101 Facts You Should Know About Food
101 Facts You Should Know About Food
Facts
You Should
Know
About
Food
John Farndon
One-third of all the fruit
and vegetables we eat
contains pesticide residuces
80% of 10-year-old
American girls diet
Blueberries may be more
effective than drugs
in protecting against
heart disease
101 Facts
You Should
Know About
Food
John Farndon
ICON BOOKS
Contents
Introduction
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
29
31
32
35
37
39
40
41
43
45
47
49
51
53
55
57
58
62
64
66
68
70
72
73
75
78
80
82
86
87
89
91
94
96
98
100
106
108
59. Eating potatoes will raise your blood sugar levels 109
more than eating an equivalent amount of castor
sugar
60. Children in Europe and the USA eat more than
twice the recommended amount of salt in their
diet every day
110
112
114
116
118
120
122
123
125
127
129
131
133
140
142
144
146
148
81. A number of foods have been labelled superfoods because of their supposed health benets
150
153
155
157
159
161
162
164
166
168
91. Half of the worlds total food energy and a third 170
of its protein comes from just three cereals: wheat,
rice and maize
92. Surveys of childrens food show that a third
contains azo dyes linked to asthma and
hyperactivity
172
173
176
178
180
98. Food lled with chemicals that counter the effect 182
of oxygen could slow down the ageing process
99. The Glycaemic Index may give a better idea of
how fattening a food is than calories alone
184
186
187
188
Index
190
Introduction
ood is the one thing none of us can do without. Fortunately
very few of us in the developed world ever have to. Yet
strangely, in these times of plenty, food is talked about more
and more. In the past, most people had very little choice over
what they ate. Nowadays, we are genuinely spoiled for choice.
Supermarkets provide a year-round cornucopia of foodstuffs
from all over the world. Restaurants serve a bewildering variety
of cuisines. TV chefs entertain us with a host of different dishes
that we could make if we put our minds to it.
It seems as if, as the choice grows, we begin to question more
and more if we are making the right choice. Maybe we should
avoid food containing trans-fats because its bad for our health?
Maybe we should eat berries because they are rich in antioxidants that slow ageing? Maybe we should buy organic because
its good for the environment? Sometimes we even wonder if we
should eat food at all, because it could be contaminated by bacteria that cause food poisoning or additives that cause cancer.
Faced with such a dilemma, you could, of course, simply give
up and eat whatever you fancy on a day-to-day basis, and damn
the consequences. But our choices do have consequences, not
just for us and our health, but for the health of the world, too.
The aim of this book is to arm you with 101 facts about food that
will help you make an informed choice.
As you read, you may learn things, as I did when compiling
the book, that might just make you rethink some of your choices.
increased the distance that food travels to reach our table. Not
only do we travel further to buy our food now than ever before,
but supermarket distribution systems mean that food is shipped
huge distances around the country from central depots. Often
even when food is grown locally, its shipped hundreds of miles
on to the supermarkets distribution centre, then hundreds of
miles back to the local outlet. Between 1978 and 2000, the distance that food was transported by lorry within the UK more
than doubled. Indeed, the food lorries of the major UK supermarkets pound up and down UK roads relentlessly, covering over
1 billion kilometres (well over half a billion miles) a year. Nearly
40% of the trucks on UK roads are carrying food, and the number is growing by the year.
Folgers (Procter & Gamble), Sara Lee and Tchibo havent passed
on these price reductions to their customers. Instead theyre
making gigantic prots and passing on the dividends to their
shareholders.
Vietnam is now taking a quarter of its coffee plantations out
of production, but the effects of this coffee glut around the world
have been devastating for many coffee farmers. There are tragic
stories of farmers and plantation workers in Central America
being forced out of business helping to fuel the waves of
migration of Hispanic people to the USA. And besides the
human tragedy, environmentalists are concerned because so
many coffee plantations are in sensitive rainforest areas, and the
prospect of vast swathes of coffee land being turned over to
pasture or other uses is alarming.
too, has now been shown to have higher levels of Omega-3 than
non-organic milk. Organic milk is now the rst organic product
to be recommended by government agencies for its health
benets.
use. She found that when she fed young rats a high-fat diet for
a while, they always became obese later in life.
