The Truth About Food

I just watched the first one. Many thanks to the OP for posting about it or I wouldn't have even known it existed. No one can assume from a title what a program or book may be about. The first one was fascinating and detail how our digestive system worked and why. Not about food fads. I can't remember the one I went on in the 80s which cut out fats. Then there was the Atkins diets which was also grim. This wasn't like that at all.

M0nica

^I also informed them that although the individual 'ingredients night have been tested and declared 'safe' they had not been tested in combination with others. There are so many 'non food ingredients' that replicate real foods with real flavours, textures and so on that our bodies can't cope with hence the rise in allergies and other food related conditions.^ (Loopylyn2)

I completely agree. The book ^E is for Additives* came out in the mid 1980s and contributed to my journey towards, what I would call thoughtful eating, where possible, eating food produced locally, using traditional methods and with respect for animal welfare and steering clearly of additives, and over-processed foods.

This is scaremongering, most shoppers don’t have the luxury of buying local produce direct from the grower they buy what they can afford from the local supermarket.

There is no nation health emergency connected to ingredients added to food in the UK, most of them are there to improve shelf life and stability of the product. The health issues revolve around obesity caused by eating too many calories, lives are being shortened by over eating. Calorie content of ingredients, meals even takeaways is displayed on every pack or menu and it’s ignored buy most.

The other major contribution to diet is alcohol, vast quantities are sold alongside food in supermarkets the calories in that is rarely added to food nutrition

I also informed them that although the individual 'ingredients night have been tested and declared 'safe' they had not been tested in combination with others. There are so many 'non food ingredients' that replicate real foods with real flavours, textures and so on that our bodies can't cope with hence the rise in allergies and other food related conditions. (Loopylyn2)

I completely agree. The book ^E is for Additives* came out in the mid 1980s and contributed to my journey towards, what I would call thoughtful eating, where possible, eating food produced locally, using traditional methods and with respect for animal welfare and steering clearly of additives, and over-processed foods.

My mother, a nurse, thought that sugar was nourishing.
A friend's young son, small for his age, was prescribed glucose powder to be taken every day to 'build him up'.

Nutrition, as a subject, may not be all that new but knowledge about it is increasingly being gained eg by the Zoe study which monitors a large number of people.

In a former life I was teaching Nutrition in schools. Most students weren't much interested at the time but I hope some of them are recalling the info I gave them - that there is no such thing as a bad food only bad diets. I also informed them that although the individual 'ingredients night have been tested and declared 'safe' they had not been tested in combination with others. There are so many 'non food ingredients' that replicate real foods with real flavours, textures and so on that our bodies can't cope with hence the rise in allergies and other food related conditions.

On my laptop home page yesterday there were lots of articles about good or bad cooking oils. The absolutely contradicted each other! I gave up on reading them.
I have recorded the TV programme and will watch soon.

www.pan-uk.org/the-human-and-environmental-cost-of-perfect-strawberries/

petra thank you for this link.
Sobering reading indeed ☹️

I haven’t watched it yet, but will do as I’m very interested in the subject.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/01/hospital-admissions-lack-of-vitamins-iron-nhs-figures?

This almost deserves a thread of it's own. So shocking. Buried deep in it is the rising cost of fresh food and that cheap food is lacking in nutrition. The ability to cook and the cost of cooking is I suppose part of the problem too. Very troubling.
Happy New Year?

Indigo8

janeainsworth

Monica Nutrition isn’t a new science. The Manual of Nutrition, published by HMSO, was first published in 1940.
Then, the main concern was preventing vitamin deficiency & ensuring adequate intake of protein & calories for a largely manual workforce & the healthy development of children.
I think what is relatively new is the increasing knowledge about the importance of the composition of the gut microbiome and its impact on many aspects of health, and recognition of the role of the food industry & advertising in adversely affecting modern diets.

The Science of Nutrition Simplified by Dr David Davey Rosewarne was published in 1929 and there may be books published even earlier.

Nutrition is a new science. It has only arisen since the mid-19th century compared with physics, chemistry, astronomy etc. that humankind were thinking about and investigating many thousands of years BC.

I watched all 3 episodes. Really interesting. I think they should be shown in all schools to teach children - especially the final one. In the final episode - the making of ice-cream was disgusting, and in my opinion scary as to what can be made from no real foods.
I do read ingredients on foods that I buy, and cook the majority of our meals from scratch, so you could say I’m prejudiced re artificial ingredients

TiggyW

These are Royal Society Christmas Lectures - not some weird, crazy scientist trying to sell a new dieting fad!
I’ll be watching Part 3 shortly.
P.S. I would be wary of anything from China.

