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Letter in Telegraph today

 
i am not arguing about the excessive consumption causing problems.

I am arguing that is is far more complex and sinister than blaming people for being greedy and making judgements about people based on their eating habits without analysing why those eating habits are happening and whether the over eating is actually their fault.

I give up.
 

I do believe that food manufacturers do add things that make certain foods addicting. How many times have we heard people on this forum alone say they crave carbs, or after a period of being low carb, have a high carb day, and then begin craving carbs after months of not?

Another problem, the low fat mantra put out year after year added to the obesity problem. We were told fat was the enemy, sugar the friend, so low fat was bumped up with high sugar, and people quite merrily ate it, believing it was ok to do so. In the US few packaged or processed foods escaped the march of the high fructose corn syrup revolution, which again added pounds to the scales and inches to waists, yet the public knew little or nothing about the product and what it was really doing.

Yet another example, ask anyone the calorie content of any fast food outlet burger, or pizza, or whatever and they will either be honest and admit they don't have a clue, or vastly underestimate. So where is the nutritional information for fast food? Well, in this country, companies are not required to supply it, so the consumer has absolutely no idea of the calories they are eating. Some of these chains offer a 'healthy option' of a salad, when these salads were tested some had more calories than a burger, the dressings being the culprits.

The average British consumer is not to blame for the overeating and the obesity epidemic. In my view the blame lies squarely at the manufacturers door, and the government don't help much when they support the food industry, sugar industry etc, etc, and then the good old fashioned British bigot perpetuates the myth!
 

You might also like to read this slightly amplified discussion about ultra processing from the same authors . There's a lot of other very relevant articles on the same site
http://www.wphna.org/2012_june_wn3_UPP.htm
 

+1 Lucy and don't give up saying it :clap:
 
As a trainee nursery nurse in the early eighties, I was based in day nurseries in the roughest toughest parts of Glasgow. Despite abject poverty, we saw many obese babies. I often wondered why that was until I mentioned it to a member of staff who'd worked in deprived areas for thirty years or more. Her answer, back then, amazed me - she said the babies were overfed at very early ages and their 'stomachs had been stretched' so that, in order to feel full, they had to eat increasingly large amounts! I was cynical to say the least but I do think there is something in her theory, as wacky as it sounds.

If you were brought up from a few months old to eat huge portions of all the wrong foods then you will usually continue to do so throughout your life and you will also feed your own children in the same way. If you only have finances enough to buy the cheapest, nastiest, most processed foods then that's exactly what you'll do in order to provide your family with a meal, any meal, and the cycle continues. I'm still not convinced about the stomach stretching, but if you swap that for serum leptin shortages it makes sense - most of the foods consumed in areas of deprivation are the highest carb foods going.

Ju
 

The saddest part is, it costs a considerable amount more to eat healthy, than it does to feed a family from the take-a-way. A lot of these firms offer rock bottom family deals, that you can barely buy a pound of carrots for the same price. So if you have a busy family life, or are low income then I can see why the fish and chip shop or burger bar does look very appealing. The fact is these companies make sure the food they put out tastes good, and so draws us back. We did used to have take-a-way now and then, but not often as I am not that fond of all the grease and the actual meals themselves, although I do miss a good Indian meal.

Healthy affordable food needs to be made available to all. From the most exclusive families, to the poorest, living on sink estates, everyone is or should be entitled to make an informed choice, that is then no scuppered by unrealistic healthy food prices.
 
Hey guys!

Not wishing to sound like Jamie Oliver, but I think the education system let the 80s/90s children down. They stopped teaching cooking at school. How on earth do you expect people to make good food choices and cook nourishing meals for their families if they are never taught to do so?

I'm not convinced on the conspiracy theories, but I do believe a lack of knowledge and cookery skills combined with a lack of will power is a disastrous combination. The war generation (my parents age group) had no opportunity or money to buy junk food. My generation had both. Ultimately, it doesn't matter who is to blame. What is done is done. The key thing is educating people out of the mess and making sure it doesn't happen to another generation.