Even more dramatic may be the effects of sugar. Addictive
drugs are thought to exert their pull by hijacking the brains
natural reward circuits the parts of the brain that are squirted
with pleasure chemicals like dopamine to give a sense of wellbeing. Most of the research in this eld centres on how addictive
drugs work, but some scientists are now wondering if giant doses
of sugar can have a similar effect stimulating the reward
circuits to such a degree that any withdrawal of sugar intake is
as uncomfortable as withdrawal from hard drugs. Indeed, one
team of scientists testing rats fed with a high-sugar diet actually
found the rats suffering chattering teeth, the shakes and anxiety
when they were deprived of sugar just like heroin addicts
deprived of heroin. The idea that sugar is addictive in this way
is still not accepted by the majority of neuroscientists, but
research is under way.
lactase, which breaks down milk sugar into two simpler forms
of sugar called glucose and galactose so that it can be absorbed
into the bloodstream. People decient in lactase may feel very
uncomfortable when they digest milk products. Common symptoms, which range from mild to severe, include nausea, cramps,
bloating, gas and diarrhoea. Lactose intolerance is sometimes
confused with cows milk intolerance because the symptoms are
often the same, but cows milk intolerance is an allergic reaction
triggered by the immune system; lactose intolerance is a problem caused by the digestive system.
for their blood-pressure benets because they are rich in potassium, but avocados contain two-and-a-half times as much. They
are also rich in magnesium, which is again good for blood
pressure.
Some researchers argue that avocados can protect against
certain kinds of cancer, supplying antioxidants to mop up the
free radicals that are thought to be cancer-causing. Avocados
contain more of the antioxidant vitamin E, plus three times as
much of the antioxidant glutathione, than any other fruit.
Diabetes organisations often advise people with Type 2
diabetes to eat avocados, too. They believe that not only do the
avocados contents of monounsaturated fat and triglyceride help
protect against the heart disease linked to diabetes, but its high
bre content counters many of the effects of diabetes, including
regulating insulin levels.
And nally, recent research has shown that avocados contain
a kind of sugar that helps prevent blood sugar levels from dropping. This isnt only good for diabetics, but may also make
avocados the perfect diet food. People are often spurred to eat
more carbohydrate-rich food as their blood sugar levels drop. If
their blood sugar stays at normal levels, they wont feel the need
to eat to raise it.
None of the benets of the avocado are fully proven yet. But
there is enough suggestive evidence to make it worthwhile for
all of us to eat avocados more often.
worried that if the protein injected into chicken came from cows,
it could be infected with BSE (mad cow disease). After an investigation, they decided there was no evidence that chicken was
being adulterated with beef waste. A BBC Panorama team
began secret lming in meat-processing factories and found that
in fact beef waste was being added to chicken in signicant
quantities. Whats more, food company executives were boasting
that theyd found a way of disguising the DNA of the added protein so that its origin was undetectable. Panorama found that at
least twelve companies in Holland were using these undetectable hydrolysed proteins.
As a result, the Food Standards Agency is now lobbying the
European Union to make the use of hydrolysed protein illegal,
and to limit the permitted water content of chicken to 15%. At
the moment, though, the chances are that chicken is being adulterated like this all around the world.
leader of the study, acknowledges that the best way to ght heart
disease is through changes in diet and exercise. But, he says,
people often cant make the necessary changes. Plant sterolfortied juices may therefore be at least a help. This research
was funded by Coca-Cola as well as the National Institute for
Health.
Other scientists think the best way to use plant sterols is in pill
form. They argue that taking them in fortied foods is unpredictable and erratic. Its impossible to be sure, for instance, when
eating out, that the food is suitably fortied. Studies at Washington University in 2006 suggested that such pills could reduce
LDL, but they are not yet approved for use.
the fat that a woman should eat in a day. Whats more, the
recommended daily intake of saturated fats is typically just 20g.
So if a high proportion of the fat in that fat-free pie is saturated,
it could easily put you well over the daily limit. In other words,
you could nd yourself eating far too much fat from just a single
fat-free pie a day.
Recommended daily fat intakes are often worked out as a
proportion of your total food energy intake. Its thought that fat
should provide no more than 35% of your food energy intake.
Food energy is measured in calories, or rather kilocalories, and fat
provides about 9 calories of energy per gram. So if you eat about
2,000 calories or kilocalories a day, you can work out that this
should include 76g of fat. If your calorie intake is, say, 2,500, then
you should have no more than 100g of fat a day.
