It's a bit of advertising for his new book and he and Chattergee have a bit of a luv-in but 95% of it is excellent. I sat and shouted at him when he got to salt - according to him meat and veggies are inedible without salt. Funny - I've enjoyed unsalted food for nearly 40 years! I stopped using salt on veggies when I got my first microwave - instructions were to salt after cooking to prevent burn. I kept forgetting. That was the best part of 40 years ago. Now it is difficult for me to eat out as all restaurant food tends to be grossly oversalted in the kitchen. But I enjoy the REAL taste of all the veggies and meat I eat. You don't just cut salt out altogether overnight for a start, you have to retrain your taste buds, but you also need to find substitutes such as herbs, spices, olive oil - the BHF has a list of 20 options just for starters. I don't salt my steak - I use black pepper or make sure the outside is good and crispy, yum! (Not burnt though). And citrus fruits are a brilliant salt substitute. He wasn't looking at alternatives - his loss.
It is long - 2 hours. But it is worth it I think - watch it in smaller bites if necessary.
Takeaways:
No patient is average - some things work for some, not for others.
Food in general can make a big difference to your health - and in some cases it is fair to call it medicine,
I think it is an excuse for Tim Spector to sell more books. He says each new book corrects the errors from the previous one. I think early on fir example he was against coffee and now he is for it.
I may buy it if it is on offer on Kindle for 99p!! He seems rather a slow learner to me ... On the same page there was a podcast from Zoe on eggs - I knew everything they said in the late 70s when the evil thing that the egg was supposed to be was propagated
My nephew gave me it as a present. It is quite thick. I have not started it yet, but I have enjoyed his other books. I love the way he does tests on himself and gets his son to do the nastier ones. I can’t believe his son is still speaking to him after some of them!!
Interesting - not that I can be bothered to listen to it again to check, but he made some reference in the "food as medicine" section about artificial sweetner having a beneficial effect on the immune system so of interest in autoimmunity. I'm sure he said erythritol - but it isn't, it is still bad, sucralose is the potential goody. Hmmm ...
There has been a lot in the UK press about Aspartame recently causing cancer. I assume sooner or later it will be banned or exonerated. Possibly exonerated as I believe Coca Cola use it!!!
I know exactly what you mean. In fact you could ask the same question in a lot of circumstances. I am one of those nutters that sometimes writes to them with my comments!
I agree! For the last two years I have watched the Proms in very short doses. I feel it has turned into the modern circus. Just the same as Crufts. I watch bits with the sound off. Are we getting old and miserable or more sensible?
I suppose it is difficult to argue with that comment, but you could have a diet where you happily carried on at the same weight and then took a pill such as steroids and you start to put on weight with the same diet. So you could not eat too much last week, but you could this week!! So there are other factors too.
I doubt it's ever going to be exonerated, mainly because of its long term effects on kidney function and ongoing research into diet drinks contributing to weight gain because of its effect on insulin release. Artificial sweeteners are considered a no, no for the Diabetic community.
Interestingly enough there is an article in the BMJ about Aspartame this week saying it is OK to have it and it is large amounts that could cause problems.
Artificial sweeteners are food of the devil, if you ask me. My taste buds are such that they all taste bitter to me, especially sucralose. It tastes horrible and taints anything that it is in. Plus, I am a fructose malabsorber, so that rules out all the sugar alcohols. Erythritol etc .... Bleurgh!!!! I can just about tolerate aspartame in the diet coke that I have about once a year. 95% of my weekly shop is single ingredient items anyway and I cook everything from scratch, so artificial sweeteners very rarely cross my path. Or my palate.
Same here. There is nothing wrong with a few grains of sugar - and cutting down slowly so you get used to no sweetening is so much healthier. I struggle with loads of commercially produced desserts as they are far too sweet. But then, I eat lemon slices in my drinks! Quite why all non-aloholic drinks have to be so sickly beats me! And as for why they have to sweeten WATER????????????????
I've never had much of a sweet tooth, so I don't understand the craving for sweetness either. It's the salty snacks that I have difficulty staying away from, so I don't even buy them, especially as they are usually full of inflammation generating carbs, additives and seed oils. And the occasional lapse over the last few months has really caused me to suffer the next day. There is something in them that my body really protests at.
I do eat crisps with my Birdy (aperol spritz) when offered - depends on whether they have them in the village. Much prefer the more upmarket offer of olives and peanuts!
