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In our last update we told you of the European Union’s Food Supplements Directive — a measure of unparalleled uselessness. At the same time as these politicians and bureaucrats show such concern for our health they do nothing about the dangers of the tonnes of junk made by big multi-national companies that comes via the supermarkets and the fast food outlets. The EU in Brussels says that it is concerned at the dangers of over-dosing on certain supplements and vitamins. Much evidence is there of people in Europe collapsing from vitamin overdoses?
You will be well aware that the health of our children is becoming a matter of great concern to all and we have to applaud the efforts of Jamie Oliver and others to get an improvement in the food eaten by children. It is almost unbelievable that growing numbers of children below the age of 12 are suffering from type 2 diabetes. This should be a disease only of the inactive and the old, not kids! But it is not just children for whom we need to show such concern. Everywhere junk food is too easily available.
The latest food scare is the possibility of carcinogens in fizzy drinks — even in sports drinks. The cause of this problem is the sodium benzoate used a preservative. If ascorbic acid [vitamin C] is added — to make the product healthier — then there is a significant risk of benzoic acid being released — and this is the carcinogen. This has been known for years but no one has done anything about it.
Another cause for concern is the presence of trans-fatty acids in vegetable oils both in the natural state and formed as a result of deterioration or during cooking. These appear in unsaturated oils that are marketed as being specially healthy. There are no controls on the presence of such trans-fatty acids in oils sold in the UK. Some countries ban the sale of all oils and other products which contain such chemicals, since they are very bad for health. Why are there no such restrictions in the UK?
Look at the range of junk foods on the shelves in supermarkets — products highly processed, full of sugar, fats, preservatives, stabilizers, chemical flavours, etc. — crisps, breakfast cereals, sausages, biscuits, cakes, buns, snacks, chocolate, desserts, fizzy drinks, chips, fast foods, takeaways — the list is almost endless.
We can add the disasters of BSE — caused by feeding cattle kept in cages the remains of ground up dead animals and other junk — Sudan 1 dye, benzene in mineral water, several outbreaks of botulism, E-coli bacteria in chicken and many others. In the UK about 30% of the populations suffer some from of food poisoning every year.
In spite of all these facts, the European Union directs its attention to small suppliers of food supplements and is intent on progressively banning many of the products’ that have been beneficial to health and used by bodybuilders and others for many years. But politicians and bureaucrats are in hock to big business and let multinationals do almost what they like until there are enough dead bodies lying around to make restrictions unavoidable.
There is some light on the horizon. Sales of sugar filled junk in supermarkets fell in 2005 and Sunny Delight, that fake health drink has lost so much business in recent years that it is to be withdrawn.
It looks as though Sainsburys will go ahead with a traffic light system for telling customers that a product has high, medium or low levels of fats, sugars, proteins, carbs, salt, etc. Some supermarkets — notably Tesco — are not too keen on this system. Perhaps they just don’t want people to know just how bad some of their products are. The Tesco range of fancy ready made meals sometimes — not always — have prodigious quantities of fats in them and it seems that little is being done to achieve much healthier levels.
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