In the UK, some food producers are labelling their produce
with Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) which show how much
the product contributes to your fat intake. In the USA, some are
labelled with Recommended Daily Intake (RDI), and Daily Values
(DVs). You can nd out more about what this means on websites
such as the British Nutrition Foundation (www.nutrition.org.uk)
for Europe and the Healthguide (www.healthguide.org/life/
food_labels_nutrition_facts.htm) for the USA.
improve. Indeed, the extra carbohydrate boosts blood triglyceride levels, increasing the risk of heart disease.
So in 2005, the USDA decided to issue a revised food pyramid to reect these discoveries. The idea was to emphasise the
value of whole grains, to distinguish between types of fat and
give better choices for protein. It also included a gure climbing
the pyramid to promote the values of exercise. But unlike the
earlier pyramid it does not give any simple-to-remember general
dietary recommendations. To nd out your personal recommended diet, you must visit USDAs website (www.mypyramid.
gov), where you can generate your own custom-made pyramid
according to your age, sex and level of daily physical activity.
and they were considerably taller than they were on the eve of
the Industrial Revolution. After reaching well over 173cm on
average at the end of the Middle Ages, men shrank to an alltime low of 167cm in the 18th century, and didnt begin to grow
tall again until the 20th century.
Steckel offers a variety of explanations for this long dip in
height, including climate change and urbanisation. A cooling of
the climate from the Middle Ages on, leading to what is sometimes known as the Little Ice Age (when ice fairs were held on
the Thames), may have shortened crop-growing seasons and
deprived people of food. The rapid growth of cities in the Industrial Revolution may also have denied people access to good,
fresh food, while promoting the spread of disease.
Of course, throughout this period, the rich always had access
to good food and good conditions, and so remained tall. Only
the poor had their growth stunted by lack of food. The same is
true on a global scale today.
really working out. Even so, youd have to run hard for almost
half an hour to burn off the energy in just two small packets of
crisps. One good thing about exercise, though, is that it raises
the rate at which you burn energy not just while youre hard at
it, but for a couple of hours afterwards.
If you take in more energy than your body burns, your body
saves it for times of shortage that is, it converts it to fat. If you
eat 3,500 calories more than you burn, youll gain a pound in fat.
Eat just two small packets of crisps a day above what your body
needs in terms of energy, and youll put on a pound (0.45kg) in
little more than a week and nearly a stone (6.35kg) in three
months. Conversely, if you take in less energy food than your
body needs, you lose fat at pretty much the same rate. Its a
simple equation.
Some things increase your RMR, such as extra muscle, living
in a cold place and eating small, regular meals. So can being
pregnant. Some things decrease it, such as getting older and
crash dieting (because you lose muscle, not just fat) which is
why its so easy to regain weight after going on a crash diet.
on the way to work to keep them going through the day. Interestingly, over a third of all sandwiches are sold outside the
traditional lunchtime before 10am and after 4pm. Just like the
Earl of Sandwich, the modern ofce worker has discovered that
the sandwich is the perfect snack food to keep you fed while on
the go.
Keeping up with this voracious demand has become a huge
business. Very rarely are sandwiches made fresh. Instead, they
are made in vast sandwich factories, packed, chilled, transported
over often huge distances, then stored, with inevitable consequences for taste.
About a quarter of UK sandwiches are sold through multiple
retailers such as Boots, Sainsburys and M&S. The rest are sold
in workplace canteens, sandwich bars and coffee shops such as
Subway and Pret Manger, which sells 77 million worth of
sandwiches every year. The sandwich king of the UK, though, is
the little known Greencore, which has a 9% slice of the market,
with sandwiches made at its giant factories in Manton Wood,
Nottingham (3 million sandwiches a week), Park Royal, London
(1 million) and Bow, London (550,000), then distributed all over
the UK.
way into the food of unsuspecting people, with unknown consequences. Its highly unlikely that pollen from pharm crops can
ever be prevented from contaminating unmodied crops. GM
crops might be modied to be sterile, but many people argue
that the only foolproof way to prevent accidents is to avoid
modifying food crops altogether.
Back in 2002, pharmaceutical proteins left over from a
pharming experiment by the Prodigene company were found
growing in elds of ordinary soya beans in Iowa and Nebraska.
