If I lived in London I'd be buying milk from Selfridges.

If I lived in London I'd be buying milk from Selfridges. - That's because, as the Guardian reports here, they are selling raw milk, i.e. milk that has not been pasteurised. Unfortunately, the Food Standards Agency is trying to put a stop to this, because of supposed risks of poor hygiene and microbial contamination. In actual fact, this raw milk is much more hygienically produced than is pasteurised milk, and the taste and nutritional content is far superior to the degraded pasteurised product. I've written more fully on the subject of raw milk before. There is an English dairy farm which produces and sells Raw Milk: Hook & Son.

Seriously, why are we even considering more junk additives in processed food, instead of simply banning the salt?

Seriously, why is anyone even considering more junk additives in processed food, instead of simply banning the salt? See today's Sunday Telegraph article. - Do you really fancy a bit of dental plaque(!) mixed in with your ready-meal? your cornflakes? your slice of toast? - Of course you don't!

The Food Standards Agency should stop playing about, and so should the Dept of Health and Andrew Lansley. They should all get it made illegal to add salt to processed food and thereby do what they are purportedly paid for, i.e. protect the health of UK citizens against the self-serving interests of the Food Industry. - And while they're about it, ban the addition of transfats too! - Come on, Mr Lansley! - Show us what you're made of! - Prove that you are not influenced against such a ban because of a conflict of interest that favours food manufacturers.

GeneWatch Director has resigned over Food Standards Agency 's pro-GM stand

FSA GM dialogue process a ‘PR exercise on behalf of the GM industry’
On 26th May, Dr Helen Wallace, the Director of GeneWatch UK, resigned her membership of the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) Steering Group for the GM dialogue, with immediate effect. In a public letter of resignation to John Curtice, the Chair of the Steering Group, she declared that it had become clear to her that the purpose of the FSA process was nothing more than a PR exercise on behalf of the GM industry. She also believes that the process would be a significant waste of £500,000 of taxpayers'money.
Read article on the website of the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) Europe

UK Faculty of Public Health wants ban on trans-fats in UK food

UK Faculty of Public Health wants ban on trans-fats in UK food. So do I! Read BBC News article, where you will see that "an editorial in the British Medical Journal said 7,000 deaths a year could be prevented by a 1% reduction in consumption" of trans-fats.

Trans-fats - solid fats found in margarines, biscuits, pastries, cakes and fast food - have no nutritional value and are banned in some countries. You'd think that the Food Standards Agency would be in favour of banning trans-fats, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong.

Trans-fats are used to extend shelf life of products and so are useful to the food industry, and the FSA pays far too much heed to the voice of the food industry, and so is unconcerned about those thousands of deaths that could be prevented and the even greater numbers of people suffering avoidable ill-health for want of a ban on trans-fats in food.

Do yourself and your family's health a big favour by avoiding fast food and using butter rather than margarine.

Even supermarket staples can contain terrifying levels of harmful additives, endangering the health of our nation's children

I've only come across this article today, so apologies that it was published back in January this year.

A killer on the shelves: the shocking truth about children's food
Article in the Independent

Extracts:

1) Baked beans and beef-burgers; sausages and cereals; pizzas and pita breads are among the most innocuous sounding items we might throw into a supermarket trolley: lunchbox staples and dinner-time essentials that many parents rely upon to keep their offspring happy and their wallets not entirely depleted.

But these foods have a hidden catch, an ingredient whose danger – despite being well-documented by health experts – is still not recognised by the average consumer. Although small amounts of this mineral are essential to life, we take so much that it has become an insidious killer, responsible for more deaths than wars, traffic accidents or illegal drugs. And yet it is kept in kitchens across the country – next to the pepper.

Salt, the secret killer of processed food, is everywhere. We eat two-thirds more of it than we should. Every time we tuck into a sandwich, or a packet of crisps – sometimes even cheese – there is a good chance we are raising our blood pressure.

2) With encouragement from the FSA, manufacturers have been reducing the amount of salt in food for the past 10 years. [I find that a questionable statement. - The FSA was not even in existence 10 years ago. It did not get started till 2000. And its salt advice, to the best of my recollection and knowledge did not start till 2003.]

