Daily Archives: February 7, 2018

Opinion – Does the UK really have the unhealthiest diet in Europe? – John Gelmini

February 7, 2018 By in Business Administration, Healthcare, People, Politics Leave a comment
English: Fighting Obesity

English: Fighting Obesity (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sadly, this is the case and has been for some time – the UK really have the unhealthiest diet in Europe.

The evidence is clear. We, in the UK, have the fattest woman in Western Europe and the fourth fattest men. And we die off earlier than anyone else in Western Europe.

In addition, we drink double the global average for alcohol, exceeded only by Lithuanians and have the highest sugar and salt content in the foods we cook and junk/processed foods consumed in largest quantities in Europe.

As Dr Alf knows, from his “Hard Look” blogs, there are additional factors which make food in the UK unhealthy. 80% of the population does not know how to cook or that you should ideally dine before 7.00pm so that food is digested properly. This is compounded by drinking on an empty stomach and then eating hours later or not at all, eating food saturated with rape seed /vegetable oil as opposed to olive oil and the consumption of sugary drinks often complete with fluoride and aspartame. This last substance was developed for the Pentagon as a biological warfare agent by a company which had Donald Rumsfeld on its board.

The NHS and the Department of Health does not regard food as medicine, which means that UK patients have a longer recovery time and in many cases do not recover, thus making UK hospitals “the last stop” before death.

Cooking or preparing food in aluminium saucepans causes dementia (the UK’s number one killer), microwaving food can cause cancer and drinking soup or soft drinks from an aluminium can is equally dangerous. For that reason any soup I eat is either home-made or is Baxster’s soup in a steel can.

John Gelmini

Read Original – Household availability of ultra-processed foods and obesity in nineteen European countries

February 7, 2018 By in Business Administration, Healthcare, People, Politics Tags: , , Leave a comment
1932 advertisement for Del Monte Foods canned ...

1932 advertisement for Del Monte Foods canned food products, prominently featuring pineapple. Out of the magazine Good Housekeeping. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: This image shows a display of healthy...

English: This image shows a display of healthy foods on a table. Foods include beans, grains, cauliflour, cantelope, pasta, bread, orange, turkey, salmon, carrots, turnips, zucchini, snowpeas, string beans, radishes, asparagus, summer squash, lean beef, tomatoes, and potatoes. AV Number: AV-8812-3430 Reuse Restrictions: None – This image is in the public domain and can be freely reused. Please credit the source and/or author listed above. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Read the abstract of new research study confirming that the UK has the unhealthiest food in Europe because it is ultra-processed in factories. Check it out!

Source: Household availability of ultra-processed foods and obesity in nineteen European countries – Public Health Nutrition

The study contributes to a growing literature showing that the consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with an increased risk of diet-related non-communicable diseases. It reinforces the need for public policies and actions that promote consumption of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and make ultra-processed foods less available and affordable.

So why is the UK, so bad? Clearly, public health policy in terms of promoting healthy diet is completely ineffective. Secondly, there’s a powerful food lobby with large marketing budgets which preserves the status quo. The UK population has been pressured into lifestyle choices and dependency on unhealthy diet and inadequate exercise. More widely, UK government policy is obsessed with two strategies to the exclusion of effective public policy – namely austerity and Brexit.

Thoughts?