These Facts Are Not For The Easily Scared...

Ten Scary Facts About High Fat Foods

Judith Hodge BSc Hons (nutritional therapy) MBANT reveals some facts you probably won’t know about what’s in your food. Here she focuses on foods & drinks high in fat (eg oil, marg, butter, cream, mayo, crisps, gravies) & sugar (eg fizzy drinks, sweets, jams, cakes, biscuits, puddings, pastries)

Do You Know What's In That?

1. Most foods in this group have little nutritional benefit since they lack essential nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals and fibre.

2. Harmful trans fats are vegetable oils that have been heat-treated and used in manufactured foods such as cakes & biscuits. They may be carcinogenic and are banned in countries such as Australia and Denmark.

3. Try not to overheat oil when cooking as it will convert to trans fat: if it’s smoking it’s too hot!

4. Fish in the wild get their omega 3 oils from marine algae, but farmed fish only get theirs from fish scraps on which they themselves are fed.

5. Oils can still be labeled ’cold-pressed’ because no external heat was applied during the extraction process (which still involves the use of solvents!) The best oils available are cold-pressed, unrefined oils.

6. The traditional ‘Mediterranean diet’, studied for its healthiness, has olive oil as the principal source of fat and focuses on seasonal fruit, vegetables and pulses, with low dairy and red meat intake and minimal processed foods.

7. A Which? Report showed that many savoury foods, such as pasta sauces, contain more sugar than ice-cream - and that ready meals, breakfast cereals and even low-fat 'diet' ranges have high levels.

8. Honey should be classified with sugar as providing ‘empty calories’, although it can have some antibacterial properties.

9. Fructose (fruit sugar) was promoted as a healthy alternative to sucrose but has now been linked to health issues ranging from weight gain and type 2 diabetes to IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and ‘fatty’ liver.

10.  Overweight people may be consuming up to 52 teaspoonfuls of sugar a day (4 times the recommended daily limit), much of it hidden in processed foods, according to a study that used a new urine test to measure sugar consumption.