The Misconceptions of Healthy Food
There are so many misconceptions about food. Increasingly the health lobby is getting more publicity about how potentially harmful some popular foods can be. Breakfast cereals and muesli with fruit juice is not the healthy way to start the day. There is too much sugar when the daily intake of an adult shouldn’t be more than a few teaspoonfuls. There was a recent article in the Daily Telegraph that has highlighted where many people have been going wrong. Consumers buying what they think are better options because of their description as ‘low fat’ are actually buying products stacked with sugar, far more than the full fat alternatives.
Small print
No one wants to spend time reading the small print on labels to see the ingredients of every product before they buy. It looks as though they should if they are buying packets and cans because the food industry appears to be reluctant to change its ways.
There is self regulation in the food industry but many people concerned with health and nutrition feel that more needs to be done to ensure that unnecessary levels of sugar, salt and fat are not added to food because of the flavour they can provide. “Government should regulate”, they demand.
Sugar limits
The World Health Organisation (WHO) advises a maximum of six teaspoons of sugar per day. Single portions of several supermarket products have two, even three, teaspoons of sugar in something that would only make up a fraction of a normal person’s daily food intake.
There is plenty of advice on eating fresh food, fruit and vegetables straight from the counter rather than from packets and cans. That certainly makes sense. It also makes sense to look at meat; lean red meat and white meat is fine and there are few limits to the meals that they can provide as long as they are not fried. Even a burger is alright as long as the mince is lean and from a source that has built a reputation for quality, someone like protein foods direct that know exactly the origin of all its meat.
The benefits
Herbs and spices can add plenty of flavour naturally as opposed to the addition of sugar, salt or fat which the food industries seem to prefer.
There are so many health benefits in ignoring processed foods high in sugar. They range from helping prevent tooth decay to combating diabetes and potential heart problems through obesity. If the food industry was required to avoid misleading descriptions it would help. Terms such as ‘low fat’, ‘reduced calorie’ and ‘sugar fee’ are clearly not telling the whole story in identifying what is healthy and what is not and without changes – the problems are likely to continue.
