So many hidden nasties we need warning in food
MANDATORY health warnings on processed food would help reduce obesity.
Ireland has one of the highest levels of obesity in Europe, with 60% of adults and an alarming one in five children overweight.
Check out, for instance, a sliced pan, your kids’ favourite cereal or another shocker – rice cakes.
Unless they are organically certified they are by and large ultra processed foods, UPF.
Rule of thumb: if you don’t have an ingredient in your kitchen, it could be making you sick and keeping you overweight. My kids love the taste of ultra processed food because the products are soft.
Even those cute yoghurts with cartoon faces masquerading as health foods are UPF, it’s hard to escape.
The reason it gives us bigger waistlines is because we have to eat more of it to feel full, and we eat UPF faster than whole foods.
Parts of Asia and Mediterranean countries eat minimally processed foods, hence their populations live longer and have lower obesity rates. UPF offenders include fructose, highfructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrates, invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose, lactose, and modified oils.
Flavours, emulsifiers, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents are on the hit list too. If you see these on food packages don’t buy them. We need to eat more like the Japanese, where just 4% of the population are overweight. Naming and shaming offending companies selling the ultra processed goods would work. We need to eat more fish and fermented foods to be as lean as the Japanese, but more urgently ultra processed food needs to be cut out of our diet. Politicians should insist that UPF is labelled in bold black letters so we know what’s what. Who has time to check every packet in a shop after all?
Researchers say menopausal women who jump into the sea experience physical and mental health benefits that reduce symptoms like mood swings and hot flushes. The last time I jumped into the sea on New Year’s Day, I let out a guttural roar giving the elderly gent beside me the fright of his life. Does that count as a reduction in symptoms I wonder?