3) Professor Graham MacGregor, Cash's chairman and professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital in London, urged manufacturers to step up their efforts to take salt out of food. "Anything that lowers blood pressure in childhood is likely to translate into lower levels of blood pressure in adult life, with reduced risk of developing heart disease and stroke," he said.

"And it's not just heart attacks and strokes that are caused by a high-salt diet. Too much salt is also linked with stomach cancer and osteoporosis and can aggravate the symptoms of asthma.

"If they really cannot reduce the salt content in food eaten by children to reasonable levels, perhaps they should consider ceasing production." [My emphasis.]

4) The British food and drink industry is keen to show that it is acting responsibly. An analysis of 100,000 products for the Food and Drink Federation by market research firm TNS Worldpanel showed that, in the past 12 months, 2,000 tons of salt had been removed from crisps, breakfast cereals, bread, home cooking products, and canned goods. Peter East, a director of TNS Worldpanel, said the average consumer purchased 0.3 per cent less salt in 2007.

That's a laugh! - "Peter East, a director of TNS Worldpanel, said the average consumer purchased 0.3 per cent less salt in 2007." - 0.3% less! - A few grains! - Good grief! Is he joking?

High salt intake in childhood causes child obesity. - It's disgraceful that this hugely important fact is not published by the obesity 'experts' and the experts on high blood pressure.

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

Caution is advised with regard to folic acid supplementation

Can folic acid cause cancer?
Article in the Telegraph:

Extract:

"Folic acid is the synthetic form of a naturally occurring B vitamin, folate. Women who have good levels of folate in their diet, or take folic acid supplements, are far less likely to have babies affected by the birth defect spina bifida. America and Canada started adding folic acid to flour in 1998 and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK has called for a similar fortification here. But recent research has linked high folic acid consumption with an increased risk of bowel cancer; the modest-sounding annual increase of one per cent could, in fact, amount to an extra 3,000 cases per year in the UK. Other evidence points to an increased risk of breast or prostate cancers."

""People with a high intake end up with unmetabolised folic acid floating in their bloodstream," says Dr Siân Astley of the Institute for Food Research in Norwich. "We don't really know what its consequences might be."

The recommended daily intake for folate is 200 micrograms (mcg), and most multivitamins contain this amount of folic acid. But it is also added to breakfast cereals, snack bars and some margarines. Official government advice puts the safe upper limit for folic acid at 1,000mcg per day, but the leading vitamin B expert, Prof David Smith of Oxford University, thinks there is now sufficient evidence to cut that down to 500mcg in general and 400mcg for cancer survivors.

"If you eat a lot of fortified cereals, you may want to rethink your daily multivitamin. Or you could stick with the vitamin pill and switch to wholegrains without added synthetic vitamins, such as porridge or muesli," says Dr Astley. "Fortification is an overly broad approach that increases everyone's folic acid intake, instead of targeting those who need it."

Cutting down on salt/sodium intake lowers the risk of most cancers.

Beware that Subway sandwich! - It is laden with salt!

Supermarket sandwiches have 'more fat than two McDonald's burgers'
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Channel 4's Dispatches programme examined products from five of Britain's largest sandwich companies - Boots, Greggs, Subway, Pret a Manger and Marks and Spencer.

Researchers measured the levels of fat, saturates and salt in 100 sandwiches using the Food Standards Agency's traffic light system.

According to the FSA, a red light indicates that the food is "high in something we should be trying to cut down on" and should only be eaten occasionally."

"Subway came bottom of the list in terms of salt content with 93 per cent of the sandwiches tested earning a red light.

The retailer's foot-long 'Meatball Marinara' contained 9.4g of salt, equivalent to 18 packets of ready-salted crisps.

Pret a Manger came third, followed by M&S and Greggs. Boots again faired best, with 7 per cent of its sandwiches earning a red light for salt."

If you are overweight or have high blood pressure/hypertension you need to avoid salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

See also FAT RETENTION

Tougher targets for lowering the salt in food have been announced after research shows Britons still consume on average 50 per cent more than advised.

