Nanny State now targeting breakfast cereals

BrokenArrows · 30-01-2019 10:39AM

gozunda wrote: »

The bizarre thing though was in the 1970s nearly everyone added sugar to the breakfast cereal, their tea, ate sweets and biscuits made with real sugar and were generally skinnier than people today!

That's because they were "treats".
Sugar consumed as part of an otherwise healthy diet and lifestyle is fine.

The problem is that people start their day with a bowl full of sugar.
Some further sweets for lunch and some fast food and an energy drink.
Dinner is likely no different. Microwave meals etc contain loads of sugar and salt.

Come home and sit on the couch on the phone. Rinse and repeat.

Compared with a past lifestyle that requires more movement in their job.

Lunch was likely to be simpler and smaller. Even a ham and cheese sandwich was healthier as the bread didn't contain added sugar.

Dinner was usually home cooked and much healthier and smaller portions.

When home kids would "play" and not sit on their phone.

Adults generally worked less hours and the commute was less so had more time to do things other than having barely enough energy to cook a dinner.

It's a combination of our food choices and lifestyle that's causing problems.

meeeeh · 30-01-2019 10:42AM

If I remember correctly cereals in UK and Ireland used to have more sugar and salt to account for regional taste (according to big producers). It might have changed in the last 10 years.

I am a huge fan of plain porridge but I also love homemade granola and I pour quite a lot of coconut or olive oil and maple syrup into it. I'm not overly worried about that. But when cereal has shapes of Disney characters with frosting of sugar or chocolate then I think it should be classed as sweets not breakfast.

TheQuietFella · 30-01-2019 10:43AM

DS86DS wrote: »

Our betters are at it again, looking out for us unwise sugar guzzling mass of the great unwashed who can never seem to get with the healthy eating program. Cigarette style labels and images coming to a box of Sugar Putfs near you.

https://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2019/01/28/Experts-call-for-health-warnings-on-breakfast-cereals-to-tackle-world-s-obesity-pandemic

They would be more in line with tackling the scourge of gambling that
exists in this country but that's another story!

Macy0161 · 30-01-2019 10:43AM

lbc2019 wrote: »

Im talking about the highly sugary cereals. Still the 2nd ingredient in corn flakes is sugar!

Well our options as Children (and for my own children) are Cornflakes, Crispies, Wheetabix or Porridge so they're the default I think of.

Personally I take the hit on the extra sugar in Bran Flakes for the extra fibre content.

A balanced diet, with no food groups excluded and "bad" things in moderation seems to be being totally drowned out by zealots and people trying to sell books/ plans. The actual proven science keeps coming back to a balanced diet of all food groups, and debunking various alternatives.

Wibbs · 30-01-2019 10:45AM

gozunda wrote: »

The bizarre thing though was in the 1970s nearly everyone added sugar to the breakfast cereal, their tea, ate sweets and biscuits made with real sugar and were generally skinnier than people today!

Portion size. If you have one of those old dinner sets your granny got for a wedding pressie check out the size of the plates. They're smaller and they were sold as "good china" and a bit "fancy" so would have been bigger than average sized plates.

Narrower range of foods is another and for my money the biggest shift. McDonalds pretty much didn't exist, no hamburgers, no "fries", the local chipper was it(using actual spuds in animal fat) and for most families it was an occasional treat. Even a packet of crisps was smaller and there were no giant tubs of Pringles around. No Chinese takeaways, no "Chinese" food full stop, rice was a sweet treat, rather than a savoury staple, no soya, no MSG, no curries, no pizzas and only the daring would have had or made pasta, no doughnuts, no regular cake of any sort really, birthday and Christmas with the occasional home baked cakes if your Ma was into that, soft drinks were more diluted Miwadi than Coke and sauces were brown or ketchup. Basically we've added a lot of novel foods into the Irish diet, upped the portions and the vast majority of these foods are processed and damn near designed to make you a fat feck.