I do love crisps, they are my weakness. I do wonder how much of my inflammation and the PMR is down to my food intolerances. Especially as I associate the first spell of muscle problems with the onset of the GI problems. Food for thought, if you will pardon the pun.
The local coeliac guru when my PMR started, together with mild atrial fibrillation and an allergy to commercialised wheat which included something very like dermatitis herpetiformis, the skin version of coeliac disease, was very "in" to the concept of leaky gut syndrome years ahead of the curve. He was of the opinion that something upsets the gut, it allows things through it shouldn't and you have an autoimmune problem.
There's an awful lot going on with the body that we don't fully understand. I know that celiac disease has been connected with other autoimmune disease. I also read the other day that women who have endometriosis badly are something like 10 times (I don't recall the exact figure) more likely to get PMR. I had endometriosis really badly until mid 40s, but I don't know if I am celiac as I had already given up wheat before I was tested. What I do know is that my brain fog, aches and pains, flushing, palpitations that I had put down to peri menopause vanished almost overnight when I stopped eating wheat. It seems to me that whatever is going on with us might have been rumbling along for years before it expresses itself as something that doctors can pin a name on. I've also noticed that triad of joints, skin and gut cropping up in so many diseases that I have worked on in my career. I want to do some more reading on it all, especially the more recent work, but I'm not sure if I can do that, at the moment. The fatigue and brain fog is so bad that I find reading, even for recreation, quite difficult. My concentration is so poor that I don't retain much.
I'm the other way , I hated the taste of salt, never added it to food then not long before my Dysautonomia symptoms began I started to crave it. Turns out , as well as water. I actually need more sodium and I have to have a teaspoon or two or salt tablet each day to reduce my Orthostatic Tachycardia. My body appeared to be telling me that .I know quite a few people with various health issues whom do need to increase salt in their diets.
Which is why I think Pros " takeaway" is spot on.
No patient is average, what works for one , won't necessarily work for another , or could make things worse for them.
Of course , it also means it gives Spector plenty of opportunities to write and sell more books as not one of them will be universally correct. Finding the perfect diet for everyone is like trying to find the Meaning of Life.
Agree. My mother never gave us sugar as children in cereals, hot drinks. So non of us take sugar now. Agree if you ask for water, always something added
Not here - they even ask if you want a slice of lemon or ice. You have to ask for non-refrigerated water though. Any why would you add ice to already chilled water?
My DIY summer fizz is sparkling water, half a lemon and an old-fashioned manual squeezer, where you impale the lemon-half, and twist vigorously, get most of the flesh and a good layer of pith, as well as the juice.
Can't remember when I last put salt on or in food.....OH does....would rather jut taste my food as it is.....My sister thinks Chattergee is marvellous, has all his books....
He's very charismatic I suppose and has some good views which expressed in the podcast. But then - I have no doubt we would pay for them ...
I agree - I'd far rather taste the foods than the salt. I think a lot of Brits are like the Americans - poor quality food needs something to pep it up. I prefer to spend the "sauce money" on better quality food,
I think they all did! They came out of the graduation hall and it was persisting down so they didn't go for refreshments - small marquee, enormous class.
I bought a VW campervan - get it mid-September, Not sure it was being sensible - but the money is losing value in the bank, if I go into a carehome they'll take it anyway so I decided to enjoy it first ...
My son’s dream to buy a camper an, have been thinking about helping him to do that…,.yes he and my DIL have a battle on their hands right now dealing with the expense of her mother in a care home, horrible and stressful, so unfair…enjoy it. Today I got told from a close friend she had to take her husband to A&E on Sunday with really bad headache…..Leukaemia, possibly 9 months to live. Went into supermarket cafe this morning man had fell to the floor, hit his head, old cold, blood everywhere, luckily doctor in the shop, paramedics then came, blimey what an awful day, so yes, get out there enjoy the campervan!
I've been amazed at people's reactions - all have said get out and enjoy! It is worth mentioning that a very large proportion of the cost will be covered by the increase in my bank balance since the December before Covid which reflects in how little I have done in the last 3 1/2 years, been nowhere, not even the UK, spent almost nothing. I can't do it with public transport and day trips, hate hotels, I shall go out for trips and take sight-seeing easy. It is only little, will have to make up the bed but that isn't too onerous and I can leave it down since only I need a seat inside.
