Can Big Foodie Be Controlled LikeTobacco Legislation?

There is talk of governmental pressure to force the tobacco industry to reduce the nicotine content of cigarettes. This fundamental disruption of the basic manufacture and presentation of cigarettes indicates the seriousness with which this is seen to affect health - this is because intense health warnings, heavy taxation, and restrictive advertising have failed to impact on the habit. If the supply to the public seems bound to continue then the product must change.

The food industry presents to the public a massive spectrum of manufactured goods, very many of which are bad for health. The public is constantly informed of what things in these good they should avoid - sugars, preservatives, salt and some fats. Their presence or otherwise is usually lost in small writing on the packaging or an inference might be inferred by some colour coding scheme.

What I want to see is on all packaged food and all fresh food is a big label that says it is healthy on an easily understandable scale determined by the medical profession, food scientists and nutritionists who are not paid by the food industry.

This means a person who picks up packet of Kellogs Special K will see in an instant, for this will be printed big and unmissable by the product’s name, if this is healthy and if so the manner and amount that should be eaten. It might rate this product badly but this would not matter if it indicated that little harm would occur if no more than a teaspoon was taken each day. Thus the coding would infer goodness, and the safe serving. It might indicate the ideal preparation. This type of coding would not be welcome by the food industry but at least it would not immediately blackball the product.

Many Kellogs products bear close scrutiny as their persuasive advertising can blind one to adverse components.

The real chore now is to get some real thinking into evaluating the effect of the individual components on health and the compilation of the scoring and coding system and it enforcement on packaging and labelling.

Why You Should Make Your Own 'Spread for Bread'

Margarines or spreads as they are commonly callled now came into fashion after fears that butter and similar milk products induced early heart disease. It seems that this is not necessarily the case and that some saturated fats are good for you in that the body needs them as precursors to certain hormones and vital factors. 

This is good news as it appears that many of the spreads available are not terribly healthy by virtue of the means of manufacture and the philosophy of the makers to use water as part of their make up - it seems that a great deal of heat is required to get the fats to emulsify in the added water which by the way the percentage contained is seldom if ever mentioned on the packaging. http://bit.ly/20sbAC9
The healthy answer to this is to make your own spread and it so simple.
Using a deepish plastic container put 125 grams of butter - this is usually half a pack and place it in a warm place till it is melting or really soft -  then add as much virgin olive oil - and using a fork mix thoroughly - a little milk might appear  - about a teaspoonful at most, but ignore this and store your new spread in the fridge. Using it will be so easy - if its too soft add a little more butter or too hard, use more oil.
 The ideal state is that it spreads easily as thin layer on your bread without seeping into it. Thus it also economical!

 

The elephant in the food room

 From flour millers to fast food outlets it is as though there are no restraints by food advisory bodies on what they can offer the public but it is the refined rubbish they produce and sell which is shortening peoples lives.
The media especially television ads which promote, almost as a matter of right - like the right for clean air and water - their product as being almost next to godliness in its good for one.
Cereals manufacturers, especially Kellogs continue to promote patently sugar / refined carbohydrate wheat or corn products with or without sugar, honey and chocolate to exploit the kids' market.
That there is no publicity to the contrary to refute what they say about the product, whether deemed by the viewer as good or bad, as it is drip fed into their subconscious as 'ok'. Again similarly Weetabix, probably a lot less toxic than the Kellogs products are grains damaged by heat to make them crisp. With both these brands once they are wet they become a repulsive slurry - heat having damaged the structure of the product's fibre content. To offset the drear food value these makers fortify their products with vitamins, the value of which might well be dubious allowing the heat effect during production.
   So what is the elephant in the food room ?  It is  utter failure of rubbish food products to be labelled as such in a manner which the public will take notice and therein lies a gigantic problem.

Getting back to Crumbing

There are more issues that relate to crumbing, or breading, as it sometimes called than the food value of the crumbs.

