UK: The Public Bodies, (Sustainable Food) Bill

From The Weston A Price Foundation London Chapter:

ACTION ALERT - Government moves to enforce their dietary guidelines upon schools, prisons, hospitals and all other public bodies. Please lobby your local MP and interest groups. Details below.

The Public Bodies, (Sustainable Food) Bill has just passed its second reading in the Houses of Commons.

This bill will force all public bodies, i.e. schools, prisons and hospitals to comply with the government's low fat, low salt, nutrient deficient dietary guidelines. This will bring Britain in-line with USA, where Federal Funding is dependent on compliance with the USDA's dietary guidelines which have caused so much harm. That drive is coinciding with corporations having their food certified as being one of your five a day. So we see baked beans and pizza being certified in order that they gain catering contracts if this legislation is passed.

PLEASE CIRCULATE MY RESPONSE TO THE BILL TO YOUR LOCAL MP AND INTEREST GROUPS: http://files.meetup.com/1463924/Sustainable%20Food%20Bill%20Response.doc

If this bill is passed, parents will only be able to provide nutrient dense foods if they provide a packed lunch and will be banned from lobbying their school to introduce nutrient dense foods. We have even seen in some American States, schools telling parents what to put in school lunches and Chicago has banned packed lunches to stop Parent's circumventing the dietary guidelines.

This bill is one step towards a tax on fat, saturated fat and sugar, which Prime Minister David Cameron has voiced support for this in the recent "Conservative" Party Conference. We are even against a tax on sugar because it will encourage artificial sweeteners.

Philip Ridley
01442 384451
westonaprice.london@gmail.com

westonaprice.org/london

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Real Food - more thoughts

This is not a recent study - it goes back to 2006 - but it is interesting with respect to all our thoughts about eating real food rather than supplements or processed food.

The 6-a-day study: effects of fruit and vegetables on markers of oxidative stress and antioxidative defense in healthy nonsmokers.

The abstract is here and the whole study is available here

In addition to some interesting commentary on the whole area of antioxidants, some of which may now be a bit out of date, the conclusion is that :  Fruit and vegetables increase erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase activity and resistance of plasma lipoproteins to oxidation more efficiently than do the vitamins and minerals that fruit and vegetables are known to contain.

It is the WHOLE FOOD that is important, not the elements of it.  You could take habdfuls of supplements to mimic the content of liver or an apple, yet never gain the nutrional benefits that would come from the real, whole foods.   It is not complicated, but it is worth noting.

(Thanks to Mike for pointing this study out, and congrats on the newbaby)

Dr Briffa gives Quorn a bit of a kicking....

Readers in the UK will be aware of Quorn, a heavily marketed pseudo food used often as a meat substitute for vegetarians. It is marketed as high in protein, low in fat, zero in cholesterol....

After criticising it in a newspaper piece as having"no great nutritional value", Dr Briffa found the Quorn company in touch with keen to explain the nutritional and "natural" nature of their product. In a great post on his blog, Dr Briffa reproduces the email exchanges. It is science versus dogma and marketing and very revealing!

Wikipedia has an interesting bit on Quorn referring to some of the controversies associated with this weird product quoting:

complaints with advertising and trading-standards watchdogs in Europe and the USA, claiming that the labelling of Quorn as "mushroom based" was deceptive.[citation needed] The CSPI, observing that while a mushroom is a fungus, fusarium is not a mushroom, and they quipped, "Quorn's fungus is as closely related to mushrooms as humans are to jellyfish."

This is quite interesting in the context of the recent post on nanotechnology in food and the ideas Scott discusses here.

How does nanotechnology taste?

If you thought that GM food was a little sinister, then you will be appalled by the implications of an article in the Guardian today. It looked at the science of nanotechnology and how it could revolutionise food.

How do you fancy tucking into a bowl of ice cream that has no more fat than a carrot? Or eating a burger that will lower your cholesterol? If you are allergic to peanuts, perhaps you'd like to fix your food so that any nut traces pass harmlessly through your body. Welcome to the world of nanofoods, where almost anything is possible: where food can be manipulated at an atomic or molecular level to taste as delicious as you want, do you as much good as you want, and stay fresh for ... well, who knows? A world where smart pesticides are harmless until they reach the stomachs of destructive insects; where food manufacturers promise an end to starvation; where smart packaging sniffs out and destroys the micro-organisms that make good food go bad. In short, a food heaven to those who see it spelling the end of obesity and poor diet. Food hell to those who believe the case for nanofood safety is still far from proven. One thing is certain: after the controversy that surrounded genetically modified foods, nano is set to become the next kitchen battleground.

Definitely worth a read.