The Independent
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
They're all at it. This week Burger King was criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority for giving viewers a false impression of its premier brand, the Whopper. Instead of the large version praised by burly men singing a "manthem" in one of the company's television commericials, the store was serving far smaller burgers.
In the spirit of investigative inquiry, The Independent launched its own survey of fast-food classics as portrayed on advertising billboards and compared them with the real thing. The contrast, to say the least, was stark.
The Independent ordered a Big Mac from McDonald's, a Double Whopper from Burger King, a Cheesy Bites pizza from Pizza Hut and a Bargain Bucket from KFC. Our conclusions are presented alongside. In the meantime it is worth pointing out that even if the hype is seductive these are dishes that could seriously extend your waistline.
All the companies stress that their food is suitable for the whole family, but all four were loaded with salt and sugar, and two had more than the total recommended amount of calories, salt and fat for a whole day. Even on a subjective level, the food was greasier and less wholesome than it appeared in advertisements.
Read more...
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Paris hits back at eau minérale as adverts pour scorn on its water
The Times
By Charles Bremner in Paris
The makers of France’s most popular mineral water have angered the Government, the Paris council and Green groups with a campaign implying that the capital’s tap water is undrinkable and polluted.
City officials, who are proud of the quality of their eau du robinet, have hit back, saying that much of Cristaline, the bottled water, comes from the same underground source that supplies an industrial port city.
Behind the feud lie declining sales in a saturated market for mineral water, which the French still drink in greater volumes than the tap version. Cristaline, a low-cost eau minérale, has covered Paris with posters showing an open lavatory with a red cross and the tagline: “I do not drink water that I use.”
Read more...
By Charles Bremner in Paris
The makers of France’s most popular mineral water have angered the Government, the Paris council and Green groups with a campaign implying that the capital’s tap water is undrinkable and polluted.
City officials, who are proud of the quality of their eau du robinet, have hit back, saying that much of Cristaline, the bottled water, comes from the same underground source that supplies an industrial port city.
Behind the feud lie declining sales in a saturated market for mineral water, which the French still drink in greater volumes than the tap version. Cristaline, a low-cost eau minérale, has covered Paris with posters showing an open lavatory with a red cross and the tagline: “I do not drink water that I use.”
Read more...
Just say no to cooking
The Guardian
Mothers typically spend nearly three years of their lives stirring, baking and stewing. It doesn't have to be this way, says Joanna Moorhead.
Last week, to my horror, I found out that I can expect to do one of my least favourite activities about 45,990 times over the course of my lifetime. That is the equivalent of an hour a day, or 17 days a year, or, perhaps most alarmingly, almost three years in all.
The activity is cooking, and, even if you do enjoy it, you should still be perturbed by Quorn's survey into the time women spend hunched over the stove. Reading the news reports about this, my first thought was: why is this research all about women and the time we spend in the kitchen? The only mention of men came on the issue of how tricky they are to prepare food for, with a quarter of the women questioned saying they regularly prepare separate meals for their partner.
Read more...
Mothers typically spend nearly three years of their lives stirring, baking and stewing. It doesn't have to be this way, says Joanna Moorhead.
Last week, to my horror, I found out that I can expect to do one of my least favourite activities about 45,990 times over the course of my lifetime. That is the equivalent of an hour a day, or 17 days a year, or, perhaps most alarmingly, almost three years in all.
The activity is cooking, and, even if you do enjoy it, you should still be perturbed by Quorn's survey into the time women spend hunched over the stove. Reading the news reports about this, my first thought was: why is this research all about women and the time we spend in the kitchen? The only mention of men came on the issue of how tricky they are to prepare food for, with a quarter of the women questioned saying they regularly prepare separate meals for their partner.
Read more...
Tories plan strict quotas for makers of fatty foods
The Times, Corporate Law
By Patrick Hosking
Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party.
Under the plan drawn up by the Working Group on Responsible Business, set up by David Cameron last July, producers would be allocated production limits allowing them to produce a certain quantity of fatty food or alcoholic drink.
Manufacturers wanting to produce more would have to buy credits from companies prepared to produce less. The regime would give a financial incentive for producers to make products containing less fat, sugar, salt and alcohol.
Read more...
