Posted by Dom on June 29th, 2007 — Posted in News
It was a simple enough idea. Re-run some old 1960’s television ads to celebrate 50 years of the ‘Lion Mark’ symbol - a seal of quality on British eggs.
But advertising watchdogs were having none of it. They have banned the egg industry from showing the ads on TV because they “fail to promote a varied diet”.
The ads feature legendary comedian Tony Hancock and the slogan “Go to work on an egg” - promoting eggs for breakfast.
Now, we’re all for promoting a varied diet, but banning these fun, nostalgic ads is probably going a bit far. After all, nobody’s suggesting you only eat eggs. And nobody’s banning ads for sugary breakfast cereals.
Until the advertising watchdogs change their minds, you can watch them all here. There’s even a petition you can sign if you want to have your say.
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Posted by Sylvia on June 28th, 2007 — Posted in Opinion
This is an excerpt from Barry Groves upcoming book, The National Health Scandal, which will be published early next year.
We are told that we should eat ‘5 portions’ to prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease. If there really is a dose-response whereby 4 portions, say, aren’t good enough, then surely the size of the portion and the number of portions would be important. It is odd, therefore, that both the numbers of portions and their quantity vary widely across the Atlantic. Other scientists must have thought so as well, because over the last few years several studies into the 5-a-day claim have been conducted to test the advice - with disappointing results.
The prestigious CARDIO2000 study published its results in 2003.[i] This study was looking at intakes of fruit and vegetables specifically in relation to acute heart disease. They found that vegetables did reduce the risk of heart disease. But, significantly, it didn’t need ‘5 portions a day’ for the maximum effect. In their conclusions the researchers say:
‘Our findings support that even low consumption of fruits and vegetables (1-2 servings per week) is associated with about 45% lower coronary risk. Consumption of 2 or more servings per week is associated with about 70% reduction in relative risk.’
The Daily Mail reported the study’s results.[ii] The Mail interviewed Professor Sir Charles George, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, about the obvious conflict with the 5-a-day guidelines. Sir Charles answered ‘There is some argument about how much you need; I think five may be an arbitrary figure’ - and, by so doing, admitted that this was yet another example of dietary advice which was based on nothing more than guesswork or wishful thinking. So we don’t need to eat anything like 5 a day to derive benefits in terms of heart disease.
But is there a benefit in terms of cancer the other major disease it is aimed at? This was considered in another study of over 100,000 people published in 2004. This study, conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, showed that, ‘Increased fruit and vegetable consumption was associated with a modest although not statistically significant reduction in the development of major chronic disease’. They continued: ‘The benefits appeared to be primarily for cardiovascular disease and not for cancer.’ [iii] And concluded: ‘Consumption of five or more servings of fruits and vegetables has been recommended . . . but the protective effect of fruit and vegetable intake may have been overstated.’
Not surprisingly, supporters of the ‘5-a-day’ campaign were outraged by the findings, repeating their mantra that eating the recommended number of fruit and vegetables has numerous health benefits - without specifying what those benefits might be.
So you won’t be surprised to learn that a very large study found no benefit in breast cancer from eating ‘5 portions’. In this study, 20 named researchers investigated 7,377 incident invasive breast cancer cases and a wide variety of fruit and vegetable intakes among 351,825 women at 17 cancer research centres in the USA, Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden. They found no association for green leafy vegetables, 8 botanical groups, and 17 specific fruits and vegetables. They concluded:
“These results suggest that fruit and vegetable consumption during adulthood is not significantly associated with reduced breast cancer risk”.[iv]
Whenever studies such as these are reported, the diet police repeat their dogma that eating the recommended number of fruit and vegetables has numerous health benefits; they say that the evidence is ‘overwhelming’. But they never seem able to quote any of that evidence or to specify exactly what the benefits are. In view of the above studies, that will probably come as no real surprise. The point is that, just like almost all the health advice we have had forced down our throats and come to believe over the last few decades, there is practically no basis for ‘5 portions’ advice in science.
Dr Barnett Kramer, of the National Institutes of Health in the US, said of the healthy eating message: ‘A lot of the public is completely unaware that the strength of the message is not matched by the strength of the evidence.’ That we are still kept unaware of it demonstrates just how strong an influence the diet dictocrats have on our minds and the news media.
References
[i]. Panagiotakos DB, Pitsavos C, Kokkinos P, et al. Consumption of fruits and vegetables in relation to the risk of developing acute coronary syndromes; the CARDIO2000 case-control study. Nutr J 2003; 2: 2.