I'd bet if you're a bit overweight and you went on the 60's/70's Irish diet the weight would come off you. Obese folks have it much harder mind you. I'm the same size/weight now I was at 20 and I'd put a large part of that down to pretty much eating that diet. I've never eaten pizza, nor pasta, nor a curry, nor "Chinese" food and had my first hamburger aged 40(it was meh, haven't had one since). Once a month maybe I'll get a bag of chips from the local chipper, but that's about it.

Irish Guitarist · 30-01-2019 10:49AM

I don't see the harm in putting a warning label on food. You can always just ignore it. They can fuck off taxing food and pretending it's to 'fight the obesity epidemic' though.

Ush1 · 30-01-2019 10:49AM

As Wibbs said, portion sizes have shot up. There was actually likely more sugar and rubbish in a lot of the foods in the 80s.

The other thing is people get much more takeaways and eat out all the time now. When I was a kid I went to McDonalds once a year on my birthday. Never remember getting takeaways.

Macy0161 · 30-01-2019 11:08AM

Ush1 wrote: »

The other thing is people get much more takeaways and eat out all the time now. When I was a kid I went to McDonalds once a year on my birthday. Never remember getting takeaways.

I'd agree on it being portions. But with takeaways it's fequency and portions most of the time rather than, rather than the ingredients being inherently bad.

There's nothing wrong with rice (or pasta or any other carb), nothing wrong with curry or chinese food, nothing wrong with a burger. It's the quantity you get.

I grew up in the 70's and 80's and have pretty fond recollections of all the home baking that used to go on tbh, so while obviously less processed, I'm not sure there really was a lack of "treats".

Graces7 · 30-01-2019 11:30AM

Ush1 wrote: »

As Wibbs said, portion sizes have shot up. There was actually likely more sugar and rubbish in a lot of the foods in the 80s.

The other thing is people get much more takeaways and eat out all the time now. When I was a kid I went to McDonalds once a year on my birthday. Never remember getting takeaways.

for us fish and chips was a rare, rare and very special event. There were no foreign takeaways

Thanks by the way for bringing all this into proportion and historical setting for me. Yes, I eat as when we were kids post war. Occasional ready meals but the simple ones...

By the way WHY is sugar counted as so bad?

meeeeh · 30-01-2019 11:32AM

Macy0161 wrote: »

I'd agree on it being portions. But with takeaways it's fequency and portions most of the time rather than, rather than the ingredients being inherently bad.

There's nothing wrong with rice (or pasta or any other carb), nothing wrong with curry or chinese food, nothing wrong with a burger. It's the quantity you get.

I agree up to a point. The so called Chinese food is highly processed and often packed into huge portions. It can even happen you get much better quality eating out in the Chinese restaurant than getting take out from same restaurant. The portion will be smaller too.

RWCNT · 30-01-2019 11:38AM

gozunda wrote: »

Would consign the report itself to the bin. The last Lancet EAT 'Report' was found to have been funded by 'vested interests' and big money in the form of extremist animal right, anti meat and root vegetable brigade

Funny the issue of (fast) junk food directly implicated with obesity isn't highlighted for some reason. Strange that....

Who do you think has funded this one then? The egg council? And what exactly are you getting at towards the end there? Everyone and their dog knows McDonald's et Al are horrible for you, do you think that needs highlighting?

Wibbs · 30-01-2019 11:43AM

Macy0161 wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with rice (or pasta or any other carb), nothing wrong with curry or chinese food, nothing wrong with a burger. It's the quantity you get.

