"Food Facts and Fiction - The Great British Diet". Friday 16 August, ITV 1.

[Penel]

I wondered if anyone else saw this program on Friday? It was an interesting look at what's in our food and how much it can affect us.

One of the items looked at how it may not be the amount of calories we eat that causes us weight and health problems, but the kind of food we get our calories from.

A young female Nutriton expert swapped what she usually had to eat - whole foods, vegetables, protein, etc, for foods described as a 'more typical' English diet. Before she started on the changed diet, she had a comprehensive medical including weight, BP, cholesterol levels, liver function. She kept to approximately the same number of calories that she would usually have eaten.

She had a week eating carbohydrate heavy, processed food, ready meals etc, all containing high levels of sugar and fat. At the end of one week she had her levels measured again. Her weight had gone up, her BP, cholesterol levels, liver function had all been affected for the worse.

I was surprised that it only took one week for her blood pressure to rise and her cholesterol level to go from 5 to 5.7.

It would have been interesting to find out how long it took for her levels to go back to normal.

[Aliwally]

I didn't see this programme, but I have been watching the Jacques Peretti programme on BBC 2, Thursdays 9pm which I would also recommend. It gives a fascinating background to where we are now with our eating habits. My husband was particularly disappointed when it dispelled the myth that high intensity exercise is effective for weight loss.

[Penel in reply to Aliwally]

Hello Aliwally

The Jaques Peretti programs have been very interesting and have really shown up the cynical exploitation of people desperate to lose weight.

Your husband may not be losing weight by exercising but it is still good for him, it can reduce stress, and improve the way your body uses energy.

[Penel]

Hello bigleg

I didn't see the other programs in the series, so I'm glad to hear they were ok, and that information about the dangers of processed food is being repeated as often as possible. I certainly wouldn't have wanted the poor woman to eat processed food for more than a week!

Yes, I was pleased to hear the comment that her usual breakfast was a cooked one.

[Penel]

Hello Traci

The changes that Morgan Spurlock experienced were indeed startling, I remember his doctor warning him about the possibility of permanent liver damage. I also remember it took him over a year to lose the weight he had gained in one month.

The ITV program showed that there could be significant changes after only one week! Hopefully those changes were reversed quickly.

[Penel]

Yes I have seen the Robert Lustig video. It's an excellent explanation of how sugar, especially fructose, affects the body. It's quite a long and scientific lecture, well worth the effort of concentration! Over 3 million hits.

Hopefully this link will work for anyone interested.

uctv.tv/shows/Sugar-The-Bit...

I have also read his book "Fat Chance", it's a really good account of how food affects our bodies.

Thanks for the mention of Morgan Spurlock on Channel 4. I shall see if I can find it.

[patch14]

Well Everyone, was there anything in that programme that we as bloggers have not seen and heard before and have known for a long time! It is a pity that it takes such a programme to get the message across when we all have known that eating such a terrible diet will have detrimental affects on our health.

[Penel in reply to patch14]

Hello patch

The more times the message is repeated the better!

There were two things of particular interest, I thought - the short length of time needed to cause the detrimental health effects, and the weight gain with no increase in total calorie consumption.

[patch14 in reply to Penel]

I wonder if any of you ever watched the programmes that showed the various diets followed by Edwardians, Victorians, Georgians etc., and the resultant health problems that arised. Doctors took all the tests of the two presenters, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and liver function and after a week of following the diet regime they did them again. The figures were very revealing, particularly the Edwardian diet with its multi course meals and six meals a day with wines and spirits!!! It was a salutary story for us today and the junk food diet we can follow if we are not careful.

[Penel in reply to patch14]

I do remember that the amount of food they had to eat was staggering!