The Truth About Food

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/

TiggyW

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

It won't be the first time!

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

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 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

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.

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?

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

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

petra thank you for this link.
Sobering reading indeed ☹️

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

There's increasing evidence that UHP foods are often high in calories but low in fibre so they don't give a feeling of saiety they also frequently have poor nutritional value being high in bad fats, high in salt and low in protein. There's also growing evidence that these foods affect the gut biome adversely which can affect the way the body works particularly with regard to inflammation. My rule is if I don't recognise the ingredient in a food as food, I don't eat it, seems to work for me.

If you ever have the opportunity to take your grandchildren to see the man with the python, he is fascinating and pulls all sorts of creatures from the back of his car. He’s very knowledgeable and my grandchildren were entranced last summer.

foxie48

There's increasing evidence that UHP foods are often high in calories but low in fibre so they don't give a feeling of saiety they also frequently have poor nutritional value being high in bad fats, high in salt and low in protein. There's also growing evidence that these foods affect the gut biome adversely which can affect the way the body works particularly with regard to inflammation. My rule is if I don't recognise the ingredient in a food as food, I don't eat it, seems to work for me.

Quite

I’ve watched more of this type of programme than I’ve had hot (healthy) dinners!

It keeps people in jobs, it makes loadsa money for people (the twin docs, Michael Moseley, etc) but there really is little new stuff.

My Mum was a great one for clipping warnings out of magazines and newspapers about foods that were bad for you, super foods, foods to avoid for certain conditions. Don’t know why she bothered as my Dad grew all our veg, salad and fruit and she was a trained cook and always cooked from scratch. She had bowel cancer twice though (different strains).

My SIL died at 66 and she was a vegetarian, all their food came from their allotment and the veggie meals she cooked were amazing.

I go along with those who say “eat what you like in moderation”. I am not watching any more of those programmes.

"there really is little new stuff." Researchers tend to disagree with this. DNA sequencing has advanced research in many fields including the analysis of the gut biome.

"The study of gut microbiota is a rapidly moving field of research, and the impact of gut microbial communities on human health is widely perceived as one of the most exciting advancements in biomedicine in recent years. The gut microbiota plays a key role in digestion, metabolism and immune function, and has widespread impact beyond the gastrointestinal tract. Changes in the biodiversity of the gut microbiota are associated with far reaching consequences on host health and development. Further understanding of the importance of developing and maintaining gut microbiota diversity may lead to targeted interventions for health promotion, disease prevention and management. Diet, functional foods and gut microbiota transplantation are areas that have yielded some therapeutic success in modulating the gut microbiota, and warrant further investigation of their effects on various disease states."
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4040776/

I have now watched all three episodes, and I think they are brilliant. I already know a fair amount of anatomy, physiology, and nutrition and had already read Chris's book "Ultra-Processed People". Yet my learning was reinforced by the visual material and the practical demonstrations and experiments. To those who say there is nothing new here, I would say that it is new for the intended audience, i.e. children. In the shots of the audience, you can clearly see their fascination. If only the science lessons I had at school had been as good as this, I might have started to appreciate science sooner.

David49

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 caught something on the news yesterday about an American doctor who is saying people need to be more aware of the dangers of alcohol and there should be warning labels on alcoholic drinks.

I think that is daft, if anyone doesn't know about the dangers of alcohol, then I cannot see that a warning on a bottle will help.

It is not like cigarettes where, for a long time smoking was almost seen as 'healthy'. The dangers and evils of drink have been known as long as it has been drunk, which is probably only around 10,000 years.

Glad I’m doing ‘Dry January’ MayBee! 😁

I watched ep.3 of this fascinating series this afternoon. The strawberry ice cream and the can of fizzy ‘orange’ pop brought home to me our ‘disconnect’ with real food. I was hugely entertained by the experiments and the visual explanations were right up my street. I found ep.2 a bit too intellectual for me (the kids seemed to understand it though!). I enjoyed 1 & 3 better.

When our girls were little (early 80’s) my late mum bought a book called ‘Pure White and Deadly’. I’ve always remembered it as it was a revelation how harmful sugar in excess poses to our diet.

Well done mum - ahead of the curve!

It keeps people in jobs, it makes loadsa money for people (the twin docs, Michael Moseley, etc) but there really is little new stuff

I really think some people have ritither completely missed the point or want to remain in blissful.ignofance.
NOTHING in these lectures was aimed at making "loadsamoney" for anybody.
Understanding the science - both the biology and chemistry behind our digestive systems and our relationship with food was both fascinating and useful.