We had one which we sold the summer of Covid as it was obvious that OH wouldn't be camping again but I have camped for some 60 years. I realised the other week how much I miss it. So I did something about it.
we feel the same about salt and don’t use it much but we both started to get terrible cramp. Our doctor said we do need some in our diet! We only eat “real” food , few takeaways and no processed so now we do add salt to our food. Eating out is a nightmare everything tastes so salty
What is salt? Not quite that bad, but never got the hang of it - all seasonings etc as stated a cover-up for food that doesn't taste of anything. This may be independent of origin; I recently gave a 'should have been no stars' review to an organic cabbage that was quite magnificent in how it was devoid of any flavour whatever. Only thing I ever added salt to was the occasional crisp or chip and a pinch in boiling veg if I remember. When going out left my life and usually forgot I developed a mild salt craving resolved by a supply of crisps.
"all seasonings etc as stated a cover-up for food that doesn't taste of anything"
That was the conclusion I came to the other week, I really enjoy the difference in flavour between different meats and using all the "stuff" irons that out. After all - the boom in spices in history was to preserve and mask dodgy meat.
I've always wondered about the dodgy meat thing. Since most of the countries who have a preference for spicy food were mostly vegetarian and meat is often hard to come by. I am thinking mainly of the Indian subcontinent. And they didn't have chilli until it came from the Americas. I've always used a lot of garlic and ginger root in my cooking and black pepper. When I use other spices, I like to grind from the seeds. The difference in flavour is amazing and a lot of those spices are supposed to have heroic health giving properties. Though I use them for flavour, but I did find out lately that coriander leaf has a lot of health giving properties. It is supposed to be good for the immune system and bones, so I thought, just what I need on pred.
It was the west who used the spices for meat. And who developed a lot of the hot recipes - so many real Indian curries are subtle flavour rather than HOT.
Most of India does seem to have acquired the chilli addiction nowadays though. I've travelled there a lot and have found the food mostly inedible unless I can get them to make it without chilli. I refuse to eat food that burns your bum the following morning. (sorry TMI perhaps lol) I make curries a lot at home and as you say, they tend to be subtly flavoured and they are mostly vegetarian.
I think it's because the British were introduced to curries while in the mountains of Northern India which seems to be the only area were Indian food is scorching with chilli content. As you say elsewhere the dishes are far more fragrant and complex.
The buzz-word in on-line supermarket reviews is 'tasty'. It's fascinating and rather awful the eheer pleasure at something actually having flavour. Even 'high-end'. Four out of the first six reviews of Duchy Organic Ham award it the supreme accolade.
It is a word that brings shivers down my back - how my (mercifully) former SIL expressed anything he liked! My husband had a thing about cooked ham - but it had to be the yuk tasteless variety, The butcher in the village has a choice: generic cooked ham and his own. I only ever bought his, it was almost edible. On special occasions (Easter and Christmas or if ordered by someone) he has boiled bacon, basically cooked Black Forest ham but the local made version. Now IT is worth eating, So is his own herb encrusted cooked ham, OH said no ...
Black Forest ham does sound interesting. The only nitrite-free ham available to me is in fact Italian (Golfera) and eye-watering in cost so definitely a party piece.
For deli like meats , salami etc. there is trealyfarmcharcuterie.co.uk . They are based in Monmouthshire, I bought from their shop initially on a visit in the area before they were online.For ham , bacon and gammon , as well as a wide selection of other organic meats and meat products there is coombefarmorganic.co.uk, again I lived near them years ago and have used their products but I know there are a number of other companies too I just haven't used them ... Yet!
Thank you! Shall seek them out. Riverford.co.uk are fab for fruit and veg and fresh meat but their ham and bacon contains nitrites. I know of Coombe and Eversfield but Riverford suits me best in practical terms. I live alone, minimum order is £15, quality is fab and 'grows old gracefully', when so much supermarket stuff goes from rock hard to squidgy overnight. I've just eaten the last apple delivered 12 days ago and it was perfect inside, few wrinkles outside. And no delivery charge. AND they take back all the packaging. Just leave it outside the night before and the delivery guy removes it.
Yes , the fruit and veg box I get from my local supplier ( although it also includes bananas etc. ) does that , and unlike supermarket stuff actually tastes of fruit and veg.With most of the meat boxes you do need to have a freezer and plan your budget to start getting them as the orders need to be larger. It can take time to save up a bit of money for the first box to start the ball rolling every couple of months .
