Earlier this week, another food scare hit the headlines. Overnight, lamb, beef, venison — meats that have sustained us down the ages — have become life threatening. A study from Harvard School of Public Health reported that regularly eating red meat, especially the processed variety, increased the risk of death from heart disease and cancer, making it the latest in a list of natural unprocessed foods we are told to avoid, or eat only in moderation, such as butter and whole milk.
But as an investigative food journalist for 25 years, I’ve seen many of these health scares come and go. Consider for a minute the cautionary tale of eggs. Just like red meat, they were portrayed as unhealthy; in the Nineties they fell out of favour for having high cholesterol levels. But we’re eating eggs again. Cholesterol in eggs is no longer considered to raise blood cholesterol — moreover, research suggests that people with high levels of blood cholesterol don’t have worse health outcomes than those with lower ones.
Very few of us are in a position to read the small print and evaluate the validity of scientific research any more than most of us can really understand the plethora of nutrition labels that now adorn our food. But the effect of these seemingly incontrovertible scientific revelations is to scare us away from unprocessed foods and steer us towards technofoods of debatable nutritional merit.
The latest red meat study relied on participants reporting what they ate — a rather unreliable scientific method. It reiterates the idea that eating saturated fat is bad for you, for which there is no good scientific evidence, and leads us to ignore the non-controversial health benefits of red meat: a rich source of high quality protein that effectively satisfies hunger, useful minerals, such as iron, and essential vitamins, such as B12.
What we need is not generic warnings against eating red meat but useful guidance on what type of red meat is healthiest. Namely, meat from grass-fed animals (that’s all venison, nearly all lamb, and a lot of beef) since it is higher in fatty acids that appear to reduce the incidence of heart disease and cancer. But on the back of the latest shock headlines about dangerous red meat, sales of crumbed, battered, additive-laden, factory-farmed poultry products will likely soar as people dutifully change their eating habits. I wouldn’t be keen on people eating a factory-farmed chicken rather than a lamb chop or a beef stew. Not only are there welfare issues with the way chicken and pork are raised, but white meat doesn’t have the range of vitamins and minerals found in red meat. We’re told white meat is healthier because it’s low in fat, but I would dispute that fat is a bad thing.
Advertisement
There is nothing intrinsically good about a product being low in fat. There is, on the other hand, a growing body of research to suggest that natural saturated fats, such as those found in milk and cream, have many benefits, such as enhancing the immune system and strengthening bones by helping us to absorb calcium. Many people, for example, assume that skimmed milk must be healthier than whole milk.But whole, full-fat milk is not a high-fat food. Cow’s milk usually contains between 3.7 and 5 per cent fat if it is made with richer cow’s milk such as Jersey. Semi-skimmed and skimmed cow’s milk contains 1 to 1.5 per cent and 0.1 per cent fat respectively, so by switching to semi-skimmed or skimmed the reduction in your fat consumption is pretty negligible, unless you drink gallons of the stuff. And you miss out on the vitamins that have been skimmed off with the cream.
And while most people agree that butter tastes better than margarines and spreads, many avoid it on health grounds. Indeed the Food Standards Agency advises us that: “Margarine tends to contain unsaturated fats, which are generally better for us than the saturated fats found in butter.” But the butter versus margarine debate is more complicated than that — researchers are addressing the theory that a surfeit of polyunsaturated fats, of the type found in abundance in margarines and spreads, might be a risk factor for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
What we need to do is follow our common sense and stay faithful to the unprocessed traditional foods that have been the cornerstones of our diet for centuries. Some straight talking is overdue. Products such as artificial sweeteners, colas and sodas, fruits and vegetables with multiple pesticide residues, high-fructose corn syrup, industrially refined cooking oils, and technobread made to fast-track modern methods, look distinctly bad for us. We should be made aware of them and advised, in no uncertain terms, to avoid them absolutely.
A one-liner — “base your diet on whole, unprocessed food” — is the phrase that healthy eating advisers need to get their tongues around. But don’t wait to hear it, just go ahead and act on it yourself.
Joanna Blythman is the author of What to Eat (Fourth Estate). Buy it for £15.29 (rrp £16.99) plus free p&p from The Times Bookshop. Call 0845 271 2134 or visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop
Advertisement
What children should eat by Dr Alex Richardson
The one thing you should not do is feed your children processed foods. Trans fats still lurk in many cakes, biscuits and other processed foods, despite the fact that the Government agreed to ban them in 2010. My main concern is what they do to the brain; little research has been done on this aspect. What you should do, however, is feed them long-chain omega-3 essential fatty acids. These are the building blocks of cognitive development. And yet they are missing from almost everyone’s diet. The best source is fish and seafood, so even if you simply replace chicken nuggets with fish fingers you will make a difference.
Never miss an opportunity to give a child vegetables — put a lettuce leaf in a cheese sandwich, chop a carrot into a bolognese.
If you’re worried about the sugar in fruit, give a small piece of cheese to eat with an apple — this will protect teeth from acid erosion. Kids do need a lot of energy-providing food. Give them something with fibre and oats such as a flapjack. Oats are unbeatable: they contain beta-glucans that boost the immune system.
Soft drinks are empty calories and nothing else. Children should drink water, or milk. Dilute fruit juice because it’s neat sugar — though it’s better than a sugary can of drink filled with chemicals.
Advertisement
Dr Alex Richardson is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and a leading authority on the impact of nutrition on the brain. For more information see www.fabresearch.org