Smidge
 

Hey Smidge maybe they stopped teaching cooking in schools ON PURPOSE :lol:

No, seriously I think its a combination of both, a perfect storm. You have people who haven't a clue how to cook or what they should be eating being told and sold stuff by an industry that is purely driven by the profit motive with little or no regulation that allows them to essentially sell addictive super sized products using slick marketing campaigns.
 
Cooking is still taught in schools here, but the wrong kind of recipe's. My daughters came home with cookies, cupcakes, flapjacks etc, all high carb, high sugar snacks. If schools are teaching these recipe's then what hope do kids have especially if socio/economic reasons dictate the family live mainly on fast or processed foods? I was taught family staples in 'domestic science', shepherds/cottage pie, mince and dumplings, soups and broths. Ok, not good as we understand healthy now, but certainly then good home cooked comfort stodge. Still better than cookies and cupcakes - just!
 
I often think there is perhaps something in if you go back a couple of generations in these families there was real hunger and whether it becomes a cultural thing to eat plentyful food while it's there or perhaps even some thrifty trigger in the genes the effects of real deprivation don't die with the people who experienced it. In fact as I understand it one of the reasons why auto-immune diseases are more common in Glasgow is that so many of the babies in the past who didn't have a supercharged immune system died in infancy and for that reason todays population tend to have immune systems unsuited to clean modern living
 
Defren said:
The saddest part is, it costs a considerable amount more to eat healthy, than it does to feed a family from the take-a-way. A lot of these firms offer rock bottom family deals, that you can barely buy a pound of carrots for the same price.
Click to expand...

I dont know where you buy your carrots from but round my neck of the woods there 35p per lb where as a KFC family bucket is £10.99 (according to their TV ad) and anyone who cant feed a family of four more healthily on £11 than at KFC just isnt trying IMO. Of course with a family bucket you can always use the bucket to throw up in afterwards :lol:

A whole chicken..................£2.00 to £4.00
1lb carrots.............................35p
1lb peas................................65p
New Potatoes 2.5 Kilograms......1.55

Cost to feed family........under £4.50

It is when people get this idea that fast food is cheaper than home cooking that the problem first starts, eat fast food all the time you will end up fat and out of pocket - fact or fiction? - I know what I believe.

Since I stopped eating so much I have lost weight - go figure And I cant remember the last time I ate at Maccy D's, KFC, BurgerAll etc etc, why would I when its unappetizing overpriced junk food.
 

I started my secondary education in Cheshire and continued it in Glasgow after the family relocated to Scotland. Domestic Science was one of my favourite subjects and the English school had a Nissen hut that had been converted into a 'house' and in there the girls learned all sorts of things about housekeeping; we learned to cook basic recipes and also how to feed children, invalids and cater for special diets and occasions. After moving to Glasgow I thought this was a terribly old fashioned way to do things; girls in Scotland did everything the boys did and vice versa. However, I did learn from those domestic science lessons, and from my mother, just how to provide good healthy (well 1980s healthy....) meals for my future family. Maybe these old fashioned classes should be reinstated for all school children.

Conversely to what SG was saying, when we moved to Glasgow, I took Food Sciences for my O Grade and Higher choices. It was an amazing course to take then; we even learned basic butchery. My mother, a talented cook herself, used to ask me to cook for dinner parties. I know that these courses varied slightly throughout different schools, but they were taught at all schools in Strathclyde then. Pupils from deprived backgrounds hardly ever chose to take them as the money wasn't there for the cookery ingredients you needed twice weekly and also, they wouldn't have eaten the finished dishes as they were anathema to them. So the education was there, but SG is quite right in saying that bad diets are a habit.

So, going by my own experiences, I've encouraged all of my children to cook and to take cookery at school. The eldest also did the majority of his secondary education in Scotland and cooks well. My daughter took 'Food Technology' at school in England and didn't cook once, not even cakes! She cooks well now but only because she cooks at home and learns from us. The two younger boys faired better as they had improved the course by that time, but it's still very lacking in proper nutritional knowledge and basic cookery technique, and they cooked much the same as Defren's girls. There were even occasions when the ingredients called for included bought cake mixes.

Their school has fully embraced the Jamie Oliver ethics in the dining hall but not the cookery department! The attitude is that every child will be so successful they'll be too busy to eat home cooked food, they'll all eat ready meals or out at posh restaurants!

