from Prof. Michael Crawford, President, the McCarrison Society
In the Daily Mail - 2 days ago, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said that the country is collectively over-indulging in the equivalent of 17 million cheeseburgers every day.
The Guardian reports that Jamie Oliver brands the report "worthless, regurgitated, patronising rubbish"
I agree with Jamie Oliver. The food system has been distorted and education on home economics, nutrition and health removed from the school curriculum. Hence ignorance abounds everywhere other than TV advertisements.
As an example, in the 1976, the Royal College of Physicians and British Cardiac Society published a seminal report on heart disease. They recommended that people should eat less fatty red meat and more poultry because it was lean with little fat. To get the FAO-WHO (2010) recommended 200 g DHA/day when pregnant from a lean chicken as recommended, you will need to eat 120g chicken accompanied by 90 calories fat.
To get the same in 2004 you needed to eat 800g chicken, which would be accompanied today by over 2,000 calories of fat. At the highest amount of DHA it would be 1,000 cals. This is the consequence of modern intensive production, cereal based feeding, no exercise and genetic selection for rapid weight gain and growth promoters. The argument is that the chicken is now cheap and affordable. Lets say you can buy a chicken for £2.99. Great! But to get the same amount of DHA a nutrient essential for the growth of babies brain you need to spend £20 accompanied by a whopping 2,000 calories of fat .
Much the same happened to beef and pigs although that started long before when beef fat was of great value for candles, soap, shoe, saddle and leather polish. Come electricity and oil, candles were no longer needed. The value of animal fat took on another meaning as food commodity – ice cream, pies, sausages, processed and convenience foods etc etc. – we now eat the candles.
In 1978 the FAO-WHO joint expert consultation recommended that the gross over fattening of animals be corrected. Nothing of note has been done. Is there any surprise that people are getting obese when we are eating obese animals?
There are two simple solutions. First to re-introduce nutrition and health education as the 4th R in schools to empower children with knowledge that pertains to their own health and the health and intelligence of their future children. The second is a reformation of the food system based on nutrition and health.
Michael Crawford, Imperial College.