 17 adults in Asia. If all countries had the BMI distribution of the USA, the increase in human biomass of 58 million tonnes would be equivalent in mass to an extra 935 million people of average body mass, and have energy requirements equivalent to that of 473 million adults.
Conclusions: Increasing population fatness could have the same implications for world food energy demands as an extra half a billion people living on the earth."

[Stanley]

I heard the same report and it struck me that it was an interesting way of looking at the problem of food shortages. You hear people complaining about money spent on 'useless research' but I'm all in favour of Blue Sky thinking. I'm sure there are good examples of such 'useless research' opening up new fields of progress.
I was reminded of the research I have seen on foods that satisfy you last night as I sat there with a butty made with roast pork.It wasn't a big butty but I had to wrap the last quarter in cling film and put it in the fridge. New slimming aid? Fat roast Middle White pork in butties?
Watch out for the second 'The men who made us fat' programme on BBC2. Well worth watching.

[Tizer]

I think the development of low-fat and fat-free versions of naturally fatty foods has played a big part in the present obesity problem. People eat them and are still hungry so they then eat snacks between meals, drink large volumes of sugary drinks, or simply eat more of the low-fat versions (which may have lots of calories from sugar). Fat is responsible for `satiety', the feeling of fullness that signals to our brain `Enough, stop!' If we eat low-fat foods we no longer get the signals and our ancestral protection kicks in, making us eat in case we can't find another meal for several days.

[Stanley]

There was some research that indicated that the way saturated fat satisfies us is due to the fact that certain elements survive further down into our bowels where they trigger the 'fullness' message to our brains. Little doubt that you are quite right Tiz. No coincidence that obesity coincided with the rise of the supermarkets, the need for longer shelf-life and the use of modified vegetable fats because they were cheaper and lasted longer. Second 'The Men who made you fat' is on BBC 2 tonight. I shall be watching because the first one was well researched and convincing. Whistling ijn the wind of course because anyone arguing for saturated fat and less sugar is up against the massive lobbying power of the food interests. A crime against humanity?

[Tizer]

Whistling ijn the wind of course because anyone arguing for saturated fat and less sugar is up against the massive lobbying power of the food interests.

Perhaps not whistling in the wind now. There is evidence coming out to show that high saturated fatty acid levels in the blood are not due to saturated fat in the diet but, perversely, to high dietary carbohydrate (CHO; starch and sugars). The CHO can trigger lipogenesis (formation of lipids, fats) and some people are more susceptible than others. Just think of those supersize sugary drinks, piles of pasta, big helpings of sweet desserts etc. The people who claimed that saturated fat caused heart disease have never been able to show a close association between the two and this new observation may be the reason; they were looking at fat when it should have been CHO.

[Stanley]

Good news Tiz if good science can supplant the canard of the simplistic claim that saturated fat is bad for you. Once again I'd urge anyone who is interested in their diet to read 'Queen of Fats' by Susan Allport which is a brilliant over-view of research into lipids (fats) since the 1930s and shows conclusively that saturated fat and cholesterol intake are not the bogey elements in our food.
'The Men who Made Us Fat' on BBC2 last night was as good as the first one of the three programmes and mainly addressed the advent of 'supersizing' portions. The really stunning one was the 32 ounce 'Double Gulp' cup which when filled with cola contains 800 calories and fifty teaspoons of sugar. That's right, FIFTY!!

[Stanley]

Farmers are going to have the second 2p drop in farm gate prices inside four months. The supermarkets, as the biggest buyers, are killing the industry and the middle men, the collection and distributive trade cannot reduce their take any further. Minimum cost of production is 25p and farmers are getting nowhere near that. Time for the government to step in and put a floor in the market. Milk should not be sold as a loss leader at the expense of a vital food-producing industry.

[EileenDavid]

Remember I advised about the 10+ Manuka honey and my friends Psoriosis well she stopped taking it for a couple of weeks to see and it came back so she's going back on it. Eileen

[Stanley]

I hope it works for her.....

[Tizer]

Eileen, if that honey product is expensive tell her to try out a cheaper product and see if it works as well.