Processed Foods - what's behind the scandals?

February 13, 2013

So is the penny beginning to drop?

Yes, I know, what an odd title for an article, or rather rant on nutrition and the scourge of processed food, but surely surely, you might at last come to the same conclusion that all nutritionists and health advisors have been telling you for years – buy fresh ingredients and cook your own food – no labels, no lies, no kidding!

As awful as this week’s exposé on horse meat being used in place of beef in processed foods is, it is quite frankly music to my ears!  Why? Because for far too long the processed food industry has been duping and taking advantage of people who have been led to believe (and failed to challenge), the myth that processed food is firstly cheaper than fresh food, and nutritious – a result of clever marketing and fancy but confusing and misleading labeling.

Processed foods are stuffed full of hidden salt and sugars – check out the statistics – when did diabetes, obesity and heart disease rates begin to explode? And of course, if you watch programmes on TV set pre-1980’s, the evidence is so visual – barely any obese people, and families, however hard up, still cooked fresh food on a daily basis and the whole family sat down to eat together – not a pizza or chicken nugget in sight, just wholesome, hearty fresh food.  And no one denied themselves a pudding or were paranoid about their weight because they didn’t have to be because they KNEW what they were eating and because it was natural, they didn’t have to check labels to see if they were killing themselves with salt, sugars and chemical additives.

Oh I could go on, I really could……but enough from my soap box today….I was about to spout on about the soaring rise in depressive illness too, and various inflammatory diseases, all of which are affected and worsened by processed foods and poor eating habits, but I’ll have to save that for another day.

Nut on a Box for the Food Crew…….signing off.

By nutritionist Diana Herve

diana.herve@btinternet.com

07979 471 779