One of the functions of crumbing, like battering fish with a flour and water mix, is to provide a casing for the food in which it cooks. Nearly always this implies the use of fat or oil in the food itself or in or on the pan in which it is being cooked. The casing then becomes a part of the meal and for the most part is deemed delicious and crisp and an essential part of the meal - what would fish and chips, and KFC, be without the crunch of the fat soaked surround? Another use of crumbs is adornment and one classic example is that of crumbing a leg or major joint of ham usually with a orange dyed or yellow dyed crumb.

P = Extract of Paprika  E160c

A = Extract of Annatto E160b

C = Extract of Curcumin E100;   

T = Extract of Turmeric (Spice)

K = Extract of Paprika (Spice)
One hopes these ‘extracts’ are harmless but what has the heat, mostly quite severe heat, plus any ‘burning’ effect done to them - how harmless are they after that?

There is therefore an ipso facto implication that a good deal of cooked oil or fat will be needed to produce the food in the proper manner.

   This immediately changes the ballgame when assessing calorific value of the food.

   This also means the crumbed casing has to be looked at objectively.

   The order of this crumbing could be a pretty good reflection of the entire food industry as whole, as all meat types, fresh and preserved, fish and vegetables are involved - even eggs in that invention called Scotch Eggs.

   This also raises the question of how to make people aware of how bad crumbing is for ones’ health.

Making your own dressings and sauces makes sense!

The shelves of the our food stores and supermarkets are stacked with sauces and dressings most of which have components which deteriorate quickly with time, the effect of daylight, overhead lighting and a range of preservatives to lengthen its shelf life

Think of mayonnaises - the backbone of which are oils - ideally they should be olive oil but most will be cheaper vegetable oils. Think of this oil - it could be old before manufacture and you can be sure that it will not be the best quality - then the exposure to the damaging atmosphere during manufacture - the intense mixing procedures and then the bottling - usually into clear containers allowing light to further damage or destroy the natural benefits that the oil might have. On top of all this the time it has sat on the shop shelf.

Yes, buying off the shelf is convenient but what you make will be better or become better as you get the hang of making such things yourself.

Remember the next second is the beginning of the rest of your life so make it a healthy one by rejecting rubbishy packaged sauces made by Big Foodie.

The more you do this, the more it will become second nature for you and then you will not find it an inconvenience anymore!

How to Avoid Labelled Food

Labelling of food - difficult to read, won’t tell all the truth and you can do better.

Labelled food is for the most part already cooked and containing preservatives and constitutes about 80% of the goods in the store

- this is from most cereals to what is tinned and prepacked - vegetables - fruit - meats - dairy/sweets - so you have no control over how it is cooked and what is in it that shouldn’t be there.

How to avoid:

  don’t buy labelled food!

  buy fresh and cook at home!

Problem solved!

Chewing Gum and Pavements

Used chewing gum has spoiled and  is spoiling our pavements and many other walking areas and it is happening across most of the world. In the UK It costs £1. 50 to remove one such offending mark. Singapore forbids the purchase and import  of chewing gum and imposes  fines of up to $700 dollars ( £400) for spitting it out on a pavement.http://bit.ly/2cW1axe

Public awareness of six gross side effects of gum might influence consumption favourably for some http://bit.ly/1m2pfgU but probably not the disposal problem for most..

The annual bill of  £60 million to clean our streets of discarded chewing gum http://bit.ly/2nXyV1o                               should be borne by the gum manufacturers, one of which makes well over £200 million annually    http://bit.ly/2odW54c. However ideal it is unlikely to come to pass.

I believe the proper approach by the Government in the first place is to force manufacturers to package all chewing gum with an acceptable means of the discarding or disposing of it. This could be small booklet of papers or the packaging itself to contain the discarded gum. Once wrapped the gum can be cleanly pocketed or otherwise disposed of. Even on a pavement, once ‘wrapped’ it will not stick!  

Have it as a trial along with well publicized warning warning that failure of this to work will invoke serious fines or even abolition of gum for sale.  

The problem has been around for 169 years; let’s stop it now ! http://bit.ly/2oPtd5G