[ii]. ‘Three fruit and veg are still healthy.’ Daily Mail, 2 September 2003, p 8.
[iii]. Hung H-C, Joshipura KJ, Jiang R, et al. Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Risk of Major Chronic Disease. J Nat Canc Inst 2004; 96: 1577-1584
[iv]. Smith-Warner SA, et al. Intake of Fruits and Vegetables and Risk of Breast Cancer: A Pooled Analysis of Cohort Studies. JAMA 2001; 285: 769-776.
Barry Groves PhD
Author: Natural Health & Weight Loss
Co-producer: The perfect Weight Plan: Be Slim Without Dieting (DVD / Video)
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk
http://www.theperfectweight.com
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Posted by Sylvia on June 22nd, 2007 — Posted in Recipes
Part of eating a more healthy diet is eating seasonally but it can be easy to fall into a rut. My family can be more open minded to eating their veg when they are prepared with a bit of imagination rather than boiled and dumped at the side of the plate. On this occasion, I had courgettes / zucchini in mind when I started looking for new recipes to try.
I stumbled on Almost Turkish and found a wonderful assortment of fast and interesting meals. Burcu posts traditional and modern dishes with mouth-watering photographs, including the jackpot for our own dinner: her mother’s recipe for baked zucchini (courgette).
It may sound silly to base a meal around a side-dish but that’s exactly what I did. It was easy though, spoilt for choice on Burcu’s site. I opted for the traditional meatballs that Burcu has recreated as remembered from her hometown of Tekirdağ. These are made with a mixture of lamb and beef and mirror the pepper and mint flavour of the vegetables. The recipe as given would feed four with ease, I froze half for a future fast meal.
Unfortunately I was low on dried mint, so I used it on the zucchini and used fresh mint for the meatballs, a slight change which did not harm the flavour at all. I wouldn’t recommend trying fresh mint on the vegetables though as they would not stand up to the cooking time.
The turkish meatballs were really nice — however, I would cut the chile seeds right down if you are serving to young children. My partner thought they were fine but turned down my offer of extra chile sauce on the side. The zucchini was lovely, soft and spicy with the flavour of the mint really coming through. I took Burcu’s advice and added a bit of garlic to the yogurt.
We had a roasted pepper salad with some chopped up preserved lemons as a side dish. The sweet flavour balanced well with the rest of the meal - and the lemon was perfect. If I hadn’t used the preserved lemons then I think I would have used lemon juice in some way, as a salad dressing or mixed into the yogurt perhaps. The flavour really complimented the rest of the meal.
As a side-note, I made a small batch of these without the breadcrumbs/semolina in order to offer a low-carb meal. I would cut down the egg a bit and you need to take care when forming and serving the meatballs but the result still got positive reviews.
Almost Turkish has a wide variety of interesting (and simple) dishes to try, with an emphasis on vegetables. If you want to try to add a bit of unexpected spice to your meals, I certainly recommend giving her blog a browse.
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Posted by Dom on June 20th, 2007 — Posted in News
Science Daily is reporting the results of a study which suggest people on very low-carb diets are putting themselves at risk because of a reduction in butyrate (a fatty acid) in the gut.
Butyrate is used as a form of energy by the bacteria in the gut, and reduced levels can lead to increased risk of colon & bowel cancers.
Our usual advice applies here. Always see your doctor or a dietitian before starting any diet, and if you are feeling any ill effect, see them again.
[Read More]
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Posted by Sylvia on June 14th, 2007 — Posted in Tips
Sometimes getting more veg into your diet is just a case of thinking about your food from a different perspective.
This Japanese-inspired meal started with a bowl of chicken broth, quick and easy to heat up and serve. If you live in the city, you could probably easily pick up noodles to make it a bit heartier.
The main course is that old standby: cold roast beef (I like mine really rare, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t serve it well-done if that’s your preference). Instead of mustard though, serve it sliced thin with a bowl of soy sauce for dipping in. Add in a touch of wasabi (Japanese horseradish) for authenticity, or simply a bit of crushed garlic. I tossed in a few chile seeds for heat.
Then, clockwise and up from the soy sauce, we have avocado with pickled ginger, tinned palm hearts, sliced raw fennel and a spicy italian pickled chile pepper. A variety of flavours and textures and bite, combining into one very healthy meal. And the best thing? As we had the roast beef already from the night before, the entire two-course meal took me 10 minutes to prepare.
My other half only had one gripe: it’s a lot harder to eat avocado with chopsticks than you might think. Next time, I’ll add a few more minutes to the prep time and stab ‘em with toothpicks.
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