I watched this programme on BBC2 last night on ultra-processed foods and the games that companies in that industry play to hide their culpability for the health consequences arising from their products:
The programme is here, if you have a BBC licence.
The programme was just what the BBC should be doing, and was powerful in its analysis, with which the ultra-processed food industry refused to engage.
If you wonder why I get so worried about the economic, social and health consequences of these supposed foods this programme is essential watching, not least for highlighting the links with the tobacco industry and its creation of the false narratives about food, fat and addiction.
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Thanks for the head’s up.
My kids have been brought up on home made bread – they cannot stand the mass produced stuff. OK, it’s made in a bread machine but it has less salt, sugar etc. They also bake their own bread – for fun. And it is cheaper. Once you know how to make bread at home, next up is home made pizza!! And rolls, scones etc. A few skills go a long way.
Whilst living in London in the 1990’s we saved a deposit for our first home and big part of that was home cooking and not buying pre-prepared food.
It can be done.
Agreed
I admit I a spoiled who bakes fresh bread most days. Focaccia is on its way right now.
Correction: it *could* be done.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/02/housing-market-gulf-salaries-house-prices
“In 1995, the median income in London was £19,000 and the median house price was £83,000, meaning that people were spending 4.4 times their income on buying a property. But by 2012-13, the median income in London had increased to £24,600 and the median house price in the capital had increased to £300,000, meaning people were forced to spend 12.2 times their income on a house.”
And it’s only got worse in the intervening decade.
I’m glad you were able to scrimp to buy your house but don’t pretend it’s just as easy for people these days. That adds insult to injury.
Respectfully, few here know that better than PSR.
Maybe you should read a bit before you make accusations. PSR works in social housing. Right now it looks like you’re trolling even if you’re also making a relevant point .
Becky
Fair enough………..the point I’m making in relation to the post is that home cooking is better for you health-wise and also for your pocket if you are on a tight income. Pre-prepared foods/takeaways are expensive, even in the 90’s.
In social housing we have had to adapt and protect our income and tenant’s tenancies by encouraging them to save money by cooking their own food if they can, but the addiction factor Richard is talking about is real – people love their frozen pizzas and ready meals and are encouraged rampantly to ‘order in’ on TV. Then they wonder where their money goes.
And then there is the utility price crises – heating, water, etc.
The market does not care about your longevity, your health or your bank account and its attendant problems. They just want your money – now.
And this affects others as well – I was treated to the site of a family all huddled together in their winter coats on the sofa, eating their dinner watching TV recently through the window of their newbuild home in the dark. Did they have the heating off because their mortgage had just gone up in cost?
Who knows what misery is out there. But cooking your own will save money and add to your health as well as your bank account. Fact – whether it enables you to own a house or not Becky.
Much to agree with
I suspect that your well intentioned and factually correct post has triggered a reaction from Becky as it has a similarity to a now many years old trope about millennials not being able to get on the housing market due to consumption of avocado toast/lattes/netflix. As far as I’m aware no reduction in spending on these items compensates for the increases in housing costs but this has been used repeatedly to dismiss their often valid complaints. I wouldn’t interpret your post in that way but then I’m Gen X. Best regards
Nutrition advice is strongly influenced by the big food manufactures. I only found out last week that the American dietary guidelines, although put together by nutritionists, were amended by Big Food before being published.
Recommended reading:
The Big Fat Surprise: why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet (2015) by Nina Teicholz
https://amzn.eu/d/hZfaS3E
The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got it All Wrong and How Eating More Might Save Your Life (2017) by Dr James DiNicolantonio
https://amzn.eu/d/aMVTpkJ
The Truth About Seed Oils | FED A LIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcbDmKfY5qE
Big food almost wholly controls US medicine – especially on diabetes
It is not good here
Perhaps “cooking” should be a required part of the school curriculum.
Oh – hang on – no money for schools to do this kind of stuff.
Meanwhile – the tv has lots of progs on … cooking.
Cooking would be a valuable transferable skill, yes. Before it would be able to deliver a full set of health benefits, it might be necessary to counter the bad advice and misinformation that the have prevailed for the last 50+ years mainly due to American food industry lobbying.
Its not only cooking that needs to be taught in schools but a whole range of basic skills.