This

I think I know by now, healthy foods and those I need to limit. I personally think sugar best avoided cant always do it but try.

TiggyW

I think some GNs have misinterpreted the original post. Please watch the programme first!

It won't be the first time!

Spare a thought for the migrant women workers ( and their children) who pick the strawberries in the horror that is the polytunnels in Andalucía.
They are bending over picking breathing in this poison 😡
As if their living conditions aren’t bad enough the job is killing them.
www.pan-uk.org/the-human-and-environmental-cost-of-perfect-strawberries/

I think some GNs have misinterpreted the original post. Please watch the programme first!

argymargy

MayBee70

Notagranyet24

I think there's a problem now, led by a push back from food manufacturers, that the label UPF is providing something to argue over rather than be seen as flagging up a problem with the large scale production of food which is not giving us what we think it is.
The key point is to look at the ingredients list and if it's very long with a list of ingredients you've never heard of it may well be made up of substitute ingredients that are cheap first and nutritious (maybe) second.
From the days of cornflakes, manufactures have tried to think of ways of producing food cheaply as the prime objective. UHP People doesn't need many pages to start laying out that ice cream is a kind of foam, that starch is used in many industrial processes as well as food and that German scientists tried out UHP first on food which they knew was toxic and which they gave to German troops knowing full well that anyone who ate it for long would die but well, they were going to die anyway...

I've been interested in quality food and food production for a long, long time probably since the 1980s when I wrote to my then-astonished MP about carrot pesticides and why they were not good for human consumption.

The problem is world wide and supposed 'choice' has brought as many problems as it has solved and has contributed to corruption, absurd shortages and inequality. I'm suspicious of Chinese products too and I fear for the lives of plantation workers in chocolate and coffee plantations worldwide.
www.resurgence.org/magazine/article3035-the-true-cost-of-cheap-food.html
Probably climate change is eventually going to sort it out with our demise, I hope we leave some kind of habitable world for other species.

When my partners brother was being treated for cancer his consultant told him that if there was one food he needed to buy organic it was carrots because of the pesticide that was used on it. So we’ve bought organic carrots ever since.

Do you really think the only food grown with pesticides is carrots?!

No, not at all. I don’t think I said that
?
But the pesticides used on carrots and the way they react with it appear to be particularly bad. And, as we can’t afford to buy everything organic we just made a point of buying one thing that an oncologist had made a point of singling out from the many fruits and vegetable available. And organic carrots don’t seem to be a great deal more expensive than non organic so it’s something we can stick to.

Farzanah

No I wasn’t. Is there info available re this please?

Here is one article. I picked it up as I’m a member of Green Peace. There is a very good article from them online.
It’s not only us that are in danger but they are killing bees at an alarming rate.

janeainsworth

Monica Nutrition isn’t a new science. The Manual of Nutrition, published by HMSO, was first published in 1940.
Then, the main concern was preventing vitamin deficiency & ensuring adequate intake of protein & calories for a largely manual workforce & the healthy development of children.
I think what is relatively new is the increasing knowledge about the importance of the composition of the gut microbiome and its impact on many aspects of health, and recognition of the role of the food industry & advertising in adversely affecting modern diets.

The Science of Nutrition Simplified by Dr David Davey Rosewarne was published in 1929 and there may be books published even earlier.

These are Royal Society Christmas Lectures - not some weird, crazy scientist trying to sell a new dieting fad!
I’ll be watching Part 3 shortly.
P.S. I would be wary of anything from China.

petra

Cariadagain
Thanks for the laugh Re the plastic rice 😂 hilarious.
I didn’t think anyone over a certain age 😉 believed that joke.

Here is the BBC News report on this myth www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40484135

Hell no. What's good for you or not food wise seems to change every other day. Eating plenty of fibre sounds like common sense. How the body procesesses food I learnt when I was at school and then again at college. What the body requires to survive I also learnt at college.

No I wasn’t. Is there info available re this please?

Farzanah

*Notagrannyyet24*. I’ve just signed up to pan uk which is very informative. The main concern appears to be imports, especially now we’re out of EU, particularly India.

Are you aware that EU fertiliser companies are exporting this poison to countries that don’t have restrictions on pesticides because they can’t sell it in the EU
These countries then export the fruit and veg to us.

Cariadagain
Thanks for the laugh Re the plastic rice 😂 hilarious.
I didn’t think anyone over a certain age 😉 believed that joke.