By Patrick Hosking
Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party.
Under the plan drawn up by the Working Group on Responsible Business, set up by David Cameron last July, producers would be allocated production limits allowing them to produce a certain quantity of fatty food or alcoholic drink.
Manufacturers wanting to produce more would have to buy credits from companies prepared to produce less. The regime would give a financial incentive for producers to make products containing less fat, sugar, salt and alcohol.
Read more...
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Headteachers’ new eating targets
The Herald
By GERRY BRAIDEN, Local Government Reporter
Headteachers will have to meet targets aimed at increasing the number of children eating healthy school meals, in the first initiative of its kind in Scotland.
In an effort to reverse the continuing decline in uptake of school meals and the resulting financial drain, Glasgow City Council officers are in discussions with all secondary school heads to establish "individually tailored action plans".
Read more...
By GERRY BRAIDEN, Local Government Reporter
Headteachers will have to meet targets aimed at increasing the number of children eating healthy school meals, in the first initiative of its kind in Scotland.
In an effort to reverse the continuing decline in uptake of school meals and the resulting financial drain, Glasgow City Council officers are in discussions with all secondary school heads to establish "individually tailored action plans".
Read more...
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Warning over drug tests on imported food
The Guardian
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Government regulators were today urged not to put consumers at risk by watering down protection from illegal and harmful toxic drugs in imported food.
The Soil Association said the testing of food safety was already "woefully inadequate" and could be scaled back by funding cuts. It called on regulators not to forewarn producers which products and drugs would be tested.
At a key meeting tomorrow, the government's veterinary residues committee is expected to bow to pressure from the food industry and agree to publish its testing plans for imported animal produce in advance. The produce includes honey, farmed fish and chicken.
Read more...
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Government regulators were today urged not to put consumers at risk by watering down protection from illegal and harmful toxic drugs in imported food.
The Soil Association said the testing of food safety was already "woefully inadequate" and could be scaled back by funding cuts. It called on regulators not to forewarn producers which products and drugs would be tested.
At a key meeting tomorrow, the government's veterinary residues committee is expected to bow to pressure from the food industry and agree to publish its testing plans for imported animal produce in advance. The produce includes honey, farmed fish and chicken.
Read more...
'Traffic light' labels ad ready to go
The Guardian
By Mark Sweney
The Food Standards Agency is tonight launching the TV campaign to promote its controversial "traffic light" food labelling system designed to promote healthier eating.
A series of 10-second, animated ads - developed with ad agency United London - aim to show how simple the system is for identifying products with high fat, sugar and salt content.
The £2m the FSA is spending on the campaign amounts to only half that being spent by a food industry joint marketing initiative that launched last week, promoting an alternative labelling system.
Read more...
By Mark Sweney
The Food Standards Agency is tonight launching the TV campaign to promote its controversial "traffic light" food labelling system designed to promote healthier eating.
A series of 10-second, animated ads - developed with ad agency United London - aim to show how simple the system is for identifying products with high fat, sugar and salt content.
The £2m the FSA is spending on the campaign amounts to only half that being spent by a food industry joint marketing initiative that launched last week, promoting an alternative labelling system.
Read more...
Let's take stock
The Guardian
By Tom Norrington-Davies
It's easy to reach for a cube for added flavour, but if you want to add some oomph to a dish, nothing beats making the real thing. And it's less fiddly and time-consuming than you might think.
No wonder the French think we are heretics in the kitchen. Some of this country's top chefs admit to culinary penchants that must surely get tongues wagging over the pond. Heston Blumenthal puts space dust in his chocolate puddings; Tom Aiken has a thing for Bird's custard powder and, recently, G2's very own Marco Pierre White said there was "nothing wrong with stock cubes". Quelle horreur!
Read more...
By Tom Norrington-Davies
It's easy to reach for a cube for added flavour, but if you want to add some oomph to a dish, nothing beats making the real thing. And it's less fiddly and time-consuming than you might think.
No wonder the French think we are heretics in the kitchen. Some of this country's top chefs admit to culinary penchants that must surely get tongues wagging over the pond. Heston Blumenthal puts space dust in his chocolate puddings; Tom Aiken has a thing for Bird's custard powder and, recently, G2's very own Marco Pierre White said there was "nothing wrong with stock cubes". Quelle horreur!
