Britain still permits controversial chemical Bisphenol-A to be used in the manufacture of a range of plastic products

Britain still permits controversial chemical Bisphenol-A to be used in the manufacture of a range of plastic products, including water bottles and the lining of food and beverage cans, like "the lining of 18 out of 20 best-selling canned food items including Heinz baked beans, Napolina tomatoes, and John West and Princes fish, as well as in tuna and sardines cans from major UK retailers Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda."

See report in the Independent and report in Food Safety News.

Sainsbury's have a new range of 'freefrom' products

I see that Sainsbury's have a new range of 'freefrom' products, free-from wheat, gluten and/or dairy, and that is admirable. No doubt some other supermarkets have similar ranges to cater for customers who have allegies to wheat, gluten and/or dairy. But when are supermarkets going to provide products free from added SALT? - I don't mean low or lower in salt; I mean
FREE FROM ADDED SALT.
Far, far, far, far, far more of all supermarket customers are harmed by added salt than by wheat, gluten and dairy all combined They are the people who are overweight/obese/sensitive to salt, because obesity is caused by salt sensitivity.

See Vulnerable to salt.

And see Sodium in foods

See my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

All hens' eggs are due to be free-range within two years

All eggs to be free-range within two years

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Sainsbury's, the Co-op and Morrisons have all agreed to ban eggs from caged birds while Marks & Spencer and Waitrose already sell only free-range eggs.

All products containing egg will also use free-range varieties.

The chains will phase out battery hen eggs over the next two years, before an EU ban on battery cages due to come into effect in 2012.

Asda and Tesco have not yet followed suit, but have cut back shelf space given to battery hen eggs.

In Britain, "enriched cages", which are larger and have a perch, nest and litter, will still be legal but Germany will also ban these cages.

The move comes as the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver launches a campaign to persuade consumers to demand better welfare for hens.

He examines the poultry industry in a one-off television programme, Jamie's Fowl Dinners, in which he shows a series of films and interviews explaining the brutal living conditions of battery chickens that are killed for meat.

Sainsbury's, which Oliver promotes, said it was the first major supermarket to announce a ban on battery hen eggs and was expected to end the sale of all such eggs by next year.

Morrisons also plans to stop selling eggs from caged hens by 2010. A spokesman said: "We see animal welfare as an extremely important factor when sourcing produce - that's why we have taken action on eggs.""

Premium supermarket food is often unhealthier' than the budget versions. - Plus a warning about high salt content of bread from supermarket bakeries

Premium supermarket food 'often unhealthier'

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Luxury ranges of food in supermarkets are often less healthy than the budget versions, the consumer group, Which? reports today.

Researchers found that one in four shoppers buy these premium lines, such as Tesco Finest or Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, because they think the products are better for their health.

However, they are often the highest in saturated fat - one of the most unhealthy forms of fat commonly associated with strokes, heart disease and obesity. They also often contain more salt and sugar than the standard versions.

Morrisons' beef lasagne from its The Best range has twice the fat per portion of the budget version. Asda's Extra Special lasagne contains 0.9g of salt per 100g, compared with 0.6g in the budget Smart Price version.

Tesco sells Finest European chicken kievs with garlic and parsley, which contains 2.2g of sugar per 100g - almost four times as much sugar as its standard garlic butter chicken -breast kievs.

Meanwhile, at Sainsbury's, a Taste the Difference Cumberland pie, while having less saturated fat than the standard version, is more salty and has almost twice the amount of sugar.

Bread salt warning:

Which?, the consumer watchdog, warns today that bread bought from super­-market bakeries can be twice as salty as other loaves.

Which? says that pre-packaged bread usually labels its sodium content but fresh bakery bread does not. The bakery bread averages at about 0.9g of salt per 100g of bread, about 7.5g in a large 800g loaf. Asda's granary tin loaf has the least salt on average (0.5g per 100g). The four saltiest loaves (1.1g) were the Morrisons white and granary loaves, Sainsbury's white sandwich and Tesco granary."

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, 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.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Sainsbury's Bramley apple crumbles contain 0.5g sodium per 100g! - That's a high salt content! - Why make a fruit crumble salty? - It's a shame...)o:

Sainsbury's Bramley apple crumbles contain 0.5g sodium per 100g! - That's a high salt content! - Why make a fruit crumble salty? - It's a shame...)o: - Surely they could omit some of the salt? - You don't expect fruit crumbles to be salty.

I hope they will lower the salt content in this product.

On Sainsbury's Salt Reduction page today, it says (complete with their own typos!):

"Our team of suppliers and food experts have been working hard to find ways to reduce the salt in our own label food to meet the Food Standards Agency (FSA) salt targets, (the FSA have set salt target on 85 product categories to be achieved by 2010 - visit the Food standards Agency website for more informatrion.) We're fully committed to acheive these targets and have already achieved or exceeded these in many product area such as soup, baked beans, tomato ketchup, frozen pizza and our standard bread."

Well I can't say they're doing a very good job of reducing salt content if even their apple crumbles have a high salt content! - No person making their own apple crumble would dream of adding a lot of salt to it! I'm afraid that on this evidence, I can't really believe they are "working hard to find ways to reduce the salt in our own label food" as they claim.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

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 and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Warning that shop-bought sandwiches are high in salt.

