Doughnuts join list of nutritious food

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Friday, 24 April 2009

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Companies will be able to claim custard tarts, sausage rolls and even doughnuts are healthy foods under a European crackdown on junkfood advertising, campaigners complained yesterday.

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Companies will be able to claim custard tarts, sausage rolls and even doughnuts are healthy foods under a European crackdown on junkfood advertising, campaigners complained yesterday.

All three fatty foods would pass proposed European Commission thresholds for products which can be marketed as healthy or nutritious, according to Cancer Research, the National Heart Foundation and Which?. They demanded the Health Secretary Alan Milburn oppose the crackdown, which they warned would weaken the fight against obesity.

When the Health Claims Regulation was passed three years ago, the EC said: "Only products offering genuine health or nutritional benefits will be allowed to refer to them on their labels." However the new definitions of unhealthy food announced by Brussels were far weaker than the nutrient profiling model developed by the Food Standards Agency. All of the EC's thresholds for categories such as biscuits, meat-based products and breakfast cereals would be given amber or red signs under the FSA's traffic light labelling scheme.

Which? blamed EU states protecting such traditional food as salty German bread for diluting the legislation.

An analysis of 120 foods common in the UK diet by Oxford University suggested that a Tesco jam doughnut with 200mg of sodium, 18g of sugar and 5.7g of saturated fat per 100g would easily meet the health threshold for bakery food of 500mg sodium, 25g sugar and 8g saturated fat. Other products that would be approved would be Sainsbury's pork sausages, salted Kettle crisps and a Burger King Whopper.

Colin Walker, senior public affairs officer at Which?, said: "Jam doughnuts and crisps being allowed to make nutrition claims would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. The goalposts have been widened to the point that no one remembers why they were put there in the first place.

"The UK Government needs to get these proposals thrown out and completely rewritten."

Comments

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Fatty foods or floury foods?

eddiesm wrote:

Friday, 24 April 2009 at 11:15 am (UTC)

These foods are indeed hard to be considered healthy. However, it is not the fat in them which are the problem to our health, in fact it is the sugars and starches which cause more damage to our bodies.

To explain it in simple terms, the excess blood sugar (which doughnuts and custard tarts provide since they contain reasonable ammounts of flour and sugar) are processed by the liver into triglicerydes which are basically fat and are stored in our bodies. Research has shown that triglycerides are associated with obesity (no wonder...), coronary heart disease and diabetes type 2.

Another thing which is important to consider is how the food labelling is made. When the label says that a doughnut has only 18g of sugar per 100g it is not taking into account the white flour with which the doughnut is made (which is probably the main ingredient). This flour has nearly the same effect in raising our blood sugar levels (and the triglycerides) as the table sugar in the doughnut. So when labels do not include flours and starches into their sugar count they become terribly misleading.

So, even though they are delicious, I believe that extensive consumprion of this type of food can be highly damaging to our health and governments should not take food labelling this lightly.

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Re: Fatty foods or floury foods?

mmaddox wrote:

Friday, 24 April 2009 at 07:12 pm (UTC)

Sorry, that just doesn't wash. Different individuals react differently to starch. Otherwise Italians should be an unhealthy lot. I consume large amounts of carbs, and even though white flour is not my preferred form, I love pasta (not the wholewheat variety) and good bread, even white bread. I am healthy, slim, and reasonably muscular, all well above my age average. And I am sick of hearing that fat is not the issue. I know that if I were consuming large amounts of fat instead of large amounts of carbs, I would be severely overweight.

I dislike doughnuts but love raisin bread, even made with white flour. What's the difference? Mostly, less raw sugar and less fat.

People should discover what works for their bodies by listening to their bodies, not by listening to the statistical studies of the experts. Human bodies are different. The statistics may not apply to you.

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Re: Fatty foods or floury foods?

eddiesm wrote:

Saturday, 25 April 2009 at 09:25 am (UTC)

I agree that every body is different, but in the end every single human body works in the same way (i.e. hearts beat within a certain rate, food is digested through the same chemical reactions etc). So this talk that every body is different works only to a certain extent, but in the end most food we eat will affect people in the same way. What may vary is the length of time their bodies can take the damage.