Following this, the US government began to look at tightening
up its laws on the production of pharmaceuticals in genetically
modied plants. Biotech companies like Monsanto are doing
their best to convince doubters of the safety of their approach.
Arntzen believes it would be a shame if such fears prevented
the development of edible vaccines which could save millions
of lives in the Third World. So hes continuing his experiments
with them, but with a strong emphasis on safeguards. His team
works in completely sealed conditions with sterile plants. And
the plant hes working with is a white tomato which tastes like
sawdust and cannot possibly be mistaken for food.
world, and there are far too few other breeds to take up the
slack.
This concentration on a single breed in the dairy industry has
been mirrored right across the farming world, and is raising worries. Over the last century, more than 90% of crop varieties have
disappeared. In China, more than 90% of wheat varieties have
been lost in the last half-century. Over the past fteen years,
300 out of the 6,000 farm animal breeds identied by the Food
and Agriculture Organization have become extinct, and two
breeds are now being lost forever each week.
Such a concentration on so few strains and breeds has
undoubtedly brought huge benets in terms of production, but
this not only brings with it a frightening vulnerability to catastrophic failure, but also a massive loss of choice and variety.
Half a century ago, milk could be from Jersey, Guernsey or any
one of a huge range of different breeds of cow, each with its
own distinctive avour. Now milk is essentially milk, which
means Holstein milk.
Billions of people around the world also suffer from the blood
disease anaemia. So golden rice has been modied to give extra
iron in three ways. First, fungus genes make an enzyme that
eliminates phylate, a chemical in rice that stops the body taking
up iron. Second, spinach genes make ferritin, which makes the
rice store more iron. Third, bacteria genes make cysteine, a protein which helps the body take up iron.
There are still many problems with golden rice. One is that
beta-carotene helps raise vitamin A levels only when people
have plenty of fat in their diet. Of course, the poor people who
are most lacking vitamin A often eat little or no fat. Scientists
think that its a step in the right direction, but there has been so
much opposition to the idea that at present golden rice is on
hold.
One of the objections is that much of the technology is in
the hands of a few big multinational companies. Many anti-GM
rice campaigners feel that poor farmers could be locked into
buying expensive seeds from the companies. These same farmers
might also have to buy the pesticides and herbicides that work
with GM products alone. The multinational companies would
then gain enormous power over their lives. Small farmers who
chose not to go along with this might be forced off the land by
the few big farms who could afford to pay for the technology.
in which lettuces are often wrapped, for instance. The MAP kept
the lettuce looking crisp and fresh, but it was as devoid of nutrients after three days as a limp lettuce stored in the open (see
also Fact 78).
What packaging does do is allow retailers and suppliers to
transport food simply and easily over large distances, and stack
it up, price it and date it, ready to be whipped out on to shelves
when needed. Packaging is also free advertising, and a come-on
sign to the customer which also happens to give the valueadded impression which helps bump up prices and prots.
The big change in packaging is that it has become much
lighter. Cans are made with much thinner metal than in the past,
and heavy glass containers have been replaced with lightweight
plastic. So the weight of packaging in relation to the weight of
the food has come down dramatically. The problem is that while
glass and metal, and to a lesser extent paper, is highly recyclable,
there are real problems with recycling plastic.
The huge amount of oil that goes into plastic packaging, and
the vast areas of landll needed to take all the waste, have meant
that many authorities around the world have introduced measures to make plastic food containers degradable or recyclable,
and supermarkets, responding to the mood, have often introduced degradable or recyclable products of their own accord.
Yet food still generates more waste than nearly every other
sector of industry over 4.6 million tonnes a year in the UK
alone.
massive expansion of soya production in South America especially Brazil and Argentina. And the growth here is accelerating,
prompting tremendous fears over the environmental consequences. Its estimated that an area of the Amazon the size of
Britain could be cleared to make way for soya production by
2020. The worries are severe enough for even McDonalds to
issue a statement asking its suppliers not to feed its poultry on
Amazon soya.
In the 1990s, soya was promoted as a healthy option. Soya
milk in particular was advocated as the wholesome vegetarian
alternative to dairy milk, and the perfect source of calcium and
protein for those who are lactose intolerant. Indeed, in the USA,
3040% of babies are raised on soya milk as a matter of course.
