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I don't know if you have heard of this in the USA but Britain is in the grip of the 5-a-day craze. I understand that some government nutritionist wrote in a report a few years back that it would be quite a good thing if everyone ate 5 portions of fresh veggies and fresh fruit a day. He might have said 4, or 6, but he settled on 5, for no particular scientific reason.
Anyway, a few years down the line and almost everyone in the UK is treating this as the Eleventh Commandment; as a scientific fact, as if it had been written in a Manual of how to care for the human body given to Moses or something.
It's always quoted as 5-a-day for everyone, and that cannot be right because we all have different needs: a 6ft 7 bodybuilder's needs can't be the same as a 3-year-old's, surely?
As all Atkineers know, fresh veggies are good for you! It's the perversion and distortions that are really, really irritating me right now.
You see, members of the general public do not have copies of the original report. They are relying on 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand knowledge. The original recommendations are filtered down through various ignorant people (doctors, journalists, tv presenters) who are perverting the original information.
For example, I have repeatedly seen various media (tv, magazines, papers, radio) actually say that potatoes, sweetcorn, peas and fruit juices count towards this "5-a-day". Corn is a grain! Potatoes are tubers and peas are pulses. Green Giant Sweetcorn even has "One of your 5-a-day" on the label. And don't even get me started on fruit juice!
[Semi-sarcastic aside]
If corn is one of the 5-a-day then we must allow wheat, and thus bread, and thus bagels and croissants and muffins and cookies! If potatoes are OK, then french fries can count as 5-a-day, surely? A McDonalds burger contains bread, fries and a slice of dill pickle, that's three of your five a day isn't it?
Yesterday I watched a cable TV programme that instructed parents on how to make a child's daily packed lunch according to the 5-a-day guidelines. Some of the "ideal" lunches contained a bag of grapes, a banana, a box of raisins and a carton of fruit juice - all of them very highly concentrated sources of fructose! And the ONLY vegetable shown being packed into a child's lunch box was .... carrots! ... a very high G.I. vegetable!
Now, don't get me wrong, I'd rather children ate fruit and juice than chocolate and cola drinks, but what is now being pushed as the "ideal" packed lunch comprises mainly sweet items that will encourage and nurture a sweet tooth, cause an insulin rush and a resultant comedown/crash afterwards. A lot of thinking parents are starting to recognise the connection between bad behaviour and insulin surges and crashes. Orange juice has also been shown to corrode children's teeth.
Cases of diabetes have risen exponentially in the past few years, and this healthy-eating 5-a-day craze is supposed to be addressing that too. I fail to see how encouraging children to eat large amounts of fructose is going to protect them from diabetes.
I am pretty sure the original report did not recommend that children be given huge doses of concentrated fructose, but that is what distortion has led to.
I do understand that children can more easily be persuaded to eat a lot of sweet things for lunch than, say, bits of cauliflower and cold, boiled sprouts!
I wonder if anyone would like to comment on the above?
Anyway, a few years down the line and almost everyone in the UK is treating this as the Eleventh Commandment; as a scientific fact, as if it had been written in a Manual of how to care for the human body given to Moses or something.
It's always quoted as 5-a-day for everyone, and that cannot be right because we all have different needs: a 6ft 7 bodybuilder's needs can't be the same as a 3-year-old's, surely?
As all Atkineers know, fresh veggies are good for you! It's the perversion and distortions that are really, really irritating me right now.
You see, members of the general public do not have copies of the original report. They are relying on 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand knowledge. The original recommendations are filtered down through various ignorant people (doctors, journalists, tv presenters) who are perverting the original information.
For example, I have repeatedly seen various media (tv, magazines, papers, radio) actually say that potatoes, sweetcorn, peas and fruit juices count towards this "5-a-day". Corn is a grain! Potatoes are tubers and peas are pulses. Green Giant Sweetcorn even has "One of your 5-a-day" on the label. And don't even get me started on fruit juice!
[Semi-sarcastic aside]
If corn is one of the 5-a-day then we must allow wheat, and thus bread, and thus bagels and croissants and muffins and cookies! If potatoes are OK, then french fries can count as 5-a-day, surely? A McDonalds burger contains bread, fries and a slice of dill pickle, that's three of your five a day isn't it?
Yesterday I watched a cable TV programme that instructed parents on how to make a child's daily packed lunch according to the 5-a-day guidelines. Some of the "ideal" lunches contained a bag of grapes, a banana, a box of raisins and a carton of fruit juice - all of them very highly concentrated sources of fructose! And the ONLY vegetable shown being packed into a child's lunch box was .... carrots! ... a very high G.I. vegetable!
Now, don't get me wrong, I'd rather children ate fruit and juice than chocolate and cola drinks, but what is now being pushed as the "ideal" packed lunch comprises mainly sweet items that will encourage and nurture a sweet tooth, cause an insulin rush and a resultant comedown/crash afterwards. A lot of thinking parents are starting to recognise the connection between bad behaviour and insulin surges and crashes. Orange juice has also been shown to corrode children's teeth.
Cases of diabetes have risen exponentially in the past few years, and this healthy-eating 5-a-day craze is supposed to be addressing that too. I fail to see how encouraging children to eat large amounts of fructose is going to protect them from diabetes.
I am pretty sure the original report did not recommend that children be given huge doses of concentrated fructose, but that is what distortion has led to.
I do understand that children can more easily be persuaded to eat a lot of sweet things for lunch than, say, bits of cauliflower and cold, boiled sprouts!
I wonder if anyone would like to comment on the above?
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