food directives

I have been trundling round the shops all day today.

Can I have a piece of now?

I always used to say that I worked full time to avoid having to do housework. Now I'm retired I have to keep myself busy in all sorts of other ways to avoid it

Horrible thought isn't it, AshTree

Are you saying I've got to start doing housework?

Noooooo, rosequartz. The couple who stayed at home doing the housework burned more calories than the couple who went to the gymn

I have recorded it - is it worth watching?

If it tells me I have to run half a marathon to get rid of a piece of Victoria sponge I may not watch

Calories explained now on BBC1.

No one is stopping you eat what you chose vampirequeen. If you like the so called "healthy plate" go ahead.

The problem for many of us is that we see the food processing companies influencing what is perceived as "what is good for us" and choose a different balance. We also then like to see this discussed on television, in our papers, etc. That is really not unreasonable.

Can't we just stick to the healthy plate idea. Lots of fruit and veg, a decent portion of carbs, a nice chunk of meat, a bit fat and a bit of sugary what you fancy.

Unless you're on a high fat/low carb diet when you'll have two switch the carbs and fat.

At the end of the day food is food. If we eat what we know is good for us and treat ourselves to 'something nice' now and then surely we can't go wrong.

I think the problem for most people (me included) is that we don't move around enough nowadays. Rather than worry about what goes in our mouths we need to think more about shifting our butts and using up some calories.

You should only drink fairtrade tea and coffee, to ensure the growers get a fairer amount of money for their labour.
You can buy fairtrade flowers and wine, too.
Lots of food is grown for export, meaning that the farmers lose out as multinationals and corrupt governments take the money.

The question of buying flowers is a difficult one, though gracesgran
It's not a simple choice between flowers for export and food for home consumption.
The flowers, like other exports, bring money into the 3rd world country and that money can be used for providing education and healthcare facilities.

Should we not drink tea or coffee, because they are exported from 3rd World countries?

Yes agree with you Bags. I think the government does commission 'research' designed to show its policies in a good light, or justify them in some way.
I think the first thing to do when reading any report is to discover the source of the funding.

In FlicketyB's post:
But some form of sugar is naturally present in all our foods from milk to fruit, and vegetables. That's fine. No one is saying you should not eat these things unless you have problems with lactose, etc.

White sugar comes from sugar cane or sugar beet. I imagine if you ate the sugar cane or beet you would not be overdosing on sugar. It is the processing that sets up the problem

I think we get far too neurotic about what is in our food, something that the majority of people in the world cannot afford to do. The problem is that we often do not know what is in our food and we eat vast quantities of chemicals to offset the taste of other additives. We also add large quantities of sugar to offset the 1970s fad of removing naturally occurring fat.

Those who are starving are often doing so because of our misuse of their land. Growing flowers to fly out to Europe instead of using the land to grow food to feed themselves comes to mind. If they had sufficient of the food they can grow their diet would probably be better than ours.

I also remember reading somewhere else, also several years ago, that if we were to take notice of every warning about pollution, chemicals, plastics, intensive farming, sugar, fats, carbs, fizzy drinks, blah, blah, blah, we would have no choice but to live at the top of a mountain and live on grass and dew. But hang on, wouldn't aircraft be flying overhead? Polluting the mountain top? Help!

janea, drug companies fund research, don't they? It will be so they can make a profit on any new drug treatments. Similarly, I would expect large engineering firms to fund research when they develop something new. I've no objection to government funding but I am bearing in mind that governments have 'agendas' just the same as businesses and sometimes that has an effect that is political rather than scientific.

That's how I see it anyway.

But some form of sugar is naturally present in all our foods from milk to fruit, and vegetables. White sugar comes from sugar cane or sugar beet. A lot of our food, onions, potatoes, rhubarb to begin with, contain substances, which offered on a spoon would be/are banned

I think we get far too neurotic about what is in our food, something that the majority of people in the world cannot afford to do.

World population has grown from a handful of hominids 100,000 years ago to 7 or 8 billion today. Most of that growth has been in the last 100 or so years. This growth has been despite all the dangerous health problems we face every time we take a bite of food.

I remember reading somewhere many years ago that if sugar had not been 'discovered' until the 20th century, it would very likely have been banned as a dangerous substance immediately

bags how should scientific research be funded? The money has to come from somewhere.
I guess that philanthropic and charitable donations would have the least conflict of interest, but wonder what proportion of research is funded from such sources.

I think a week would be plenty Mamie

Everyone who has picked up on the yoghurt not having a great deal of added sugar is right. What I was trying to highlight how many food are "made" to be low fat and how processed they are to make them that way. I probably didn't pick the best example but I know the last time I went into the supermarket all I could see were "low fat" and "no fat" labels. Fat is a natural part of our diet (in moderation) sugar that natural occurs is too but it is the amount of added, processed sugar that causes the problems.

As I say, shop from the outer part of a supermarket and you will buy ingredients, move into the aisles and everything will probably be processed.

It is fructose that is the big problem but it does have other names and you only have to look at the aisles of biscuits, sweets, sugary drinks, etc., to see that while fat was made a demon, our intake of sugar has got out of proportion.

Graces I keep my yoghurt in the fridge for about a week and it's absolutely fine - no idea if it would keep longer because I've eaten it all by then . I've never tried freezing my homemade yoghurt but we used to freeze shop bought yoghurt regularly. And yes, I think adding powdered milk has become quite the norm - I've seen it recommended on lots of sites/forums.

Mamie I think I might give reducing the milk a go next time. So you don't add anything else apart from the yoghurt starter? No powdered milk necessary?

The lactose content doesn't bother me, it's the added sugar that I avoid. When we were staying in France, I bought what I thought was natural yoghurt - that's what it said on the label - but it had been sweetened with sugar (I missed that bit). Dreadful stuff, don't know why anyone would prefer it to the natural flavour. But, hey, we're all different under the sun I guess...

I find myself actually quite pleased to hear of some separation of science from government funding. This may be misguided on my part but I'm going to enjoy the feeling while I can.

My mother, who lived until she was 96, used to say 'Everything in moderation and a little of what you fancy does you good'. She avoided doctors and refused to take pills. Dark rum worked better!

A few years ago, when my cholesterol level was a bit high, my g.p. told me to book an appointment with the practice sister to have a talk about diet. I realised after she started that she was giving me the 'losing weight' speech rather than the 'lower your cholesterol' one. I am not overweight. She was obese. It was such a daft situation that I just sat and waited for her to finish and took no notice.

durhamj I'm surprised 38 degrees hasn't flagged this up - unless I've missed it.

I am more worried about this than about whether yogurt has too much sugar.
Ready for the next food scandal?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/capita-and-the-great-british-food-safety-selloff-10134275.html

I used to add skimmed milk powder to semi-skimmed milk when I made yogurt, which made a nice set yogurt.

I now buy Total greek yogurt, or Yeo Valley.