But in recent years, real doubts have been raised about just how
healthy soya is. In traditional Asian cooking, soy sauce is made
with long fermentation which reduces plant oestrogens and
other ingredients that work against nutrition, such as phytates
that block the enzymes that our bodies need to digest protein.
Modern fast soya processing methods cut out this long fermentation, so the oestrogens and anti-nutrients are left in place.
Some scientists now believe that all these soya hormones
could be harmful. In 2005, one scientists research suggested
that women hoping to get pregnant should avoid soya. Other
research suggests that soya may interfere with testosterone
levels. And a report by the UK Royal Society concluded that soya
milk should not be recommended for infants, even if they had a
dairy milk allergy.
sheep and horses are taken on long journeys each year, and 1.5
million pigs are transported from the Netherlands to Spain for
fattening and slaughtering. Journeys from the north to the south
of Europe can last 40 or 50 hours, all of which time the animals
are packed into the same truck.
Opponents of the trade in livestock believe that live animals
should never be transported. The animals should, they say,
always be slaughtered near where they are reared and only the
meat transported. Transporting live animals is also much more
expensive than transporting meat. But there is a premium on
home-killed meat in France that makes it worth the cost. Moreover, slaughterhouses need to stay busy at times outside the
local breeding season, and importing live animals may be the
only way to do this.
opening. Its unsafe to eat food or drink past its use-by date even
if it smells and looks ne (unless it was frozen in plenty of time).
Surprisingly, there are no hard and fast rules about deciding
use-by dates. Its entirely up to those selling the food and applying
the labels to decide how long the food will last, and estimates
can vary. However, its not in supermarkets interests to poison
their customers. Moreover, they can be prosecuted if there are
any bad failures. So when the dates are in the supermarkets control, they are genuinely fairly reliable although with such vast
operations theres always the possibility of mistakes.
Problems are more likely to occur with packagers. Its illegal
for supermarkets to sell food past its use-by date. Its also illegal
for them to alter use-by dates so that it can be sold for longer.
This is not so for meat packagers. Its actually entirely legal for
a chicken-processing plant, for instance, to re-package and redate raw chicken and pass it off as fresh to the shops they sell
to. According to the trade union Unison, such re-dating is common practice. The worry is that once a processing plant starts to
re-date surplus chicken at the end of the day, it can quickly get
out of control. Chicken could be re-dated again and again without anyone being aware of it.
salads also lose their nutrients quickly after they are picked. But
you can tell the nutrients are gone in an unwrapped salad
because it goes limp. With MAP, it stays looking fresh after its
nutrient value has diminished.
The nutrient content of packed salad may be further reduced
by the way its washed. Supermarkets are very conscious of the
possibility of food-poisoning from packaged salad. Because salads
are typically neither cooked nor washed by consumers, they have
to be free from contamination if they are not to cause outbreaks
of E. coli or salmonella illnesses. Rather than take any risk of
causing such an outbreak, supermarkets insist that their salads
are carefully washed in what is effectively disinfectant. According to one food company boss, salads are typically soaked in a
bath which contains 50mg of chlorine in every litre of water
thats twenty times the concentration of chlorine in an average
swimming pool. Whether this heavy chlorination does anyone
any harm no one knows, but many people think it at least kills
some of the salads taste.
derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is thought to be important in encouraging neurons to grow and make new connections.
Although the whole idea of caloric restriction is highly controversial, many experts now agree that most people can afford
to cut down on their carbohydrate intake. It also makes sense to
cut down on simple sugary food, especially rened sugar, and eat
a balance of more complex carbohydrates, found in foods such
as wholemeal bread, pasta, vegetables, pulses, brown rice and
other grains. These are broken down in the body into glucose
and other simple sugars slowly and steadily, to be used only as
and when required.
Research suggests that babies who feed on breast milk contaminated with PCBs can be slow developers, while girls exposed to
high levels of PCBs become more masculine in their play.
Some plastic used for wrapping meat and dairy products
contains phthalates. Phthalates may cause genital abnormalities
in baby boys. Brominated ame retardants often used to make
everything from carpets to computer screens reproof can turn
to dust, and, even if not breathed in directly, can settle on
exposed food. They are thought to become concentrated in
breast milk and disrupt the development of a babys nervous
system. Peruorinated chemicals (PFCs) such as PFOA, often
used in fast food packaging (as well as non-stick pans and oor
waxes), can damage the immune system and cause birth defects.