Oh I'd agree, though there can be some extra going on within those foods, namely they're usually over processed with additives up the wazoo and the Irish guts haven't had very long at all to adapt to them. About 25 years. Take soya - and I don't mean the whole soy boy nonsense stuff - it's a protein source that Asian folks have been consuming for two thousand years and in much smaller quantities. It's now added to a load of foods and for our digestive systems it's a new food and may require adapting to it. Our bodies have a very long history of adaptations to local food sources. Take gluten. One hypothesis why Irish people are more likely to be coeliac holds that for a few centuries many were getting their starches from potatoes rather than grains, so the adaptation to digest gluten wasn't as much in play and more lost it compared to mainland Europe. Now I doubt soya products will illicit the same problems as say dairy would to folks from India, but I'd be surprised if they didn't illicit some response.

FishOnABike · 30-01-2019 11:52AM

gctest50 wrote: »

Non- diabetic woman wore a continuous blood glucose monitor for a few days :

So heaping a simple sugar (honey) on your cereal will cause blood sugar levels to spike. Well colour me surprised!

The comparison in the quoted text is doesn't really stand up to critical scrutiny. Comparing blood sugar levels after a a low carb, high fat, moderate protein breakfast and a breakfast with honey and berries added doesn't demonstrate much except that honey and sweet fruit are likely to cause higher blood sugar levels.

A properly designed experiment would control for all the variables. e.g. also try oatmeal without any sweeteners and adding honey + berries to the original breakfast.

As it stands, confounding variables have not been controlled for and it can point to little more than the need for further investigation to produce any meaningful information.

gozunda · 30-01-2019 11:53AM

whisky_galore wrote: »

Good for you buddy...

For the completely unnecessary pa. No worries buddy ....

gozunda · 30-01-2019 11:56AM

RWCNT wrote: »

Who do you think has funded this one then? The egg council? And what exactly are you getting at towards the end there? Everyone and their dog knows McDonald's et Al are horrible for you, do you think that needs highlighting?

Most certainly yes. As detailed by another poster - It's best practice to check who are funding such studies and check the type of research used to arrive at whatever the findings are.

looksee · 30-01-2019 12:02PM

The mention of 70s and pre-70s people people being skinnier than now - one thing that came in around that time was central heating. If your body is having to expend energy just to keep warm you will tend to not gain weight.

Whether food is better now than it was - there was some horrible rubbish in the early processed foods. Now there is much greater opportunity to eat well of good food, there is also much greater opportunity to eat processed food with high fat and sugar content. The individual makes the choice. I do dislike the sugar tax though, it is harder to find drinks and food with no synthetic sweeteners. I would much rather have a modest portion with sugar than with artificial chemicals.

This is an interesting line of research https://www.nhs.uk/news/lifestyle-and-exercise/can-fizzy-water-make-you-fat/

Macy0161 · 30-01-2019 12:07PM

The thing that seems to be missed/ overlooked/ ignored the most in studies that "suggest" or "indicate" regarding foods and human reaction to it (either mentally or physiologically)...

That said, we aren't identical to rodents, so any findings would always need to be validated in human trials.

sbsquarepants · 30-01-2019 12:11PM

Wibbs wrote: »

I've never eaten pizza, nor pasta, nor a curry, nor "Chinese" food and had my first hamburger aged 40(it was meh, haven't had one since). Once a month maybe I'll get a bag of chips from the local chipper, but that's about it.

Was at a family barbeque a few years back and went up to get some grub with my old man, usual chit chat about the food and I said to him get yourself a burger they're lovely and handed him a burger bun - the demented old codger then proceeded to look for (and find) butter which he smeared on the buns and made himself a burger sandwich. It was only then that it dawned on me that at probably 70 years of age, he had never eaten a bun burger before, he actually had no idea what one consisted of!

He's now 75 and will probably outlive me!

gozunda · 30-01-2019 12:15PM

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Nothing will stop me eating my Frosties. They're....