I will take a look at Riverford , thank you. There are a lot of the big names that won't deliver over to me here , as the seem to class my island like one that is difficult to get took rather than having a normal road over a bridge!
All Parma ham is nitrite-free - nothing has been added to preserve the colour for over 20 years, it is all natural. Parma ham isn't cheap but watch out for ends
Thanks. Have sometimes wondered what was used as preservative before sodium nitrite and friends were isolated, some adulterated natural form, just smoking?
Well you are looking back to pre about 3000 BC! It was salt naturally contaminated with nitrates used originally. Prosciutto is cured with just sea salt. Or occasionally wine ...
And WHY do they have to salt the fries/chips before serving???? I had to ask them to serve mine unsalted, and to be honest I'm not sure they even were when I got them.....mind you, this was in the States, though in years gone by McDonald's always use to serve salty chips. Think it's so we'll all drink more! (of their sugary drinks!!)
Some of them just have badly trained taste buds and poor table manners. An ex of mines father thought it was necessary to eat to ato ketchup with everything , no matter how good the food was.He came for Christmas and when I served up dinner he asked for ketchup. I said he could eat the meal without it or not at all. His wife cheered!
I haven't used salt in cooking since we had our children and they were weaned. I even add half the recommended salt to home made bread though I have to admit I can't eat fish and chips without salt and vinegar!
Just a reminder here that some of us need salt. Spoken by one who removed the salt shaker from her table when quite young, reduced salt in recipes and didn't eat out much. And ended up salt-deficient after giving up almost all prepared foods, including bread, pasta, pizza, breakfast cereals like muesli, after PMR diagnosis. One can get too little of a good thing!
I think that amount (about 1.5 g) is now considered low. In any event, when I calculated how much salt I'd been consuming, overestimating to be on the safe side, it turned out to be about 900mg a day, which is way too low.
Funny as I used to watch Masterchef Australia and My Kitchen Rules ( although I am neither a foodie or a cook, I just loved their inventions) and even though they had the best produce, so many times the judges would ask about lack of salt or where's the sauce!!My take was how do fabulous produce need that, and not everyone loves sauce!!
Towing here in Italy is more complicated - had a tow bar on the car that had to be removed to register here, You have to do a test here too. My car is 16 years old - must be about to need money spent on it and while it doesn't owe me a penny, it isn't worth spending money on. Even new tyres might have done it!
Hi I posted about Dr Chris van Tullkens book ultra processed people, which heard about from the zoe podcasts, I have been working on striping out the processed foods for ages and thought I was doing a good job unaware of additives in wholemeal super market bread etc. I have looked harder and removed these from my diet and for the first time in 5 years my skin is healing properly.
There ws an interview with the author on radio, I made a note of the title but neglected to place my hold immediately. Oh well.
Right now am reading I Want A Better Catastrophe by Andrew Boyd, and highly recommend it as a way to find a way to face the calamities which are already beginning to overwhelm us.
Thats very encouraging. Have just read that book and it was a revelation! I’ve also cut out all UPF. I have Psoriasis & PMR - so hoping my skin and health will improve 🤞🏻
I hope it helps having suffered with nodular prurigo for the last 5 years another doosy of a journey getting back to having decent skin on my arms for the first time in in years is wonderful. I hope this all shakes up the medical profession. I have never once been asked about my diet.
My granddaughter suffered brittle asthma for several years and now has PTSD after spending too many hours in resus circling the drain - doesn't help hearing doctors admitting they had no idea what to do. She went veggie because of animals and then decided she might as well do it properly and went full vegan. She still has asthma - but "normal" and controllable. Her mother also went vegan - and her skin problems have cleared up entirely.
That's really interesting.How do they ensure they get sufficient calcium on a vegan diet? I've always wondered what you substitute in the absence of cheese and milk.
M*lks are fortified, calcium isn't only in dairy, quite a bit in various veggies especially beans where they tend to get their protein too, calcium set tofu etc. You absorb a lot more of the veggie calcium than you do dairy calcium.
I'm pretty sure my daughter gets it right - she's a nurse. The granddaughter - maybe not so much!
