So just HOW should 'the government' tackle obesity etc...??

Very balanced. Protein, fruit and fibre and dairy products. Keep it up!

(Bloody hell, why do they have to start their fireworks so flaming early??? I keep being alarmed...)

Forgot the mince pie!

I have eaten:

Brekker. Bowl porridge and piece Christmas cake.

Lunch.Full fat Wensleydale with blueberries in it, on toast. Plus several Marks and Sparks cocktail sausage.

Snack in cafe. Apple pie and custard.

Tea/dinner/supper. Sausage roll.Chutney. Bag crisps. More cheese with blueberries in it. Three chocolate biscuits.

#stuffed

(the milk, that is)

Yes, proper butter and full-fat milk. I do drink quite a lot of that...

PS Masses of butter on the toast. And I have whole milk in my (weak) teas and coffees of which today I drank six mugs, or thereabouts.

I wonder what we have all eaten today. I've no idea how many calories I eat but here's today's list in the order of eating:

an apple
6 prunes
a flapjack (homemade and full of nuts and seeds as well as full of butter, sugar, oats and dried fruit)–millions of calories, I'm sure.
Slice of toast (thick homemade bread with added goodies: ground linseed) topped with:
half a small can of spaghetti hoops and one and a half sardines
glass of orange juice
3 rich tea biscuits
two pork sausages with steamed Brussels sprouts topped with melted cheese.

I'm sure the food police will think this mixture very improper though it looks quite balanced to me. The spaghetti hoops are actually quite rare in my diet, though I eat 'normal' pasta quite often. I found the sardines in the back of a cupboard.

Quantity-wise that's fairly typical for me. I weigh 52kg, same as I did when I was fifteen.

Can't have too many 'absolutely's, ana.

The Americans thicken food with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) - as you say, to keep the corn farmers happy. The trouble is that people just don't realise it's there and don't know how many calories they're adding to their food. There was also an initiative a few years ago to reduce the amount of potato served in school meals (I think Michelle Obama supported it), but the American potato farmers kicked up a stink, so it was abandoned. Many dieticians think demonising fat has been a bad idea, especially as many manufacturers (and home cooks) replace the fat with carbs.

x posts or I wouldn't have put 'absolutely' in mine!

I agree absolutely daphnedill. Not everyone actually enjoys eating for the sake of it, I know I have to eat to fuel my body but I'd be perfectly happy taking a daily pill!

And of course ready meals can be just as nutritious as 'cooked from scratch', as can frozen veg.

I agree with you absolutely, bellsisabelle. That's what I do. I know my target nutritional intake per day, read the boxes and eat loads of salad/veg. I wouldn't eat this way if I weren't on my own, because it would probably be too expensive, but it's not unhealthy.

I have just eaten a Tesco Chicken fillet with garlic mushrooms.

It contained:

Energy 187kcal (9% of RDA)
Fat 5.4g (8%)
(of shich saturates) 2.8g (14%)
Carbohydrates 1.2g
(of which sugars) 0.3g (<1%)
Fibre 0.9g
Protein 32.9g
Salt 0.3g (5%)

I ate it with a huge plate of veggies from the bottom of the fridge.

What's wrong with it? It's well-balanced and low calorie. It's a bit short of fibre, but the veggies will have made up for that.

Sorry, ready meals aren't all bad.

I'm sure I heard a Radio 4 Food Programme episode about Ready Meals not necessarily being healthy. I can't find it but in the process of looking found lots of links to articles making the point, eg www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2978316/Read-ll-never-eat-ready-meal-again.html

I'm not sure what the government could do, it's such a big problem- no pun intended!
The American government has been blamed for demonising fats in its attempt to get the vote from the corn farmers, so obviously governments have and do continue to put their oar in.
There is so much information on diet out there, admittedly a lot of it quite confusing but I think most of us get the idea if we want to.
Our surgery runs an obesity clinic and pays for patients to go the gym, our hospitals equip themselves to deal with the bigger patient at huge expense , overweight people cost us a lot of money and resources.
Until the 'plus sizes' understand energy in has to equal energy out it will just carry on.
I am fairly slim and am not just 'lucky' . I've been to slimming clubs in the past and say no thank you quite a lot.