Read more...
Illegal coffee crops threaten endangered animals
The Guardian
Coffee drinkers have been unknowingly consuming a brew made from beans grown illegally in one of the world's most important natural parks, a report revealed today.
The conservation charity WWF said beans grown in the Bukit Barisan Selatan national park in Sumatra, Indonesia, were being bought by local traders and mixed with legally grown beans before being exported.
The 324,000 hectare (800,620 acre) park is a Unesco world heritage site and one of the few protected areas where three endangered or critically endangered species - Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos - coexist. It is also the home of unique and threatened plant species' such as the giant flower amorphophallus spp.
Read more...
Coffee drinkers have been unknowingly consuming a brew made from beans grown illegally in one of the world's most important natural parks, a report revealed today.
The conservation charity WWF said beans grown in the Bukit Barisan Selatan national park in Sumatra, Indonesia, were being bought by local traders and mixed with legally grown beans before being exported.
The 324,000 hectare (800,620 acre) park is a Unesco world heritage site and one of the few protected areas where three endangered or critically endangered species - Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos - coexist. It is also the home of unique and threatened plant species' such as the giant flower amorphophallus spp.
Read more...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Don't hold back on eggs
The Times, Times2
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
A serious case of caffeine overdose
The Guardian
By Oliver Burkeman
If you stand on the corner of Regent Street and Wigmore Street in central London, you are within five miles of 164 branches of Starbucks. This is a fact that is liable to provoke sudden dizziness, followed by a deep, soul-corroding fear for the future of humankind, sending you scuttling to your bedroom to throw yourself, sobbing, underneath a pillow - although this won't help much either, since that pillow itself is within five miles of 158 branches of Starbucks, if it's my bedroom you're in, which, now I come to think of it, I hope you aren't.
Read more...
By Oliver Burkeman
If you stand on the corner of Regent Street and Wigmore Street in central London, you are within five miles of 164 branches of Starbucks. This is a fact that is liable to provoke sudden dizziness, followed by a deep, soul-corroding fear for the future of humankind, sending you scuttling to your bedroom to throw yourself, sobbing, underneath a pillow - although this won't help much either, since that pillow itself is within five miles of 158 branches of Starbucks, if it's my bedroom you're in, which, now I come to think of it, I hope you aren't.
Read more...
Why screwtops may not be such a corking way to keep red wine fine
The Times, Britain
By Valerie Elliott, Consumer Editor
They thought that the problem of corked wine had been solved by introducing the screwtop. But now red wine producers are grappling with an even worse issue: the whiff of rotten eggs.
Experts believe that one in 50 screwtop bottles — or 200,000 bottles worldwide — may be affected by a chemical process known as sulphidisation. When the metal cap is removed, the consumer is hit with a smell of sulphur — likened by some to burning rubber, spent matches or even a schoolboy stink bomb.
Shoppers are being advised to take extra care when choosing their wine, especially if it is to be laid down in a cellar.
Read more...
By Valerie Elliott, Consumer Editor
They thought that the problem of corked wine had been solved by introducing the screwtop. But now red wine producers are grappling with an even worse issue: the whiff of rotten eggs.
Experts believe that one in 50 screwtop bottles — or 200,000 bottles worldwide — may be affected by a chemical process known as sulphidisation. When the metal cap is removed, the consumer is hit with a smell of sulphur — likened by some to burning rubber, spent matches or even a schoolboy stink bomb.
Shoppers are being advised to take extra care when choosing their wine, especially if it is to be laid down in a cellar.
Read more...
Men should eat their reds and greens
The Times, Britain
By David Rose
Tomato-broccoli diet 'helps prostate'
Combination may curb cancer
Eating tomatoes and broccoli in the same meal could help men to fight prostate cancer.
A study suggests that when they are both present in a regular diet, the two foods — known for their cancer-fighting qualities — help to reduce tumours more effectively than when they are eaten separately.
Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in Britain, accounting for almost one in four cancers in men. Each year about 32,000 cases are diagnosed and more than 10,000 men die from it.
