Fat, sugar and salt - do you agree?

I agree that there is too much of all those things in ready meals and manufactured food gangy5 but your petition (admirable as it is) is NOT the only way. Teach people to cook from scratch using fresh food is another option. It's cheaper in the long run too... opening a tin and slamming it into the microwave or opening a packet and throwing it in the oven isn't the answer. Cook the way people did before all this convenience food made us fat and lazy is the real way forward.

I am puzzled about all these warnings about what we should or should not be consuming and agree with Mollie that ready foods could be the problem.

Years ago people seemed to eat a lot of fat in their diet and added salt fairly liberally to the food they cooked. An aunt of DH always took plenty of salt and sugar with her food and drank a pint of Jersey milk every day. She lived to nearly 100. My own parents and MIL lived well into their 80s consuming salt and fat, plus sugar.
There is more to it than a simple demonisation of certain foods; it is when raw foods are converted into more complex structures, eg corn syrup, margarines etc, which I believe is causing a problem.

gangy5 Sorry but I don't agree that this is the way to go.
The food industry is already regulated and I don't see what else food manufacturers can do besides put labels on their products. These days most of them show clearly by the red/amber/green system whether sooemthing is good opr harmful. I'm not sure whatr changes you would make?

People have to take some responsibility for what they eat.

I don't think fats are harmful except for trans fats.

Ready meals can be a godsend and aren't harming people, unless perhaps they eat them every day, but their lack of knowledge about nutrition and how to cook nutritious food possibly does.

I agree with Mollie that learning how to cook properly is the way to go.

Years go people were indeed eating a lot of fat in their diet and coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths were double what they are today. This is before wholesale consumption of corn syrups, trans fats, etc.
In 1961, there were around 166,000 deaths from CHD in Great Britain by 2009 this had halved to around 80,000 deaths, according to the British Heart Foundation.

Yes, there are always individuals who smoke 40 a day or consume junk and live to 100, but that's the exception to the rule.

Deaths from heart disease may have been reduced (because of better medication and ways to keep people alive) but I'm not sure the incidence of heart disease has been reduced.

Doubtless Bags that is one reason, plus the decrease in cigarette smoking, etc. but it also appears the incidence of heart disease has dropped too, even in Scotland.

PS deaths not just 'reduced' but actually halved

Aka You seem to be implying that diet is the main factor in CHD, but it is not so simple.

There is controvery about the role of dietary fat in CHD

and the WHO says this:
"The most important behavioural risk factors of heart disease and stroke are unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, tobacco use and harmful use of alcohol. Behavioural risk factors are responsible for about 80% of coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease " www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs317/en/

Heredity is another risk factor, and some scientists believe that infection has a role too. content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1124505
"It is also being recognized that the traditional risk factors, such as smoking, dyslipidemia, hypertension and diabetes mellitus, do not explain the presence of coronary atherosclerosis in a large proportion of patients. We believe that in certain genetically susceptible people, infection with very common organisms, such as Chlamydia pneumoniae or cytomegalovirus, may lead to a localized infection and a chronic inflammatory reaction."
There is also some evidence of a link (not a causal relationship) between periodontal(gum) disease and coronary heart disease.
www.adajournal.com/content/137/suppl_2/14S.full

I think the point is that when there are so many factors involved in a complex condition, it is not appropriate to increase regulation, which always increases costs which are then passed on to the consumer, and which may have very little beneficial effect, if any.

How on earth did you make that assumption Jane? I could probably list all the probably causes of heart disease with having to resort to google.

Good post, jane.

Had a look at various sites on google last night, aka (NHS, BHF, etc) and none of them mentioned a reduction by half of the incidence of CHD. Could you maybe point me to the place where you found that info? Don't hurry on my behalf as I'm away this weekend but others may wish to see the source too. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for putting diet in context re CHD jane . Although I think there is a lot of food marketing that implies that foods have health benefits when they do not. It is very hard to regulate this grey area because they know just how far they can go before they break the law. (which is quite strict on claiming health benefits) My favourite example is probably "multigrain cereal", which could just mean a mixture of refined wheat, rice, cornflour etc. So parents actually think they are making a healthy choice when they are not.

Bags you ask to be directed to a site which mentioned a 'reduction by half of the incidence of CHD'

My PS said 'deaths not just reduced but halved. Repeat deaths halved.

I'll find the report and paste it for you and others.

In the spirit of a good, friendly, discussion let me please ask that words are not put into my mouth.

BHF Report

and

Aka I said you 'seemed to be implying that diet is the main factor in CHD'.

I think that was a fair comment on this sentence in your post:
"Years go people were indeed eating a lot of fat in their diet and coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths were double what they are today."

I wasn't assuming anything.

Jess agree with you about labelling being misleading - my favourites are the fruit pies which claim to be one of your '5 a day'

That was a stated fact Jane. People were eating more fats and deaths were double today's rate.

Nowhere did I say that this was the main factor of CHD. That was your assumption. I also mentioned in passing cigarette smoking. I could have mentioned age, gender, heredity, dental hygiene, lifestyle, etc but I was responding to a remark by another poster which may have implied that years ago people ate lots of fat, salt and sugar and were none the worse for it.

That is my last word on it because I am sensing you just want to score points rather than discuss and that is not what I want to enter into.

Thank you for the link, Aka
It just confirms what a complex, and complicated, picture it is, but I would suggest that changes in diet have not played that great a part, and probably medical practice (prescribing drugs to prevent heart attacks and stroke, and other interventions before they happen) and the fall in prevalence of smoking have had a greater influence.

The main points from the summary are that, as Bags said,
the incidence rates for heart attack have decreased for all age groups
and both sexes since the 1960s.
Also,
- survival rates from heart attack have improved since the 1960s.
– In 2008, around 266 million prescriptions were issued for CVD
in England, nearly five times as many as issued in 1986.
– Over 80,000 percutaneous coronary interventions are conducted
every year in the UK, more than three times as many as a decade ago.
– The prevalence of smoking in Great Britain declined sharply
between 1972 and 1994. Since then, prevalence has continued
to fall, but more slowly.
– The quality of the average UK diet has improved in some aspects
since the 1960s, such as reductions in saturated fat and sugar intake.
– The prevalence of heavy drinking has not substantially increased
in either men or women since the 1970s.
But
– Childhood obesity has been increasing since the mid 1980s in both
boys and girls in the UK.
– Adult overweight and obesity rates are also continuing to increase.
– The number of people who have suffered a heart attack has
increased since 1961, due to increased survival rates and an
aging population.

Who knows what the future holds.

crossed posts Aka. Sorry, I thought we were having a sensible discussion about the OP.

I don't think I do agree. I think we could be heading for a generation of undernourished children.

My granny ate bread and dripping. Lived to a healthy ninetysix. I was fed bread and lard with sugar on it as a kid - loved it. And then there was the treacle tarts and treacle puds my mum made. And the 3d bags of chips and crisps with plenty of salt. Thank the lord the government forced milk into me.

(I did do loads of exercise)

(don't think my granny did any though )

Yes, crossed posts. It would seem that 40-50% is due to medical interventions and treatment. The rest is due to other reasons.

Incidentally you might wish to re-read your penultimate sentence

Housework was harder work back then, jings. That counts as exercise. And walking to the shops.