Is it just me or has Tony put on a heluva weight?
Here he is in 1972 ...

gozunda · 30-01-2019 12:26PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh I'd agree, though there can be some extra going on within those foods, namely they're usually over processed with additives up the wazoo and the Irish guts haven't had very long at all to adapt to them. About 25 years. Take soya - and I don't mean the whole soy boy nonsense stuff - it's a protein source that Asian folks have been consuming for two thousand years and in much smaller quantities. It's now added to a load of foods and for our digestive systems it's a new food and may require adapting to it. Our bodies have a very long history of adaptations to local food sources. Take gluten. One hypothesis why Irish people are more likely to be coeliac holds that for a few centuries many were getting their starches from potatoes rather than grains, so the adaptation to digest gluten wasn't as much in play and more lost it compared to mainland Europe. Now I doubt soya products will illicit the same problems as say dairy would to folks from India, but I'd be surprised if they didn't illicit some response.

The thing about much of the soya as eaten in Asia is that it is mainly consumed after a lenghty fermentation process. Rendering something very different compared to the soya 'meal' which is increasingly being used as a cheap filler and stuffed into everything from ordinary bread to a whole range of processed foods. As a raw product soya contain inhibitors which actively inhibit the digestion of proteins. A complicated solvent based chemical process renders the soya edible for modern food usage. It's a foodstuff which is completely alien to most traditional western diets imo. Personally I avoid the stuff with a barge pole.

RWCNT · 30-01-2019 12:30PM

gozunda wrote: »

Most certainly yes. As detailed by another poster - It's best practice to check who are funding such studies and check the type of research used to arrive at whatever the findings are.

Do you feel there isn't enough awareness around the ill effects of a life of fast food consumption then? You might be correct but I think comparatively more people look at breakfast cereal as an innocuous choice, particularly parents of young children. The packaging usually has "Made with natural grains" and "fortified with vitamins" displayed prominently which gives a false impression that they're healthy, and the nutritional information usually gives calories and macros per 30g serving with 125ml of milk - about a third or quarter of what most people pour for themselves. I also think it's more likely for a parent to feed their child cereal daily as opposed to McDonalds.

I agree with you that it's best practice to check who's funding studies and what kind of research methods were involved, although I believe the latter to be of much greater importance than the former. I can't spot anything about funding on this report, do you know where I'd need to look to find that?

Your Face · 30-01-2019 12:38PM

Is Champagne a breakfast cereal?

Wibbs · 30-01-2019 12:40PM

looksee wrote: »

The mention of 70s and pre-70s people people being skinnier than now - one thing that came in around that time was central heating. If your body is having to expend energy just to keep warm you will tend to not gain weight.

Could be something to that alright L. A few years back my gas boiler gave up the ghost and cash was strapped at the time, so I put replacement on the long finger and went old school, heating the rooms as I needed them. My bills fell off a cliff which was a major bonus, but I didn't notice too much of a comfort loss TBH. I did notice more temperature variation on my body throughout the day and on cold days like today I do notice more moments of brrrr and slight shiver going on moving between rooms. I don't sit still as much either. No doubt that's having a calorie effect. Now my house is double glazed and more insulated than the average pre 70's house(as a kid I remember getting up for school in winter with ice on the inside of the windows), so that effect was likely higher again back then. Being mammals a majority of our calories go into keeping our body temperature constant. If we were cold blooded with our body size we'd probably do well enough on one meal a month and every room would have a heat lamp for basking.

Balanadan · 30-01-2019 12:41PM

Your Face wrote: »

Is Champagne a breakfast cereal?

I'd normally have it with chocolate when having it for breakfast.

gozunda · 30-01-2019 12:43PM

Your Face wrote: »

Is Champagne a breakfast cereal?

No but whiskey on porridge is

Pherekydes · 30-01-2019 01:47PM

gctest50 wrote: »

Non- diabetic woman wore a continuous blood glucose monitor for a few days :

n=1.

gozunda · 30-01-2019 01:47PM

RWCNT wrote: »

....
I agree with you that it's best practice to check who's funding studies and what kind of research methods were involved, although I believe the latter to be of much greater importance than the former. I can't spot anything about funding on this report, do you know where I'd need to look to find that?