That's something I'll look into more. Thanks 👍 Quite fancy cutting out dairy for a while to see if it helps with the pain and inflammation. Just worried about what is already the start of bone loss aon DEXA Scan 3/4 years ago. Oh the joys of the menopause!
Just read it now. Very informative. Can't manage those 10,000 steps unfortunately, but will definitely look further into the supplements and weighted vest 👍
I don't often manage 10,000 steps any more myself, but I do try to walk at least one hour a day (which is roughly 6000 steps). Any walking is useful, if possible. And I often carry heavy weight home from the supermarket, in a backpack, as I'm trying to avoid using my car any more than absolutely necessary. Climate crisis.
I don't think I could give up dairy. Have been given tea with some sort of non-dairy milk in it, not knowing in advance and thinking it tasted really peculiar. Next time I opted for black tea, but unfortunately I can't drink black tea on a regular basis as it harms my stomach, and I draw the line at giving up tea.
Also have found that I'm quite intolerant of beans and lentils, green peas alone are okay on occasion.
When not recovering from dental surgery I eat a lot of nuts and seeds, but apart from my dairy consumption I rely on leafy greens and broccoli for calcium. Apparently calcium is more easily absorbed from plant sources, in contrast to iron which is more easily absorbed from animal sources.
Thanks so much for this, I absolutely loved it and I’m going to sign up for the programme. I like dealing with scientific facts. I cannot stand Slimming World, Weight Watchers and the like and don’t get me started on NHS dieticians stil telling thousands of people to eat carbs! X
While cheerfully recognizing that here at least I am in a minority of one, I knock back a good few carbs in milk and fruit but what I don't tot up are calories. My idea of a snack is pretty much what I was given when I was 10 - a glass of milk and an apple. I don't put on weight and don't get pre-diabetic.
great post PMRpro. Enjoyed watching very much. Gut health, brain health all depend on what we eat and how we cook. And to know how to source good food. However slow however inconvenient, got to read what's in a packet before buying (and probably end up NOT buying and saving money to boot).
I find it is a lot quicker to just not to buy packets!!!! There are a few things I get now and again but they are really treats, not regularly on the shopping list. And I never buy supermarket meat - except UK lamb chops at the big supermarket, Otherwise all from one of two butchers, The one in the village does almost no prepared things, the other does some which I've tried and rejected except for his spare ribs and sausages.
You're right, it really is getting like that; even so-called organic package products are under suspicion. Most of my packet food has dwindled down to Puy lentils and quinoa and stuff like that. I won't be buying in orange juice anymore after watching that talk! Feel fortunate living in a country with foodie culture- they like everything freshly prepared at home here in the depths of France: plus they all have a 'potager'.
Same here - if you have a garden, you at least grow lettuce!! Lots of flats though - though there are older blocks in town with enormous gardens, The Austrian supermarket I use a lot has loads of organic products that aren't that much more expensive, as TS says, Austrians are very in to "bio". Their bio cucumbers are totally different to Dutch ones - much less watery and very crunchy. I couldn't believe it one week though - the bio ones were packed in plastic, Dutch ones weren't ...
Very little in the way of pre-prepared food here. Spar does have very respectable lasagnes and crespelle though!
I have had the feeling for years when going through the doors of a supermarket that I was being mass processed being brainwashed into buying things and hating every minute of it like my spider senses were tingling so it's true you should trust your gut.
I haven't seen the podcast - another to watch! However no-one seems (if I have read through properly) distinguishing salt from salt. Processed from genuine mineral salts such as Celtic Salt or Himalayan salt. We lose it in sweating (which many of us do of a night) and it is important to replace them. Just putting it on food - not being foreced to eat it. As for nitrates there are some Spanish Chorizos you can get in Waitrose with nothing but natural ingredients. Delicious.
The body doesn't care if its NaCl comes from pink or goldplated salt or from a plain pack of Sainsbury's basics - it is all the same to the body. The mineral impurities in Himalayan salt have no unique health benefits compared to other dietary salt as they are in far too low a concentration to help with nutrition.
Nitrates and nitrites are chemicals found naturally in soil and water as part of the earth's nitrogen cycle. These ingredients are found naturally in many vegetables, and we add them to meat products to help keep them fresh. Lot of marketing behind "natural ingredients"!!
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Do foods contribute to the disease lasting?
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GOOD FOOD IDEAS ANYONE?
Dental problems
Ketogenic/Paleo diet
