#food processing

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Due to picky consumer expectations, most slaughterhouses in the western world employ specialist blood vessel removers for nearly all meat products.

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Sweet Victory Gum Helps Type 1 Diabetics Halve Sweets Snacking in Pilot Clinical Trial

Results of a new clinical pilot study reveal that chewing Sweet Victory gum could help patients with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) reduce sweet snacking by more than half. The functional chewing gum, formulated with powdered leaves of the Gymnema sylvestre plant was designed by Sweet Victory, Ltd. to help consumers strengthen their resistance to sugary temptations. The formulation works by temporarily…

Sweet Victory Gum Helps Type 1 Diabetics Halve Sweets Snacking in Pilot Clinical Trial

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Cutting up tuna at a Japanese Factory 🤔

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Carteresque Price Controls

Aloha kākou. Over four years ago, inflation was 2.1%. The gas average was $1.90 a gallon. Food prices were affordable. Since the Marxist democrats used Covid to rig the 2020 election and installed Pedo-Joe Biden and Kommunist Karmela Harris, the economy has collapse into chaos. The cost of living has risen under Bidenomics to record levels. Inflation climbed over 9%, but that’s just the Consumer…

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Double Whammy

According to Diabetes UK 4.3 million people in Britain have diabetes, 90% of these having the avoidable type 2 diabetes. Diabetes costs the NHS £10 billion a year, and in some hospitals over a quarter of beds are taken up by  people with diabetes. The number of people with diabetes has doubled in the last 15 years and is continuing to rise.

The great tragedy of type 2 diabetes is that it is largely avoidable. 

“Research shows that living with obesity is the single greatest risk factor, and accounts for 80-85% of someone's risk of developing the condition, and our previous data revealed that the number of people living with obesity in England has almost doubled in the last 20 years from 6.9 to 13 million."  (Diabetes UK: 05/04/21)

One of the major causes of obesity is the consumption of ultra-processed foods such as mass produced bread, pre-packaged meals, breakfast cereals, sausages and other reconstituted meat products, yoghurts with sweeteners or stabilizers, chicken nuggets, frozen meals, crisps, soft drinks, biscuits, etc.

We may think we can avoid ultra-processed foods but the evidence suggests otherwise. According to the Guardian (02/02/18):

“Half of all the food bought by families in the UK is now “ultra-processed”, made in a factory with industrial ingredients and additives invented by food technologists and bearing little resemblance to the fruit, vegetables, meat or fish used to cook a fresh meal at home."

As bad as ultra-processed foods are for adult health, think how much worse they must be for the heath of developing children, yet

“Almost a third of baby and toddler foods sold in the UK are ultra-processed, risking children’s long-term health and development."  (Guardian: 08/05/23)

This Tory government has known about the links between ultra-processed foods and the rise in diabetes for years.

“MPs have criticised the Department of Health and the NHS in England for being "too slow" to act in preventing and treating diabetes… Being overweight is the main risk factor for type 2 diabetes, and 90% of adults with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese.” (BBC: 22/01/16)

Despite this knowledge, the government, rather than introducing policies to wean people off ultra-processed food, is actively promoting its consumption. As recently as February this year Sunak’s Tory government was recommending ultra-processed food as part of a healthy diet.

“An app launched by the UK government, supposed to encourage healthy eating, has been found to be promoting ultra-processed foods.” (www.schoolfoodmatters.org:01/02/23)

The Grocer magazine (25/05.21) asked this question:

“Why is government incapable of saying ‘avoid ultra-processed food’?”

The answer is provided in Great British Life (18/05/23) when it reported:

“The Soil Association said it was “deeply concerned” about the influence of the food and drink industry on UK health policy as the NHS Food Scanner app continued to recommend biscuits, cakes, crisps, chocolate puddings and fizzy pop as “good” options for a healthy diet.”

The sad truth is, this Tory government puts corporate profit before public health. Our health,  and especially that of our children's, is being put at serious risk so that the giant food companies can continue to reap massive profits.

“Millions of people in UK facing food poverty as supermarkets announce record profits.” (Sustain: 22/05/22)

But this isn’t just a UK problem.

“Top 100 Food and Beverage Companies for 2022: A Year of Succulent Profits. 2021 could be called the year of meat and soft drinks. All of the top companies in those two categories had blowout years, adding billions of dollars to their top lines and similarly handsome increases to their bottom lines.”  (Food Processing: 05.08.22)

The food-processing companies and the big British supermarkets are both powerful and influential when it comes to determining government food policies. They are motivated by one thing only: profit. If the largest profit to be made is by promoting and selling ultra-processed food then so be it. To the supporters of neo-liberal free market economics the only duty of corporate management is to maximise profits for their shareholders. Any concern for the health or social consequences of their actions is in the words of Milton Friedman ”pure and unadulterated socialism” and no Tory government wants that.

But where is the “double whammy” of the title? It is in the insane situation whereby the government is now offering a “cure” for obesity by making a drug, costing millions of pounds, available on the NHS.

“THE UK should be "front of the pack" in dishing out weight loss drugs to obese Brits, Steve Barclay said today.

The Health Secretary last night announced a £40million two-year pilot that will look at ways to make obesity medicine accessible to patients outside of hospitals.” (Sun: 07/06/23)

Rather than curing obesity at source, by reducing the amount of ultra-processed foods we are being sold, the government is giving taxpayers money to the big pharmaceutical companies to produce weight-reducing drugs. The message is clear, people are to be to encouraged to go on eating ultra-processed food, and then be supplied with a drug to reduce the excess weight gain that results. It’s a win-win situation. The food-processing companies and super markets  go on making massive profits, and the pharmaceutical companies go on making massive profits. The only losers are our children and the 28% of England’s population who are already grossly over-weight, but who cares about them? Clearly not Steve Barclay or Rishi Sunak.

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Food processing issue

(Arthur Rickerby. 1962?)

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Food processing