Doughnuts join list of nutritious food
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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.
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."
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Comments
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.
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.
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?
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.