Diet & Nutrition

The Mediterranean diet – just what should you be eating?

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

An article written for Inspired Times magazine

The Mediterranean diet really is the buzz trend right now. It must surely be one of the most commonly used terms in nutrition these days, having successfully crossed the void between complementary nutrition and conventional medicine. Extensively studied, the list of health benefits is impressive – reduced risk of cancer, reduced age-related memory decline, improved weight loss, reduced cholesterol, lowered risk of heart disease and more recently with improved mood and reduced depression. This is all good stuff and there is little doubt about the benefits to be gained from adopting the principles of a Mediterranean diet.

So just why is the Mediterranean diet so good and what can we take out of it to benefit our own health and that of our families? The top preventable diseases in western society are smoking tobacco, drinking too much alcohol, high blood pressure, obesity, physical inactivity, high salt intake and omega 3 fatty acid deficiencies. Other than smoking, the Mediterranean diet broadly addresses all these issues. It even allows for a small glass of red wine or two with your main meal. It’s not a greatly restrictive diet, you don’t have to count calories and, with little skill in the kitchen, the results taste fantastic. Great, I hear you say, sounds like the one for me, where do I sign up?

However, there’s a problem. On the one hand, we’re encouraged to adopt this diet, but as we enter our supermarkets the reality of it hits home. In amongst the piles of sugar, salt and fat laden products, where do we start?

Successive governments have allowed and encouraged the relentless surge of the convenience food industry. We can’t rely on them to change now, can we? Right now, with the emergence of the Mediterranean diet, there is a real opportunity for our government to send out a strong message of intent by dramatically cutting the salt, fat and sugar content of convenience foods. Imagine the biggest health shake up this country has ever known, the prime minister rolls up his sleeves, clears our supermarket shelves of convenience foods and fills them with ingredients that fit the Mediterranean diet plan. GP surgeries are fitted with demo kitchens and, much like the Spanish, we’re all encouraged to sit down and eat with our families and then take a siesta. … I can dream can’t I?

Besides, is following the Mediterranean diet really all we need to do in the UK to put an end to diet-related illness? A one size fits all diet for the 21st century? I’d argue not. If only life were that simple. It is a sunny place to start, but there are other factors to consider here. As food becomes scarcer in the world, local food will undoubtedly become far more important to us. What’s growing in our fields will increasingly dictate what’s on our plates in the not too distant future, not what they’re eating for lunch in Tuscany. Our climate also plays an important part. Is a fresh raw salad of any use to us on a cold, damp January evening when only a hearty broth will really do the trick? And let’s not forget that we are all individuals with different tastes and needs.

Having said that, we do need to do something and the Mediterranean diet would be a huge leap in the right direction. It would take us a step back to times when fresh food preparation was part of our everyday lives and involved imagination and a large measure of frugality. I think mostly it is the principles of the Mediterranean diet that we could adopt and adapt.

For starters here’s my own adaptation:

Walk to and from the shops. It’s good exercise and encourages you to buy locally.

Buy only free ranging, grass fed meat and dairy products (including butter). They are higher in the health giving essential fatty acids like omega 3.

Use extra virgin olive oil in cooking and food preparation, and use it liberally.

Avoid buying processed foods, especially baked goods, breakfast cereals, meats and ready meals. They’re laden with salt, sugar and saturated fats.

Ensure half of your plate/serving contains a wide variety of non-starchy vegetables.

Experiment using plenty of herbs and spices in your cooking. These add flavour and improve digestion.

Take plenty of time to enjoy your food with friends and family and chew properly. Eating in a relaxed environment improves digestion and ‘transit time’.

Lastly, and to avoid finishing an article with the words ‘transit time’, enjoy a small glass of red wine with your evening meal. Bon Appétit!

Local, seasonal, organic!

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Is this just some kind of middle-class mantra… a lifestyle choice for those who can afford it which is rarely considered by those who can’t?
An article written for Inspired Times magazine

The fact is that local, seasonal, organic pretty much was our lifestyle, rich or poor, until around 60 years ago. Then, in post-war Britain, science and intensive farming were embraced as the gateway to the future. This was seen as a way to rise from the misery of rationing and begin to prosper once more.

The nation began to be wowed by the wonders of modern food production and exotic fruits from around the world. Years rolled by and the wonders of processed food continued. This may be one of the worse confessions I’ll ever make, but who can forget the joy of Angel Delight? Or, boil in the bag cod with parsley sauce, dried chicken chow mien with those crunchy noodles and their first trip to McDonalds? Not me! Never before had the human diet changed so drastically in such a short space of time. It has possibly also led to the most detrimental dietary changes in our history – ones we are only now beginning to fully understand.

So, what was so good about this local, seasonal and organic food of our yester years?

Local
Locally-grown and locally-eaten food is picked and eaten when ripe and at its nutritious best. ‘Fresh’ food sold in our supermarkets, on the other hand, is often picked long before it is ripe, transported from near and far, stored in a warehouse, then left on a supermarket shelf for days. I ask you, how ‘fresh’ is that?

Seasonal
Populations in Asia have a far better reputation for holding onto traditions than we do in the west. Chinese herbal doctors have followed a diet of the seasons for centuries now. This keeps our body healthy by aligning us with nature and eating foods that are naturally available in our own environment. Scientifically, we now know that force-growing crops at the wrong time of year creates a different nutrient profile to those that are seasonally grown. For me, this shows how easy it is to become separated from the seasons while seemingly eating a ‘healthy’ diet.

