Andrew Lansley, UK's Health Secretary, does not favour regulation to improve public health

It is shaming to read in this excellent Independent article, that Britain's Secretary of State for Health intends to reduce the regulation of junk food, smoking and cheap alcohol. And it is astonishing that a guy who was formerly a director of a marketing company with junk food clients, should have been placed in a position to exert such malign power over food policy. Britain has massive health problems, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, etc. that could so easily be reduced by banning food producers from adding transfats to foods and by putting legal curbs on the amount of salt/sodium that processed food manufacturers, restaurants and fast food takeaways are allowed to add to the food they sell. Lansley is seeking to promote the interests of the food and drinks industry, rather than the health of UK citizens. This is deplorable.

Are you vulnerable to salt? Here is the safe, sure way to lose excess weight fast by cutting down on salt and salty food.

Department of Health favours Big Business over Public Health for its policy on Obesity, Alcohol and diet-related disease

Read Guardian article. "The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned."

I haven't read all of the hundreds of readers' comments published beneath the article, but I've read a lot, and not one of those I've read was other than deeply cynical about this catastrophic decision by the DoH. Even the catering company guilty of providing innocent school-children with salt-laden, additive-rich, nutrient-free crap called Turkey Twizzlers, instead of with proper food for their school dinners years ago, is to play a part in the advice given to the asinine DoH.

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

Foxes and cows and pheasants and calves... "The Lie of the Land"

Hay festival: Molly Dineen's shocking new film - The Observer

Extracts:

"Dineen lays bare our hypocritical attitude to animals - why was so much time at the highest levels of government spent on protecting foxes when thousands of pheasants and calves are culled every year because they are simply not economically viable? Why is the value of one animal life so much higher than another's?

Many of us, perhaps wilfully, shield ourselves from the reality of the food we eat - dead cows helpfully appear as abstract chunks of flesh squashed into cellophane wrappers, no extra thinking required to throw it into a frying pan. The effect of that ease of consumption, where supermarket monopolies mean that it's cheaper to import cows from Venezuala than to rear calves born in England, is given a human face in Dineen's film."

"Our refusal to pay an extra penny or three for a pint of milk forces farmers to stop farming; it ends in the conversion of farms across great swathes of the country into second homes for the wealthy. And it isn't helped by a government policy that is indifferent about whether the food Britain eats is grown here."

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/