Swimming, map reading, growing food, DIY, cycling, small boat handling, photography – to name a few I can think of. Not only are they relevant and useful but provide an enjoyable break to the academic grind.
Agreed
Despite what the government thinks, education is not just about earning
Education can be critical to recognise the information that harms, injures or. weakens you. Sadly, a centrist political power, like Starmer’s Labour, would feel conflicted on this as soon as it recognised that its publicly-funded ‘state’ initiatives are1, trusted by most people,and 2, a significant supplier of the mi-sinformatin and bad health advice that many people accept.
Indeed, school is the natural place to teach all young people to such life-skills. Failing that, a friend runs her Explorer Scout group (the appropriately named Black Sheep company) in a way to prepare 14 to 18 year olds for real life. As well as the usual middle class CV/university skills of the Duke of Edinburgh award, she teaches such things as ‘how to strip a bed, launder and put a duvet cover back on’! She sets them budgeting tasks in the city centre – far away from the (largely irrelevant at that age) great outdoors. The Explorers learn kitchen skills and household skills. Needless to say there’s a waiting list.
If only all young people had access to such inspired and concerned (volunteer) teachers.
Sounds brilliant
I haven’t yet watched this programme or read Dr Van Tulleken’s book on the topic of Ultra processed food but I have read an interesting and nuanced article which was written in response. I won’t summarise it but will post this link for those who are interested.
https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2024/01/16/ultra-processed-foods-heres-what-the-evidence-actually-says-about-them/
I suspected you were here to troll, and now I know you are.
Five questions. Why is a psyschologist an expert on this? I have concern from an economic perspective. What is a psychologist’s reaon for concern?
Second, are you claimning that the recent House of Lords report on this issue was wrong based on this piece?
Third, how do you know that this is not misinformation?
Fourth, how is the rise in obesity and all other related diseases explained by this character if not by ultra-processed foods?
Fofth, why do so-called food companies behave as they do to create addiction if they have never succveeded in achieving that goal?
While I fully agree and support the need to get families cooking and eating real food, I remain to be convinced that it is always cheaper.
Cooking properly requires a number of things, some of which are quite expensive, although most are one off expenses. You need, as a minimum:
Hob
pots and pans
utensils
knives
chopping surfaces
fridge
tin opener
and preferably:
kettle
oven
grill
freezer
heat proof gloves/mitts
then there are the store cupboard ingredients
and know how.
Once you have all the basics it probably is cheaper if you know what you are doing. But it is expensive when you are learning and the family will not eat what you have cooked.
I am lucky. I was brought up in a family where cooking a meal was considered normal AND I was taught domestic science at school. But many people these days do not have that background, and neither they nor their parents had any need for those things that are needed. And weaning people off a cheap and easy habit to do something that is neither cheap nor easy for them is very hard.
I recently attended a course of 6 free lessons at the community centre on ‘cooking on a budget’ becaue I wanted some ideas. Of the 10 participants 2 were people with special needs who were learning about independent living and the rest of us were older folk who were interested in the topic. I realised it was not what I expected when the ingredients supplied incuded boil in the bag rice tins of tomatoes and basil and other convenience ingredients.
It has to start with education, but there is a very long way to go.
I think you are right
I was not taught to cook. My mother thought no boy would need to do so. Then I went to university, self-catering and had to learn very quickly. It so happened I learned to enjoy it. It helped that it very quickly became a social experience.
You are right about resources though, and they are by no means universally available. Nor are the financial means to have a store cupboard, which it is easy to take for granted. So, thank you.
Another key element to home cooking is time. I’m lucky enough to be able to stay at home (as per your earning or learning post I am of course therefore of no value according to the government) and provide home cooked meals for my children, but I’m pretty sure I’d struggle to find the time for that if I’d been out at work all day.
I cooked for years for my sons
It took a lot of discipline
Slow cookers helped
I could do a lot in a maximum of 30 minutes
Back in the 1990s, Wednesday mornings in my 6th form of 200+ (I was Deputy Head 6th) there was a carousel of lessons: First Aid (certified), Basic Food Hygiene (certified), Cooking basics (aimed at uni students), basic car related tasks and knowledge, handling money, rights and laws. All gone as league tables and other changes bit in the Blair era, and the new business-orientated type of headteacher arrived (and became the norm via the Leadership college).
We are going backwards