Researchers from the University of Illinois believe that different compounds in the vegetables can work together to attack cancer cells along different biological pathways. They suggest that men should regularly consume servings of up to three quarters of a head of raw broccoli and two to three tomatoes to help fight the disease.
Read more...
By David Rose
Tomato-broccoli diet 'helps prostate'
Combination may curb cancer
Eating tomatoes and broccoli in the same meal could help men to fight prostate cancer.
A study suggests that when they are both present in a regular diet, the two foods — known for their cancer-fighting qualities — help to reduce tumours more effectively than when they are eaten separately.
Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in Britain, accounting for almost one in four cancers in men. Each year about 32,000 cases are diagnosed and more than 10,000 men die from it.
Researchers from the University of Illinois believe that different compounds in the vegetables can work together to attack cancer cells along different biological pathways. They suggest that men should regularly consume servings of up to three quarters of a head of raw broccoli and two to three tomatoes to help fight the disease.
Read more...
Food matters: Does dining en famille really benefit children?
The Times, T2
By Amanda Ursell
It has often been said that the more we eat together as a family, the better adjusted our children will be, and a recent study seems to confirm our suspicions. In an experiment published in the Journal of Adolescent Health that involved nearly 10,000 adolescents, it was found that those who had dinner with their parents six nights out of seven were much less involved in antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, depression and eating disorders than those who didn’t.
Should we be replacing ASBOs with shepherd’s pie with Mum and Dad? No, says Professor Andrew Hill, of Leeds University: “The researchers would probably have found a similar result had they had simply encouraged the same teenagers to spend time with their parents per se, doing anything from playing football to watching television. It is the time together that is valuable, not necessarily the sharing of a meal.”
Read more...
By Amanda Ursell
It has often been said that the more we eat together as a family, the better adjusted our children will be, and a recent study seems to confirm our suspicions. In an experiment published in the Journal of Adolescent Health that involved nearly 10,000 adolescents, it was found that those who had dinner with their parents six nights out of seven were much less involved in antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, depression and eating disorders than those who didn’t.
Should we be replacing ASBOs with shepherd’s pie with Mum and Dad? No, says Professor Andrew Hill, of Leeds University: “The researchers would probably have found a similar result had they had simply encouraged the same teenagers to spend time with their parents per se, doing anything from playing football to watching television. It is the time together that is valuable, not necessarily the sharing of a meal.”
Read more...
Don't hold back on eggs
The Times, T2
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
Monday, January 15, 2007
Whose dish is it anyway?
The Times, T2
New celebrity recipe books appear weekly and TV food shows fill the schedules. But how much work is put in by the star chefs themselves? Catherine Blyth on the growing importance of food’s backroom specialists.
Read more...
New celebrity recipe books appear weekly and TV food shows fill the schedules. But how much work is put in by the star chefs themselves? Catherine Blyth on the growing importance of food’s backroom specialists.
Read more...
Friday, January 12, 2007
Carrot and chip for food industry
The Guardian
As down-to-earth Yorkshire folk, despite Matthew Fort's comments (So you fancy chips with everything? Go ahead, January 11), we would like to invite him up to Scarborough to see exactly what goes on in the production process of the oven chip. It was disappointing to read his description of McCain Rustic Oven Chips as "extruded polystyrene". Our oven chips are simply prepared, using potatoes that are only washed, peeled, cut, lightly fried in sunflower oil and then frozen. To imply that McCain's processes "denature the ingredients" is simply untrue. We make good, high-quality products that are simply prepared from simple ingredients. We are proud to be the UK's largest single customer for British potatoes. All our products are now prepared with sunflower oil, which lowers the level of saturated fat. Customers can see we've made better, healthier products and that we're providing better labelling to ensure they can make informed choices.
Bill Bartlett
Corporate affairs director, McCain Foods
Read more...
As down-to-earth Yorkshire folk, despite Matthew Fort's comments (So you fancy chips with everything? Go ahead, January 11), we would like to invite him up to Scarborough to see exactly what goes on in the production process of the oven chip. It was disappointing to read his description of McCain Rustic Oven Chips as "extruded polystyrene". Our oven chips are simply prepared, using potatoes that are only washed, peeled, cut, lightly fried in sunflower oil and then frozen. To imply that McCain's processes "denature the ingredients" is simply untrue. We make good, high-quality products that are simply prepared from simple ingredients. We are proud to be the UK's largest single customer for British potatoes. All our products are now prepared with sunflower oil, which lowers the level of saturated fat. Customers can see we've made better, healthier products and that we're providing better labelling to ensure they can make informed choices.
