Are you feeling virtuous about your healthy breakfast of wholegrain cereal washed down with a glass of orange juice? After all, it’s better than an artery-clogging fry-up. In terms of fat, at least. But few of us realise that a bowl of Bran Flakes plus juice will account for half our recommended daily amount of sugar.

We all know the dangers of too much salt, fat and calories in our diet, but health professionals warn that not enough of us stop to consider our sugar intake. There are obvious sources of it – such as the Easter eggs consumed in large quantities at the weekend.

But the problem, experts say, is that our everyday diets are packed with “stealth” sugar, sending our intake far above the recommended limits and placing us at risk of a range of diseases, including diabetes and heart disease. [Read more...]

Sometimes nutrition seems like a war zone with different tribes slugging it out over what’s the best way to eat – and one current skirmish has the Paleo People pitted against the Grain Eaters.

If you haven’t tuned into the Palaeolithic Diet yet, its followers say we need a diet that’s as close as possible to that of our hunter gatherer ancestors: lean animal foods like meat, birds and fish, along with vegetables and nuts but not too much fruit. Dairy foods, legumes and grains are off the menu. As relative newbies that weren’t part of our diet until the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, these foods can cause many health problems now dogging the industrialised world because, according to Paleo philosophy, we haven’t adapted to eating them.

It’s hard to argue with a diet based on lean protein and lots of veg, especially one that kicks highly processed food off the plate. Nor would you disagree that there are some people who can’t tolerate wheat and gluten and are healthier without them. But while the Paleo Diet gets brownie points for being based on whole food, its reliance on meat, fish and poultry doesn’t tick many boxes for environmental sustainability or animal welfare – or anyone on a tight budget. [Read more...]