Natural Selection

Ever looked at the long list of ingredients on a product and wondered what all those numbers were about? Based on the book by the same name by Bill Statham this ingenious app allows you to look up food and cosmetic additives either by their name or additive number and work out whether it really should be something you ingest or put on your body. It describes the uses of each chemical, potential effects on the body (eg allergen, toxin, carcinogen), symptoms it may cause and where else you might find it. It’s a handy little app to have whether you have chemical sensitivities, allergies, sensitive skin or simply want to be more mindful of the chemicals you expose yourself and your family to.

Lately it has been occurring to me that fast food companies have been supporting some very unusual causes. Not unusual in that the charity, event or condition is unheard of but unusual in that they seem to be in direct contradiction to the outcome of eating fast food. It all started during the Commonwealth Games when, not only was I frustrated by the frequency of the ads during the telecast but the frequency of a particular single ad. I’ll give you a hint: “The burgers are better at….” What is most frustrating is the motive of the fast food company. Sure they advertise at that time, on that channel because there are many people watching but there is also an unspoken association between the food and athleticism (I’m not kidding, there were literally people running, riding etc through the ad). That company doesn’t care for athletes? Elite athletes would not be seen dead eating such food. Other examples spring to mind where fast food companies support sport, the worse being Ronald McDonald encouraging your children to join Little Athletics. On the cricket a few nights ago I heard one of the commentators stating you could win a years supply of fried chicken if you entered a particular competition. You’d be struggling to play backyard cricket if you were the lucky winner of that competition.

Worse though, than the sporting events, are the charities. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t have anything against charities, especially those such as Ronald McDonald house which support the families of sick kids. But do we really need a day where people are encouraged to come and eat food that contributes to cancer, diabetes and heart disease in order to donate to it? It makes you wonder why the particular fast food company doesn’t just donate a proportion of their profits every year. Do you think the day in question has something in it for them? Of course, they get to keep more than three times the amount that gets donated from every burger. In a similar vein, a certain fried chicken company is currently donating $1 per bucket of fried chicken to the McGrath Foundation. From a public health perspective this is extremely alarming. It sends the message to the public that eating high saturated fat, nutritionally poor food laced with flavour enhancers and hormone growth promotants is compatible with the fight against breast cancer….. when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

So why exactly are food labels notoriously difficult to decipher? The reason behind this is simple; because the primary goal of most food companies, particularly processed food, is to sell their product to you so the fact that their product contains harmful ingredients, empty calories and even addictive substances is not going to be used as a marketing point. Food companies will always use the positive points about the product to encourage you to buy it and deliberately omit the negative aspects of the product. For example:

1. A label may say “Free from artificial colours, flavours and preservatives” and yet it will contain toxic and addictive flavours enhancers such as monosodium glutamate (MSG or 621) and the ribonucleotides (627, 631, 625).
2. A particular product (usually breakfast cereals) may promote itself as being fortified with vitamins and minerals. The fact that a product has been fortified with a handful of vitamins and minerals does not make up for the fact that 13 vitamins and 16 minerals along with fibre and a multitude of other phytonutrients and antioxidants have been stripped in the processing and that sugar and artificial colours have been added.
3. A product may promote itself as being ‘light’ but this may mean nothing more than it is light in colour.
4. The words ‘fat free’ usually means the product is laden with sugar and ‘cholesterol free’ laden with fat

The proposed traffic system of labelling food will do little to contribute to the easy selection of healthy foods because these systems usually only deal with key food components such as fat, sugar and salt and do little to differentiate foods that have a high nutrient content and that are free from nasty chemicals.

But, there are steps you can take to protect yourself and your family from the poor food quality that abounds these days. But how can food quality be so poor when there is such an abundance of it? I hear you ask. The best example is obesity. Overweight and obesity is basically the outcome of nutrient deficiencies. No matter what the volume of food some people eat they will continue to crave food whilst their food choices are poor and/or the nutrient density is low. This may be due to something so basic as the quality of our soils.

Here are my tips for a high quality nutrient dense diet and navigating those food labels.
1. Re-prioritize your budget towards organic food. Let’s face it feeding your family nutritious food is more important than a new flat screen (or is that just me?). Organic produce is free from toxic pesticides and richer in nutrients (check out this table) and the packaged products will not contain harmful additives.
2. Can’t afford organics? The next best rule is ‘fresh is best’: avoiding processed food altogether eliminates the need to decipher food labels. Recipes needed be complicated and you can flavour your own food with herbs and spices.
3. Don’t have time to cook from scratch? Become an expert in food labeling by bypassing the front of the packet altogether and going to the ingredient list and nutrition panel.
4. The nutrition panel: Always look at the per 100g column and go for under 10g sugar and 10g fat per 100g (3g for dairy). Saturated fat should be restricted to a third of the fat content. If you are trying to lose weight aim for 3g of both fat and sugar per 100g.
5. Fat in the ingredient list: If fat is listed as one of the first 5 ingredients of a product, it is likely to contain a fair bit as ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. To make matters more confusing fat and sugar often masquerade under other names. Other names for fat include vegetable oil/fat, animal oil/fat, ghee, dripping, shortening, copha, lard, tallow, coconut oil, palm oil, chocolate chips, milk solids, chocolate and butter.
5. Sugar in the ingredient list: The same rule applies for sugar and other names for sugar include sucrose, maltose, lactose, dextrose, fructose, glucose, molasses, treacle, malt extract, raw or brown sugar, cane sugar, castor sugar, syrup, disaccharides, monosaccharide, polysaccharide, honey and invert sugar
6. Additives in the ingredient list: this is an absolute minefield and I recommend you get the magnifying card from the Food Intolerance Network. It is a handy card you can carry with you while shopping that magnifies the ingredients and lists all additives which are harmful.

What all of this amounts to is that in order to have a healthy diet we should fundamentally be eating food as close to nature as possible so we are less likely to consume highly processed, sugar, fat and additive laden food which might taste great but doesn’t offer much in the form of disease prevention. We live in a society where consumerism reigns supreme….don’t let your diet, and ultimately your body, fall victim to it as well.