Bill Bartlett
Corporate affairs director, McCain Foods
Read more...
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Dinner's off but you should still brace yourself for the bill
The Guardian
By Gaby Huddart
Restaurant dining isn't cheap these days. Indeed, getting change out of £40 for drinks and dinner is a pretty mean challenge in the noughties. So, this week's widely reported story that many of the nation's best eateries are insisting on credit card numbers at the time of booking and, unless given plenty of notice of cancellation, charge a hefty fee for a no-show seems outrageous. A downright rip-off, in fact.
The three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray charges £80 per person for cancellations with less than two days' notice. At the two-Michelin-starred Le Gavroche, in London, the charge is £60 per head for no-shows, with Le Pont de la Tour, The Square and Bentley's among the capital's other restaurants to be named and shamed. Surely they should be red-faced about such hard-to-swallow policies?
Read more...
By Gaby Huddart
Restaurant dining isn't cheap these days. Indeed, getting change out of £40 for drinks and dinner is a pretty mean challenge in the noughties. So, this week's widely reported story that many of the nation's best eateries are insisting on credit card numbers at the time of booking and, unless given plenty of notice of cancellation, charge a hefty fee for a no-show seems outrageous. A downright rip-off, in fact.
The three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray charges £80 per person for cancellations with less than two days' notice. At the two-Michelin-starred Le Gavroche, in London, the charge is £60 per head for no-shows, with Le Pont de la Tour, The Square and Bentley's among the capital's other restaurants to be named and shamed. Surely they should be red-faced about such hard-to-swallow policies?
Read more...
So you fancy chips with everything? Go ahead
The Guardian
By Matthew Fort
It had to happen. It is diet time, detox month, to pay for all those Christmas potatoes roasted in Nigella's goose fat. A period of healing through eating ... chips. Chips? Chips!? Sadly, not those fried in vegetable oil or even extra virgin olive oil or (best of all) beef dripping. No, those oven-ready bits of what appear to be extruded polystyrene are the latest vegetable to be given the nod from the health police.
Read more...
By Matthew Fort
It had to happen. It is diet time, detox month, to pay for all those Christmas potatoes roasted in Nigella's goose fat. A period of healing through eating ... chips. Chips? Chips!? Sadly, not those fried in vegetable oil or even extra virgin olive oil or (best of all) beef dripping. No, those oven-ready bits of what appear to be extruded polystyrene are the latest vegetable to be given the nod from the health police.
Read more...
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Breakfasts would never be the same without it
The Times
By Tim Luckhurst
Research for The Grocer magazine should depress all who consider the tang of preserved citrus fruit a vital fortification for the daily grind. Contempt for marmalade among Britons aged under 45 is propelling this most rewarding breakfast foodstuff towards extinction.
Last year 441,000 British households stopped buying marmalade. Among those still appreciative of its robust and bracing flavour, 81 per cent are aged 45 or over. The continental habit of smothering bread in jam has become dominant among people not yet enjoying middle age.
Of course, a taste for highly sweetened strawberries, raspberries or blackcurrants does not necessarily denote a treasonable frame of mind. The risk is that casual choices by people with immature, fast-food-sated palates will deprive them of a treat that they should grow to adore.
Read more...
By Tim Luckhurst
Research for The Grocer magazine should depress all who consider the tang of preserved citrus fruit a vital fortification for the daily grind. Contempt for marmalade among Britons aged under 45 is propelling this most rewarding breakfast foodstuff towards extinction.
Last year 441,000 British households stopped buying marmalade. Among those still appreciative of its robust and bracing flavour, 81 per cent are aged 45 or over. The continental habit of smothering bread in jam has become dominant among people not yet enjoying middle age.
Of course, a taste for highly sweetened strawberries, raspberries or blackcurrants does not necessarily denote a treasonable frame of mind. The risk is that casual choices by people with immature, fast-food-sated palates will deprive them of a treat that they should grow to adore.
Read more...
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