I also think Sid is right, but you need to know what to do with cheap wholesome ingredients in order to turn out an edible meal. On a limited budget you are just not going to take the risk of ruining ingredients if you've no idea. If you're working, and most homes these days have to have both parents working, then you're going to be too tired to start from scratch so you go for convenience foods. It's a vicious circle.

Ju
 

Well, I came through the comprehensive system in the 70's & 80's (69-82) and despite an otherwise good education, I didn't have one cookery class in those 13 years!
It was all home taught, by my parents (both) and grand parents.
They Taught me how to make all the staple s including stews, soups,meat and vegetables, as well as cakes & breads, so that by the time I left university, I could economically feed my self and put on a good dinner party!
I agree that modern "fast food" is a curse and home made can be cheaper and IS better but given the choice, my children's generation love the "old time"meals like my MIL's "meat and potato pie" they just don't get it so often, they get my stir-fry beef/chicken with stir fry veg (and love it) or my REAL beef burgers ( Meat, onions, herbs/spices, no fillers).
 
FergusCrawford said:
.........or my REAL beef burgers ( Meat, onions, herbs/spices, no fillers).
Click to expand...

A few years ago my older brother was at our house. He can cook, and knows about food, but I was making real burgers and he couldn't believe I was going to that much trouble when I could go out and 'buy cheap burgers' :lol: :lol:

I explained to him that we don't eat 'cheap burgers' we like meat in ours...... :thumbup:

Ju
 
I think experiences of cookery in schools will vary. My education was in the 50s and 60s. We had one year of domestic science(3rd year) This included a bit about nutrition, things like 'invalid'cookery(!) but was only about an hour and a half a week and was for the most part a total waste of time, by 14 most of the girls could already cook a meal at home. My husband did no cookery at school at all. I think that these skills should be learned at home. I'm not certain when it stopped happening, probably as more women went to work (though I worked as did my mother and grandmother).
My nine year old granddaughter can cook a simple meal. Her two year old cousin 'helped' me cook dinner and wash up yesterday.
Food and healthy eating actually turns up in lots of areas of the school curriuclum. (science, PSHEE, DT)Both of my grandchildren who are of school age have had some education about 'healthy' eating at school.
From KS 1 they should do basics on nutrition and also of the damage to teeth from sugar. These have been part of the National curriculum science requirements from it's inception thus :KS1 a child should learn " that taking exercise and eating the right types and amounts of food help humans to keep health"
By KS 3 they should be learning about diet/exercise in more detail
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesiz ... ise1.shtml
Cookery of some sort is also part of the DT curriculum in KS1 and KS2 and though non statutory is taught in most Secondary schools.
This is a good article about the place of cookery in schools today (fact and myth)
http://www.foodforum.org.uk/hot/Nationa ... -Fis.shtml
 
I have always cooked all my children's food from scratch (mainly because my daughter is Yeast and dairy intollerant) but once when I was in a major hurry I bought some ready made beefburgers from my local butchers - not cheap at 80p per burger - and they noticed immediately and said it didn't taste right. I know that we are all busy people and some feel that it is too time consuming to always cook everything yourself but I think the health benefits outweigh the time involved and like Sid said, if you are carefull it can cost less. Having said that we do have the odd Indian take-away as I can't seen to get the 'tandoori' taste right!
 

I made some lamb burgers a couple of weeks ago, simply because you just can't find lamb easily. I did buy some 98% Aberdeen Angus burgers for my daughters from the butcher earlier this week, and they loved them, but at £4.50 for 4 certainly not an everyday meal. I asked what the other 2% was made up of, and it was basically seasoning. This is the beauty of a butcher, they make their own so can tell you what is in them.
 
[quote="smidge"Not wishing to sound like Jamie Oliver, but I think the education system let the 80s/90s children down. They stopped teaching cooking at school. How on earth do you expect people to make good food choices and cook nourishing meals for their families if they are never taught to do so?[/quote]


I was just saying as much myself Smidge a few weeks ago, we need to get back to basics and start teaching them young to make good old home-made grub, Home Economics is still taught in some schools (well my children were) but it's called something else now, when my kids did do it the food they made was always desserts and don't recall them ever making a Stew, Hotpot or Shepard's Pie etc.
 
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