In a recent test of food samples from supermarkets across the
EU, the World Wildlife Fund found potentially harmful synthetic
chemicals in all of the analysed samples, ranging from phthalates
in olive oil, cheeses and meats, banned organochlorine pesticides
in sh and reindeer meat, articial musks and organotins in sh,
and ame retardants in meats and cheeses. Sandra Jen, Director
of WWFs DetoX Campaign, commented: It is shocking to see that
even a healthy diet leads to the uptake of so many contaminants.
However, the study was not controlled, nor did it include people
who had been consuming aspartame over a lifetime. So the jury
is out.
and olive oil content to give them their desirable soft, almost
soggy texture. But over the last few decades the water content
in standard industrially-made bread has gone up steadily. Extra
water not only means a signicant saving in our costs, but
means the soft dough can be achieved with tough, lower-grade
our. Otherwise you have to use higher-grade our for the soft
bread that most consumers like. Getting this extra water in was
easy with chlorinated bleached ours, but these were banned
in 1998 in the UK for health reasons. Now many bread-makers
achieve the same with GMO (genetically modied) enzymes.
Low-grade our, higher water content, trans-fats (plus GMO
enzymes or bleached our) all mean that the bread you buy in
supermarkets may be just a bit less nutritious than you might
imagine. In fact, in large quantities it could even be a health risk
because of its high salt content. In the past, normal fermentation
was quite enough to give bread a good avour. The drastic cut
in fermentation times in industrial processes means extra salt
has to be added to stop the bread tasting like cardboard. According to some estimates, bread is now the biggest source of salt in
the average diet and that high salt intake brings attendant
health risks (see Fact 34).
vitamins, our body gets vitamin A from foods, and the main
sources of retinol are animal products, especially full-fat dairy
produce, eggs and liver. Our bodies can also get it indirectly by
converting a substance called beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is
the pigment that makes vegetables such as carrots, squashes
and sweet potatoes their orangey yellow colour.
Our bodies dont need much vitamin A, especially retinol
which the body cant easily get rid of. Indeed, an excess of retinol
is poisonous, and may be particularly damaging to foetuses in
early pregnancy which is why doctors advise expectant mothers
to cut down on liver. Excess beta-carotene is usually less of a
problem but even beta-carotene may be linked to cancer when
taken in excess in synthetic form rather than in food.
For the children of the worlds poor countries, excess vitamin
A is rarely an issue. The problem is not just that they never get
the dairy food and eggs that gives us most of our vitamin A in
the form of retinol. Even when they do get beta-carotene in
vegetables, the lack of fat in their diet means that their bodies
are poorly equipped to convert it to vitamin A.
Africa and South America. Here the staples are roots and tubers,
such as cassava, yams, cocoyam, taro and sweet potatoes. Cassava
is the staple food for about half a billion people, eaten in such
foods as tapioca, gari, fufu and farinha.
As countries develop, staples play a decreasingly important
part in the diet. In the USA, for example, less than 20% of food
energy comes from cereals. Almost as much comes each from
sugar and sweeteners and fat. The picture is similar in Canada,
Europe and Australia. In fact, most developing countries are now
going through a nutrition transition. In this, consumption of
staples and other traditional crops such as pulses and oilseeds
is declining, while the intake of fat, sugar, salt and meat is rising,
along with the consumption of rened and processed foods.
of the basic antioxidants you need from your normal diet. It may
be that there are antioxidant drugs you can take to boost your
defences against free radicals, but no one yet knows what they
are, or what their effects might be.
No one really knows whether eating food rich in antioxidants
will help defend against the damage done by free radicals in
your body cells or even if its worth defending against. But it
certainly cant do any harm to eat more of the fruit and
vegetables that are rich in antioxidants.