Regarding Italy, well if you have been there you may have noticed that pasta is indeed very popular in Italy but as you may well have perceived it consists 1/3 of their meal course and it is eaten in a much smaller quantity than here and pretty much everywhere else in the world. In a typical Italian meal you have the starters (Antipasti), then you have a small dish of pasta (primo piatto) and then some beef/poultry/fish (secondo piatto).

Furthermore, I would just like to add that I am not saying that we have to stop eating carbs. That is stupid as a balanced diet needs tham as much as fat and protein. What I am trying to say is that the consumption of carbs (specially the refined kind) in our western diets far outweighs the ammount of the other two. If you go to a supermarket you can peek at people's trolleys and see that usually most of the food in them is refined carbs (i.e. crisps, white bread, sodas, sweets, etc - all low fat!!!). Yet people are getting more obese and their health is deteriorating. Can we really blame fat?

As mentioned by tommytcg it should be people's resposibility to eat healthy, but how can people do that if they are misled? If they believe that reducing fat and increasing carb consumption will make them healthier?

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Re: Fatty foods or floury foods?

mumof3york wrote:

Saturday, 25 April 2009 at 05:55 pm (UTC)

Its true that carbs are converted to triglycerides (fat) in the liver (I'm a biology student and recently wrote an essay on it). However, a low fat diet is probably better for weight maintenance because it is the excess carbs that are converted to fat. If you eat the right amount of carbs... matching the energy in them with the energy you are burning, it won't get converted to stored fat. Glucose (sugar molecules) in the carbs is indeed released but will be converted to ATP (energy). Any glucose left over, no matter what food it came from, is converted into fat. You will have excess fat and sugar in your body only if you eat more carbs than you need.

This is how every body works, too much bread, pasta etc will be turned by your body into fat. If you eat the right amount, it will be used up efficiently and you will not gain weight. Diet is about balance, and pleasure too.

Reducing fat intake and increasing carbs (sensibly) will almost certainly improve body weight, because fat is so energy rich. A small amount of fat will match your energy needs, so a high fat diet leads to a lot of excess energy and fat storage. A carb rich diet contains less energy than a fatty one (ie per 100g), so there will be less excess energy available to lay down as fat.

Too much carbs will lead to an awful lot of weight gain though.

As for doughnuts being healthy... in my dreams. I get a double chin just looking at them.

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Doughnuts

normajr wrote:

Friday, 24 April 2009 at 01:16 pm (UTC)

What's new? I have always believed doughnuts to be good for me, particularly the jam variety. I need feel guilty no more!

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Shouldnt it be the responsibility

jonny_socialist wrote:

Friday, 24 April 2009 at 01:21 pm (UTC)

Of individuals to keep themselves from eating themselves into an early grave? I know that it costs money for their care on the NHS etc etc but I cant help this niggling feeling that it shouldnt be government policy which stops obesity it should be peoples own will power. It worries me that our politicians are spending time on what, to me, seems a trivial thing. If your obese, eat less/more healthily and excercise more, it really is that simple.

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Re: Shouldnt it be the responsibility

tommytcg wrote:

Friday, 24 April 2009 at 05:11 pm (UTC)

nonsensical advice.. eating less. This causes hunger, fatigue, irritability, and a slowing metabolic rate, which in turn will require greater food reducction to keep losing fat, Then, at any time this diet is broken, due to the lowered metabolic rate, the weight will shoot up. The first comment got it right. However he/she did omit that carbohydrates, and especially sugars, raise heart-disease causing tri-glycerides,, as wel as cause obesity, raise diabetes risk. This so called health food also creates a vitamin B deficiency, thusr rotting childrens teeth and causing smaller jaw development, leading to crooked teeth. The EU is 50 years out of date on nutrition, and in bed with the food industry, so it is advisable to do exactly opposite to what they inform so as to stay in optimum health. The EU allows msg, aspartame, (known neuro-toxins), they allow microwave cookers, (known carcinogen inducers), teflon with its toxic gases and dyes, transfats that cause heart disease, and I could go on. They are simply not interested in, nor do they know much about health.

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Doughnuts and the US police force

hjaffe wrote:

Friday, 24 April 2009 at 05:31 pm (UTC)

In the benighted US where I happen to live doughnuts are thought of as cop food. For obscure reasons American police are in love with doughnuts which they eat at all times of the day and night with or without beer. Do the cops they seem fatter as a result? No, they are still muscular, sensitive, and very droll.

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