Sandwich seven times saltier than crisps - Telegraph

Well it's been in 'all' the newspapers today and on Radio 4 and Radio 5 and on various TV newscasts. - You've got to hand it to CASH - Consensus Action on Salt and Health - they are good at drumming up publicity when they want it... - If only they would tell the full truth about salt and health, instead of the very restricted version they choose to put across. - I'll pick this up following this extract from the article:

"Pre-packed sandwiches can contain as much salt as several bags of crisps, according to research into Britain’s favourite lunchtime food.

A survey of 140 ready-made sandwiches found that some had more than half the recommended daily allowance of salt.

A total of 40 per cent of sandwiches tested by the health lobby group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) had 2g or more of salt, or a third of an adult’s recommended daily allowance.

The saltiest sandwich in the survey was Asda’s Extra Special Yorkshire Ham and Hawkes Wensleydale, which was found to contain 4g, or 65 per cent of the recommended daily salt intake.

Pret a Manger’s All Day Breakfast, with 3.54g, was next on the list followed by Tesco’s Finest All Day Breakfast, Morrisons’ Chicken and Bacon, Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Brunch and Waitrose’s Sausage, Egg and Bacon, all with 3.5g of salt.

Cash, which carried out the survey for the BBC, noted that a standard bag of Walkers Ready Salted Crisps contains 0.5g of salt, so the saltiest sandwiches contain the equivalent of seven bags of crisps.

The sandwiches with the least salt were Co-op’s Healthy Living Tuna and Cucumber and Tesco’s Healthy Living Chicken Salad."

Although it is good that CASH draws attention - both the consumers' attention and the retailers' attention - to these high salt/sodium levels, and although Prof MacGregor of CASH always correctly gives the information that lowering salt intake reduces risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, he does not give the most important information of all - that fluid retention is the cause of salt sensitivity, which in turn is the cause of weight gain/obesity and that lowering salt intake is the best and safest way to lose weight.

What a pity CASH's Professor MacGregor does not give the vital message that reducing the amount of salt eaten by obese/overweight people would be the safest, swiftest and most reliable way to reduce their excess weight! - What a pity he does not mention that high salt intake is the chief cause of child obesity! - What a terrible pity he does not mention that steroid victims - made morbidly obese because of taking certain prescribed steroids or HRT or tricyclic antidepressants or certain other drugs - need to reduce their salt/sodium intake to as low as they possibly can - permanently - in order to lose some of the vast volume of excess fluid they are carrying! - And what a pity he does not warn them that reducing calories is completely inappropriate and ineffective as a means of steroid victims losing weight and that eating less food will exacerbate their health problems, rather than helping them!

What a pity he does not press the food companies to produce some lines of foods specially for steroid victims and other obese victims of negligently prescribed/monitored drugs and people morbidly obese from other causes! - These would be foods containing NO ADDED SODIUM AT ALL. - And for everyone who thinks it's easy to avoid salt by cooking from fresh, I agree. - But it isn't easy cooking from fresh when you are morbidly obese and exhausted at having to carry gallons of excess fluid round with you all the time. - Nothing much is easy for morbidly obese people actually...)o:

And what a pity he doesn't seek to get it across to doctors that when they give their patients prescriptions for these potentially dangerous drugs they should give them a serious warning that eating salt while taking the drugs is likely to result in their becoming salt-sensitive and obese and likely to develop diabetes and dementia and a host of other degenerative diseases!

And what a pity he doesn't press for on-pack labelling of all these drugs to warn people not to eat salt or food containing salt while on the medication!

Lose weight! by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

and see http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

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

Remember: 'slimming' is harmful and unnecessary; all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - because their high potassium content helps to remove sodium from the body.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...(o:

I was horrified to see on TV the poor hygiene and the falsifying of the dates on out-of-date food in two Tesco and Sainsbury's supermarkets...)o:

I watched the BBC TV whistleblower programme last evening. It was about unhygienic practices in a Tesco supermarket and a Sainsbury's supermarket, and also unhygienic practices at a Ready Meals supplier. The bad practice was observed and recorded by undercover reporters working as supermarket staff.

I already do not buy/eat ready meals (because they are high in salt), but if I did, this programme would have put me off forever, 'cos I'm not keen on catching salmonella...)o: - But also, the 'fresh' meat and 'fresh' fish being sold in these particular supermarkets could clearly not be trusted actually to be fresh, because sell by dates were being falsified...

You can read an account by one of the undercover journalists here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6676345.stm and you can view the programme online from a link on that webpage for a week following programme transmission, which was Tuesday 22nd May.


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.)

Trans fats 'to be eliminated by retailers' (Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Asda, Sainsbury, Iceland, Co-Op, Boots and Waitrose)

Trans fats 'to be eliminated by retailers'

Extracts:

"Companies such as Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Asda have volunteered to stop adding trans fats to foods in order to prolong their shelf life."

"Andrew Opie, the British Retail Consortium's (BRC) food policy director, said: "This is the latest in a string of healthy food initiatives and shows BRC members, responding to customer concerns, are willingly delivering a scale and pace of change way beyond anything retailers or manufacturers are doing anywhere else in Europe.

"Sainsbury, Iceland, Co-Op, Boots and Waitrose are also among the companies that made the step."

"Unlike other fats, trans fats are in no way beneficial and can cause heart disease."

A pity transfats were ever added to foods! - and a pity they were not removed from foods long ago! - They have LONG been known to be harmful to health...)o: - See Ban Transfats and http://www.tfx.org.uk/