Britons still eating 50pc too much salt
AArticle in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Breakfast cereals, bread and cheese are among 80 everyday foodstuffs that should have further cuts made to their salt contents, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

New research carried out by the FSA on nearly 700 British adults showed that average salt intake was 8.6g per day - significantly higher than the Government's national target of 6g, or one level teaspoon.

The findings, which come after a high-profile campaign to encourage people to reduce their salt intake, show that average consumption has continued to decline, falling from 9.5g in 2001 and 9g last year.

But reducing the average daily intake to 6g could prevent about 20,200 premature deaths every year from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure, according to the FSA.

It also says "substantial achievements" have been made by some producers - including breakfast cereal manufacturers, who have reduced salt in cereals by an average of 43 per cent since 2006; some crisp makers, who have managed a 55 per cent drop; and the makers of Pot Noodles, who have cut salt in the snack by half."

If the 'experts'would tell people the truth about the role of salt in the incidence and severity of obesity there would be such an outcry and a demand from consumers for lower salt or unsalted food that the manufacturers wouldn't keep playing silly beggars with their customers' health; they'd reduce the salt content substantially and pronto.

But of course not everyone needs to reduce salt/sodium intake. - In my opinion there should be ranges of food provided containing absolutely no added salt - so that steroid victims and amitriptyline victims and other very overweight people can have food that is safe for them to eat and is also convenient - because when you are very overweight you feel really tired and it is difficult and exhausting always to have to cook from scratch so as not to gain even more weight. - And there could be other food ranges that do have added salt, for the people who are slim and who do not have high blood pressure. - But the two ranges would need to be kept apart and be very easy to distinguish one from another.

And of course all the ranges could stop putting the calorie count on packs because it's irrelevant: calorie reduction does not reduce obesity AT ALL.

See Health problems associated with salt sensitivity and fluid retention

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

'Artificial colourings as harmful as leaded petrol for children'

'Artificial colourings as harmful as leaded petrol for children'

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"Artificial colourings could be removed from hundreds of food products after researchers found that they may be almost as harmful to children's development as leaded petrol.

The additives, found in a host of sweets and soft drinks, have been linked to behavioural problems. But a team at Southampton University, carrying out a £750,000 study for the Food Standards Agency, (FSA) suggested seven colourings, including tartrazine and sunset yellow, could also affect children's intelligence by up to five IQ points.

The board of the FSA, the industry's governing body, will meet on Thursday to consider recommendations from its officials that manufacturers should voluntarily remove six of the E numbers from their products while further research is carried out on the seventh, sodium benzoate. They would be urged to use natural replacements.

The Southampton study was published in September but the FSA ignored calls for swift action after the Committee on Toxicology said additives had only a moderate effect on some children.

Claims that the colourings were virtually as damaging as lead emerged when the leader of the research, Professor Jim Stevenson, wrote to the FSA demanding immediate action."

"The additives linked to hyperactive behaviour are:

• Tartrazine (E102): Yellow food colouring found in mushy peas and candy floss, banned from all foods and drinks for under-threes.

• Quinoline yellow (E104): Food colouring found in squash, flu capsules

• Sunset yellow (E110): Orange yellow colouring found in bubble gum and jelly babies.

• Carmoisine (E122): Red food colouring found in throat lozenges

• Ponceau 4R (E124): Red food colouring found in pear drops and bombay mix

• Allura red (E129): Red food colouring found in fruit jelly sweets and lollipops.

• Sodium benzoate (E211): Artificial preservative found in squash, fizzy drinks and cough syrup"

Bernard Matthews turkey plant will not be prosecuted about food hygiene failings at the time of bird flu incidence.

Watchdog clears Bernard Matthews plant - Independent

Extract:

"A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report published in February listed a catalogue of failings at the turkey plant.

Inspectors saw gulls feeding on meat scraps left in uncovered waste bins and polythene bags used for meat products left in open bins.

But the Food Standards Agency today said its probe had found "no evidence" that the firm breached animal by-product or food hygiene laws.

The watchdog said in a statement: "We have carefully scrutinised and considered the evidence in this case and concluded there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.

"Accordingly, we have decided not to proceed to a prosecution in this case."

The FSA said its decision followed a thorough examination into possible problems with food waste storage at the Bernard Matthews site.

Defra said the FSA had been investigating Bernard Matthews on its behalf. "


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)