To the point on funding. The report appears to be very reticent on that issue. A number of things however:

This report comes hot on the heels of The EAT Lancet Report published just a few days ago and bankrolled by a multi-millionaire couple ...

What exactly is EAT? ... EAT was founded in 2013 by Gunhild Stordalen, an animal right activist for the Norwegian Animal Welfare Alliance (and the wife of hotel tycoon Petter Stordalen). This couple who are listed as being amongst Europe’s richest individuals ... display a particularly lavish lifestyle despite their image as green avengers...

The Stordalens have both the means and networks to put their ideas into action, as their contacts include CEOs, politicians, and royalties...

And where budgets allow it, influence can be purchased: 3.5 million Norwegian Kronar was paid to Bill Clinton - who went vegan (briefly) in 2010 - for a one-hour speech at an EAT conference in 2014.

https://www.efanews.eu/item/6053

From the Lancet website

The Global Syndemic Commission is one of a series of initiatives on nutrition, including the EAT–Lancet Commission , led by The Lancet in 2019...

https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/global-syndemic

The Lancet itself has been at the centre of a number of controversies including where data in an article was found to have been fabricated and had to be later withdrawn.

Interstingly at least two of the experts were involved in both the obesity and the EAT-Lancet reports:

From the World Obesity Federation Website highlighted some of their conflicts of interests to date ...

World Obesity Financial Relationship Policy

See:
https://www.worldobesity.org/about/about-us/governance/transparency-statement

https://www.bmj.com/content/332/7555/1412.2

DS86DS · 30-01-2019 08:00PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Time for the "nanny state" to target everybody who robs that term from the British tabloids in the 1980s and applies it to Ireland.

There's a reason rightwing Tory rags owned by ultrarich, tax-dodging oligarchs love to push the concept of a "nanny state" that "interferes" in their riding us all senseless. Jesus.

I look forward to the day when the marginal rate of tax paid by these oligarchs is the 50%-60% it is for heaps of us in the "squeezed middle". Long past time that the state - which supplies the educated workforce, roads, utility infrastructure and everything else for their businesses to thrive - interfered with that.

And, yes, when even All Bran has c. 25% sugar, you know breakfast cereals with the exception of porridge are really bad for you.

FFS, so complaining about health freaks meddling in our lives is now just one big right wing Rupert Murdoch Tory conspiracy?

And what do tax margins for the wealthy have to do with health warnings on breakfast cereals?

I suppose by all of this logic, complaining about minimum alcohol pricing is one big Russo-Trump conspiracy to get us all drunk so we won't attend the ballots on voting day.

30-01-2019 09:37PM

DS86DS wrote: »

FFS, so complaining about health freaks meddling in our lives is now just one big right wing Rupert Murdoch Tory conspiracy?

Meanwhile, the people who push all this nutritionally godforsaken junk food in our faces on every radio and tv ad break, billboard, bus stop, magazine, newspaper and in every shop and supermarket are not "meddling in our lives"?

And you're giving out about warnings being put on these rubbish "breakfast cereals" which have been marketed as a healthy alternative? Against the incredible might and all-pervasiveness of the junk food lobby and its egregious propaganda, you find offence in a health notice on the lies?

Jesus wept. Walk into your local supermarket and it's the wild west if you want to open your eyes, where one has to fight one's way past the high profit processed trans fat rubbish and the like through to the aisle or two of healthy, less profitable food which unlike the Pringles/Mars/Coke etc rubbish rammed down our throats is very, very rarely promoted.

It's actually incredible that, in this stunning power imbalance that favours junk food, somebody could turn reality on its head and describe a suggestion to put nutritional information on a product as an example of a "nanny state".

EPAndlee · 30-01-2019 09:41PM

I remember as a kid getting up in the morning, pouring a bowl of frosties then firing in another spoon or two of sugar. Good times

Nanny State now targeting breakfast cereals

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