Organic
Many studies have shown that organically-grown foods are more nutrient dense than intensively-farmed ones. Chemically fertilized plants often look larger and lusher, but lush growth means more watery tissue and a growing susceptibility to disease. Because of this, the nutritive quality of the plant also suffers. The use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers has long been a contentious issue. Pesticides protect plants from the surrounding environment, but is this a good thing? Organic plants are more exposed to the elements. With that comes stress and disease – by standing on their own two feet they develop an inner strength that exposure to these elements demands. This causes the organic plants to produce more protective and anti-stress compounds and we get the benefit of these compounds when we eat them! Chemically-enhanced plants often look particularly attractive but nutritionally they usually have only a feeble offering and really aren’t fit for purpose.

As a nutritional therapist I use food to promote optimum health. My recommendations must be realistic and achievable and this is where the local, seasonal and organic idealism can fall down. In an ideal world we’d all have unlimited access to local, seasonal and organic food, and have the time and knowledge to cook and prepare it. We need the help and resources to re-establish this much needed connection between consumers, producers and the land our food comes from. The good news is that this help is now here in abundance. There has been a quiet food revolution going on that is challenging the way we shop and eat in this country. The Food for Life partnership is doing amazing work in schools across the country and the Making Local Food Work project is a great online resource.

What can you do? Why not check out your local farmers’ market or speak to your greengrocer about what they have that’s local and in season? You could join a community farm project or order a UK only vegetable box from one of the many locally-based companies. Get a seasonal cook book and learn how to make tasty, nutritious meals from the less popular winter vegetables. The Boxing Clever Cookbook by Jacqui Jones and Joan Wilmot has recipes like Swede in cider that are a real January treat in my home. A quick online search produces a wealth of allotment and garden sharing sites for those of you who want to grow your own. We’re only limited by our imaginations. Start looking for new and healthier ways of eating. The rewards are truly delicious’.

The Diabesity debate

Monday, July 6th, 2009

An article written for Inspired Times magazine

Everywhere I go, in the UK and throughout Europe, I see that obesity is on the increase and so too is diabetes. This epidemic is quite literally sweeping across the globe or the developed parts of it at least. According to the latest figures we now have more than two million registered diabetics in the UK with over a million ‘undiagnosed’. Medical complications from diabetes alone account for at least 8% of total health care costs in Europe and it is rising at an alarming rate. We now have a word for it and it’s called Diabesity! Diabetes and obesity stuck together like a giant sugary snack.

I read stories about how scientists have discovered a ‘fat gene’ and the assumption is that the gene is newly developed by us humans. It’s one that we hadn’t had before; acquired in the mid 80s along with a mullet and a bleached blonde fringe (I can’t have been the only one surely). Human evolution doesn’t work like that; new genes don’t just come along and start causing trouble. What we are seeing is a reaction, by our bodies, to our environment and by that I mean the food that we eat, the way that we live and the air that we breathe.

Chemical messengers tell our genes that everything is OK in our world or that we are under attack. Recent research has begun to identify elements of our diet that tell our genes things aren’t good. Our genes respond accordingly and boy are they responding at the moment. In the past 50 years our diet has changed beyond all recognition. You only have to compare the ingredients in a sliced white loaf from your local supermarket to that of artisan bread from an independent baker to see this. Food is simply no longer just food. With so many ingredients added and taken away from our food, is it any wonder we don’t really know how to respond to it, process it and get whatever goodness is left from it.

For wholesale manufacturers the nutritional value of food seems to be way down the list of priorities behind shelf life, packaging, marketing and profit. I’d even go one step further and add addictability to that list. These foods are designed to be eaten again and again in ever larger quantities. In fact calling some of these products ‘food’ is an insult and quite frankly dangerous to health.

There is even a European Union framework committee called DIABESITY and their express aim is to ‘identify several new drug targets for the treatment and prevention of diabesity.’ They say ‘Obviously the perfect scenario to end obesity would be that elusive ‘magic pill’. They blame diabesity on the trend to eat convenience or calorie packed meals and there is absolutely no mention of the bigger trend of manufacturing the stuff in the first place. Whatever happened to the committee that wants to take a few steps backwards and examine why we are in this state in the first place? Obviously a magic pill would be the easiest option and dare I say the profitable one but consider for a moment where taking the easy route has got us so far.

The best our government has come up with is to eat less of the rubbish being sold to us and go for a short run every other day.

So, what can you do about it? Well you’re reading the first ever issue of Inspired Times, so you’re probably already pretty clued up or the distribution of this magazine has excelled all expectations. This is more of a call to arms, or a call to your cookers, allotments and to your children’s classrooms. It’s time to start baking our own bread again, growing our own fruit and vegetables, making proper stock from the bones of animals we eat and making good hearty wholesome food from relatively few ingredients that haven’t been processed in a faceless factory. For those of you that are already doing this, it’s time to share these skills with those around you in your local communities. Maybe we need to go the other way in this country and heavily tax processed foods according to their lack of nutritional value while making organic whole foods free from tax. This may better reflect the burden placed on our health service by diets rich in processed foods. I’m not sure I have all the answers but I’m certain they lie in our past. We’ve always known how to look after ourselves, we’ve just lost our way a little in the past 50 years.

The alternative for us is to rely entirely on a European Union framework committee to invent the magic pill, how scary is that?