What are we feeding our kids? - BBC

A few years ago, it was depressing to see the level of resistance to Jamie Oliver's ideas, from parents as well as children.

Thank you for mentioning this elsewhere Chestnut as I hadn't seen this thread.

I was struck by the finding that when 2 groups of people were given food that was matched for levels of fat, sugar & fibre - one group getting ultra-processed food and the other getting minimally processed food - those who got the ultra-processed food ate more of it and gained more weight.

So the symbols on packaging can't tell the whole story.

I hope there is soon a study into the effects of this food on children.

This programme is on again tonight at 11.45pm if you want to record it, or still on BBC iPlayer.

I'm still reeling to be honest.

Studies show nutritional value has dropped since the data was first compiled. So, not only are the foods bland, but less nutritious than they were in the past. No wonder manufacturers 'enhence' their products. However, this really shouldn't be the way forward.e

I remember going on holidays in France in the 80s & looking for quick food to eat back at our Key Camp chalet. There was very little - not even a pizza. A few years later the supermarkets there stocked all sorts of nonsense - about the same time I was trying to avoid ready prepped & processed foods.

correction ... causing so many avoidable deaths.

I have my own copy of the nutritionist's bible; McCance and
Widdowson's Composition of Foods (sixth edition, published by the Food Standards Agency). which gives mineral and vitamin content of all basic foods. Their first edition is now
virtually unobtainable, but it showed that food was much more nutritious during the war. Alas soil has been depleted by over-use, and this applies to grass-fed meat as well as vegetables. A number of people find that food is tastier abroad.

I will never again regard Nestle as an honest business As others have said, Nestle were never an honest business. Many years ago National Childbirth Trust were running a boycotting campaign due to Nestle pushing formula milk in countries where breast really was best due to the lack of clean, safe water supplies.

MerylStreep - some of us have been boycotting Nestle since the 1970s when I learned of the way they have pushed formula milk in remote and underdeveloped areas causing so many unavoidable deaths. I believe Baby Milk Action is still going. Alexa I remember that - at the time it was billed as David v Goliath.

I can honestly say I have never knowingly bought a Nestle product since the 1970s and have written to them to say so every few years. They used to send me glossy info about how amazing they are - last year I just got an email with links to their corporate responsibility stuff.

As far as I'm concerned they are not honest now, and likely never have been.

When it comes to telling people what they should eat I think the important message here was to look at the ingredients and check how many of them are things that never appear in your own cooking. The more there are the bigger the risk.

nanna8 Out of interest where do you live?

It’s not so much about telling people what to eat but more about preventing parents from poisoning their children.

One thing about life here is that most people do still cook their own meals because there are only a limited selection of frozen ready meals. They are increasing but nothing like the number in Europe. It never really took off here. I object to being told what to eat,though. I know and so do most others.

Exactly nanna8.
A lot of parents today can`t be bothered to cook,you only have to look in shopping trolleys to see how much processed /junk food they buy.
And not just younger parents either.

Alexa
Nestle has never been an honest company.
I don’t know how old you are but many here will remember this scandalous horror.
www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/nestles-infant-formula-scandal-2012-6?r=US&IR=T#nestl-sued-a-war-on-want-publisher-for-libel-in-1974-10

Elan Vannin, I agree with you about potatoes. I used to be put off real potaoes because I peeled them too carefully. But I realised that it is not a sin to make thick potato peelings and this made my popato cookery much simpler. Boiled or par-boiled they are a base for all sorts of patato dishes.

Add oxo, oil or butter snd black peeper potatoes are good even better with cabbbage and onions.

Chestnut, it is frightening that processed food causes irreversible changes in the brain.

The problem is how to get people to eat better food. That Nestle's floating food shop in a boat where the healthy people were seduced into convenience food and fat bad health was a shocker. I will never again regard Nestle as an honest business.

Builders aren't helping tiny fridges and cookers pre installed. House like ours. Four bedrooms and a fridge too small to take the food for a family of four.

There was another programme about 2 years ago looking at this and also the effects of diet drinks not actually helping people lose weight. I think it was an Asian doctor helping people with various health issues through the foods they ate.
It's such a controversial subject though.

Sago I agree: healthy food is not more expensive - A bar of chocolate @75p or a bag of sweets @ £1.00 versus a banana - 30p all at our local supermarket - where the mum's pop in on the school run.

I thought the programme was both fascinating and terrifying in equal measure. I hadn't come across the categorisation that was used for foods according to how highly processed it is but it seems more helpful than the healthy / unhealthy divide. I do hope that this will be the starting point for much more research into the complex reasons for soaring obesity rates in children. And for adults also, given that obesity seems to be a high risk factor for morbidity / mortality from Covid.

What is so shocking is that no-one has really investigated the effects of these foods on children. I think Dr Chris was amazed at that too.

Some of these findings are really new. DD who is a biochemist who often works for the Food Standards Agency was shocked when she watched it.

The combination of rapid weight gain, change in hormone levels and changes in the brain are frightening when you start applying them to children.

I last visited a hospital about 3 years ago, I had to go to the canteen to get my mother something to eat as her appointment was delayed.
The selection of healthy food was nearly non existent, there was a bowl of fruit by the till everything else was processed rubbish.
I asked a member of staff why there was such a limited choice she said it was what staff demanded they tried healthy options but they were not purchased.

We had a house that we let for 7 years, we had 7 tenants through the property, the oven was never used or the pan set only frying pan and microwave.

Sago ???
I always walk past aisle after aisle full of processed rubbish, fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolate, cakes etc. The supermarket is stuffed full of processed foods. This is the problem, much too easy to access, and much to easy to prepare. The bottom line is PROFIT and this will not change until something is done to rectify the marketing of good food and bad food.
If people think this is not their problem, think again. Society relies on people to have functioning brains and not to be addicts. Overconsumption of this type of food means many children are now food addicts, what will the situation be like when they are adults?

I’ve been banging this drum for years, whilst supermarkets devote so many aisles to this rubbish and councils allow so many take aways nothing will change.

We need to bust the myth that fresh food is expensive, it’s not.
We also need to change how we teach young people in schools, when I worked in a school the children were taught to make Baileys cheesecake and Pizzas with a pre made base.

There should be a tax on take aways and processed foods and a ruling to limit the amount of floor space supermarkets can give to processed foods.

I did see it and unfortunately due to busy lives people don’t prepare and cook meals from scratch anymore. I always did as a young mum, working full time too. All it takes is planning and only buying what you need, I rarely throw anything away. The only way it will change is to educate our young people, home economics has disappeared from education.

FannyCornforth

It sounds a bit like Supersize Me.
Without watching me it, can you say what it is about processed food that causes obesity Chestnut please?
Or is it more than lack of nutrition that is the problem?

You should watch it! The processed foods actually change your brain and make you hungrier, so you eat more of them. They are truly addictive.
I realise there have been other programmes on the subject but what shocked me was there have been no studies done on how these foods are affecting children's brains. They are actually programming them to eat more. The availability of these foods is driving this, and as a nation we are consuming far more processed foods than in the past.
I really fear what this is doing to children's brains.