I rarely buy ready meals and perhaps this is slightly cross posting with the Paul McKenna/sugar thread but, as an example, I happen to have a box of Belvita breakfast biscuits in the cupboard. Looking at the nutrition information, they contain, per biscuit, 55 calories, of each 12.5gm biscuit 3% is fat and 1% of that fat is saturated, 3 % is sugars and 3% is salt. 2% is protein. I do realise that adds up to 11! That aside I suppose my point is that processed foods often contain sugar and salt to make them tasty along with fats. The latter are often saturated and unhealthy, in particular, palm oil is used in virtually everything now because it's cheap but it's a saturated fat and it can increase cholesterol levels. So I can shrug and take note only of the 55 calories or I can look at the rest of the ingredients which are unhealthy and unbalanced. Sugar and salt are addictive and have effects on body weight, fat composition, mood and appetite.
I'm not saying all ready meals and perhaps not the high quality ones but a lot of ready meal type eating is not healthy at all. To read the marketing hype on the Belvita biscuits you'd think they were the food of Royalty!

Or salad.

If a ready meal shows say, 500 calories on the box, and lists a reasonable amount of protein, what can be wrong with that? You can always add a bit of cabbage. Or peas. Or carrots.

Sorry, Azie, I disagree. Ready meals can be very nutritious and, at least people know what they're eating, because it's printed on the box.

I can eat more than that, because I'm very tall. I aim for 1500 calories, which allows for a bit of 'slippage', but it really isn't that much. I'm so used to portion size now that I don't bother calculating everything, but if my weight ever starts to creep up, I go back to basics and have to decide what to cut out.

daphne I think you're right about people not having much idea of how much they should be eating.

It's easy to find out, though. Not rocket science.

When I got my fitbit I was staggered to find out how little I should be eating. My TDEE (ie the number of calories my body needs to function) is 1350. If I add in 10,000 steps, I can get away with eating a few more. That's just to maintain weight.

That's not many calories at all.

Is part of the problem that food is so cheap now? I know some are struggling and use of food banks is growing but I endlessly see adverts for restaurants and food outlets offering pizza for £2.99 or some such. And there are huge numbers of people eating out now, you see them everywhere and catered food may well be high in fat and sugar. In fact, the cheaper the food, the more it will be high in those ingredients.
Ready meals are also cheap and not nutritious but instead likely to be full of cheap ingredients especially unhealthy fats, including palm oil which is in everything now and is, I believe, a saturated fat not a normal part of the human diet and likely to increase cholesterol levels.

I know many people choose ready meals because they are stressed and cooking for a family or are older and find cooking tiresome. I don't understand why we have lost our way as a nation regarding food. I've always cooked, mostly simple but tasty food, usually vegetarian though not totally.
I think the national curriculum now teaches children basic cooking skills. The government should ensure that continues but also should tackle the food industry. The latter get away with too much as a result of lobbying.

That just shows that there is no 'one size fits all' solution. As far as I'm concerned, eating is an essential function of life, like going to the toilet, and I prefer not to spend too much time doing that either.

I am highly restricted in what I can eat, so I prefer not to spend time even thinking about it. I plan what I'm going to eat, buy accordingly and am extremely efficient in cooking things as quickly as possible. I eat 'well' too - my scales, blood pressure monitor and blood sugar tests tell me I do.

When I am alone I eat well and cook myself nice meals. I enjoy food, new tastes, new recipes and that doesn't go when DH is away on business, not even when he has been gone for several months. I love my food, but I eat moderate amounts and have a very mixed diet.

I am also not overweight.

@Riverwalk

The difference between cigarettes and food is that food is essential. I don't really know how the government would classify food as 'non essential'. VAT is already charged on confectionery, but plenty of it seems to be sold. There's nothing wrong with the occasional Mars Bar, if somebody is feeling faint from hunger and it's a meal substitute. Calories are, after all, just a way of measuring energy.

I wonder how many people know how many calories they should be eating to maintain their current weigh/lose weight and how much they actually eat. The balance between carbs, protein and fat is also important. Most people eating a variety of foods don't need to bother about vitamins and minerals, It always amazes me how much the market in supplements is worth.