Fruit: raspberries, strawberries, red grapes, oranges, plums,
cherries, blueberries, kiwis, pink grapefruit, raisins, prunes
Vegetables: corn, onions, red peppers, spinach, aubergine,
sprouts, kale, broccoli, beetroot, alfalfa sprouts
Lower-GI food
Higher-GI food
Breakfast cereals
Porridge
Sugar-free muesli
Cornakes
Sweetened muesli
Breads
Granary
Rye bread
White bread
Brown bread
Rice and cereals
Basmati rice
Pasta
Mashed potatoes
Parsnips
Fruit
Books
A Consumers Guide to Genetically Modied Food, Alan McHughen,
Oxford University Press
DNA, James Watson, William Heinemann
Dont Eat this Book, Morgan Spurlock, Penguin
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser, Penguin
Food For the Future, Colin Tudge, Dorling Kindersley
Not on the Label, Felicity Lawrence, Penguin
Nutrients AZ, Dr Michael Sharon, Carlton
Shopped, Joanna Blythman, Harper Perennial
The Composition of Foods, R. A. McCance and E. Widdowson, Food
Standards Agency
The Food System: A Guide, Geoff and Tony Worsley, Earthscan
The Science of Food, Gaman Sherrington, Butterworth Heinemann
You Are What You Eat, Kirsten Hartvug and Dr Nic Rowley, Piatkus
What Are You Really Eating?, Amanda Ursell, Hay House
The Truth About Food, Sir John Krebs, Royal Institution
Publications
New Scientist
Scientic American
Index
added-value 967
additives 34
advertising 701
and children 71
and junk food 70, 71
and obesity 70
and packaging 134
ageing 62, 1467, 1823
agribusiness 116, 117, 1256, 127, 1578
chicken farming 689, 176
proponents 1667
alcohol 40
allergies 90, 1045, 11415, 172
Alzheimers disease 142
amino acids 161, 1801
essential/non-essential 181
anaemia 132
anaphylactic shock 11415
animals
cloned 86
see also livestock
anorexia 27
antibiotics
and bacterial resistance 81
in honey 108
antioxidants 3, 32, 38, 152, 1823
in avocados 38
in blueberries 121
in broccoli 57
in wine 40
aphrodisiacs 734
and aroma 74
aromas 1112
and aphrodisiacs 74
and food identication 1112
nature 12
smell receptors 11
aspartame 162
INDEX 191
coffee 1534
added-value 967
production 1718
and demand 17
and environment 18
colourings 4, 172
Common Agricultural Policy 51
complete proteins 181
copper 23, 57, 175
corn 131
cows milk intolerance 34
C-reactive protein 45
crisps 878, 184
crop varieties 103
Daily Values (DVs) 61
dates on packs 1401
reliability 141
dessert 75
diabetes 910, 29, 121, 123
and avocados 38
causes 910
and GI 184
diet
balanced 181
changes in 177
and health 823
diet culture 28
dieting
in adults 28
in children 278
display until dates 140
dopamine 63
E. coli bacteria 166
E numbers 4, 90
eating disorders 278
eating out 15960
market value 160
eggs 32, 169, 181
endorphins 72
food
allergies 11415
chemical classication 75
choices 12
contamination 1001
deterioration 89
improved 84
processing 1314, 157
production 1256
sale price 1256
seasonality 7, 78
shortages 47, 128
surplus 47
food chain 155
food pyramid 767
Food Standards Agency 19
and chickens 412
and salt 645
free radicals 38, 40, 92, 146
and ageing process 1823
fructose 109, 123
fruit 1920, 76, 123
as antioxidants 183
and digestion 26
mineral/vitamin content 23
functional foods 11819
legislation 119
garlic 32
genetic modications
of animals 86
of cereals 801
objections to 132
of rice 131
spreading of genes 179
of tomatoes 1489
genetically modied (GMO) enzymes
165
global food companies 51, 132, 157
global food transport network 78
global warming 128
INDEX 193
labels
additives 34
marked dates 1401
lactase 334
lactose 334, 123
intolerance 334
LDL (low-density lipoprotein)
cholesterol 37, 55, 76
and blueberries 120
and plant sterols 45
legumes 80
leptin 29
lettuce 20, 79
leucine 161
libido 73
liquorice 74
liver 169
livestock 49, 50
intensive rearing 127, 128
and nutritional value 234
transport 1389
low-fat 60
lunch 989, 159
luteins 151
lysine 161
McDonalds 1516, 56, 70
and chicken sales 176
food preservatives 89
mad cow disease see BSE
magnesium 23, 38, 57, 152, 175
maize 170
malnutrition 478, 137
maltose 123
manganese 175
meat 47, 167, 181
consumption 14, 4950, 176
from stem cells 187
and water use 13
medicine production 1001
mental ability 623, 912, 112
INDEX 195