Despite urges from various British food organizations, the European Food Safety Authority decided against banning additives in food.

Their reasoning? A recent £750,000 study, which found a link between eating food loaded with additives and colorants and impulsive/hyperactive behavior in kids, was not a substantial enough reason to ban the additives entirely. In the study, eight and nine year olds who had ingested food with additives could not sit still long enough to complet simple tasks, like a 15-minute computer exercise. (Yeah, but neither could most of the eight year olds I know, with or without stimulants. Heck, most 25 year-olds I know don't have the patience to finish a 15-minute computer task).

But the study did prompt some retailers to change their ways: Marks and Spencer, a British department store that sells everything from shirts to iPods to gourmet foods, vowed to stop selling food and drink that contain additives by the end of the month.

The study results should not be ignored, but I don't blame the EU for not jumping to conclusions. Banning food with additives falls along the same lines as banning food with trans-fats, and I have the same opinion in each case: use your own good judgment and discretion. If packaged foods make your kid hyperactive, don't buy the foods, or at least limit their intake. Simple as that.

[via] Times Online

Believe it or not, 15-year old Faye Campbell of Great Britain has eaten nothing but french fries ("chips" to the Brits) for the past ten years.

According to an article in the Daily Mail, Campbell suffers from a "bizarre physical condition which made her ill every time she tried anything other than chips."

This "bizarre" condition? Gastrooesophageal reflux...commonly known as heartburn.

For whatever reason, it took the girl's doctors way too long to realize the cause, and in the meantime, pardon me for being slightly insensitive, but she's been milking it for all it's worth.

I don't doubt that salty potatoes are easier to digest than, say, acidic fruits or juices. But how I'm impressed with how long this girl has convinced her parents to let her eat fries at every meal - every kid should be so lucky! And conveniently, french fries go down easier than say, Brussels sprouts or bananas...

The good news? To her parents' delight, Campbell has now moved onto foods other than french fries. Her diet now also consists of burgers, noodles, Chinese takeout, and waffles. (Don't you wish you had this girl's parents when you were 15?)

Well this just gives new meaning to the idea of "dairy" in chocolate.

Britain's most popular lines of candy and chocolate have admitted that their choclate bars like Mars, Snickers, Maltesers, and Milky Way now contain whey that is derived from a cow's stomach. The enzyme rennet, which is extracted from the stomach-lining of slaughtered newborn calves and is used in traditional cheese production, is being used by the candy makers.

It now appears that vegetarians in the UK face the ethical dilemma of eating chocolate because it comes from animals.

Wrap, a British nonprofit that works with the government "to reduce the volume of waste which [is] sent to landfill," has just completed a survey that indicates British shoppers throw out approximately 30% of all the food that they buy. Half of that amount is made of up inedible items, such as bones, vegetable peelings and tea bags, and half of it is still completely edible.

The source of the problem, according to Wrap's chief executive, Jenny Price, is that people constantly want to have a choice and want to "make sure that there's plenty in the fridge" whenever possible. She also feels that people tend to not think about what it is they're throwing away. Once the food has been tossed into the bin, or sealed up in a garbage bag, the "out of sight, out of mind" maxim kicks in. Most people, according to the research, had no idea what they were throwing away; only 10% admitted that they probably disposed of quite a lot of food.

Proposed solutions include encouraging supermarkets and vendors not to up-sell people into buying more than they need and encouraging shoppers to keep lists - or at least check the cupboards - before heading out to shop. "People who go into stores with a shopping list usually stick to it, and you usually find they have less waste," said Price.

The "traffic-light" nutrition labels unveiled by the British Food Standards agency may not be popular with the food manufacturers and supermarkets, who are uncomfortable with the black and white (or red, yellow/orange and green) separation of "good" and "bad" foods, but consumers love them. The labeling system uses the three traffic light colors to distinguish between high, medium and low levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in food. The labels are very simple in design and it is easy to tell at a glance what the nutritional profile of a food is.

Out of all the supporters the system, parents are some of the biggest fans. Almost 80% of all parents would prefer if food manufacturers used the "traffic light" labels. They take very little time to read and, unlike the more detailed labels that use the Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) system, no "real world" translation of the information presented is necessary. On top of that, even small children can get the hang of the color-coded system very quickly, which helps to teach them about nutrition, as well as to make taking them along to the store much easier.

Britain's Prince Charles is passionate about food. He is especially interested in organic foods and in healthy eating, and he even has his own company, Duchy Originals, which specializes in organic and other sustainable products. Like others with similar viewpoints, Charles is not a fan of the fast food industry. Unlike others with similar viewpoints, however, Prince Charles seems to have a more radical view of what should be done. He recently suggested that McDonald's be banned.

A spokesman from McDonald's said that the company was "disappointed" by Charles' remarks, and noted that many members of the royal family, including the prince's sons, have eaten at the fast food chain.

Immediately, critics pointed out that many of the foods in the Duchy Originals line were, nutritionally, worse than Big Macs. The organic Duchy Originals Cornish pasty "contains 264 calories per 100g compared to the burger's 229 calories, and 5.5g of saturated fat as opposed to the Big Mac's 4.14g." Funnily, a spokesman for Duchy Originals said that no matter what the nutritional content of their products, good or bad, "It is up to consumers to decide whether to buy them."

Perhaps they think that customers in McDonalds restaurants are tied down and forced to eat french fries.

The traditional English breakfast includes most (or all) of the following foods: bacon, fried eggs, baked beans, sausages, tomatoes (often fried), mushrooms (also fried), toast, juice and tea or coffee. The breakfast is known as a "full" breakfast not only because it starts with a full plate, but because it leaves you with a full stomach. Despite its size, however, it is still only a meal and won't last forever no matter how you feel for the first hour or so after one.

For a never-ending breakfast, you'll have to consider what one man in Wales did. Dayne Gilbey, 19, volunteered to get a full English breakfast tattooed on the top of his head by tattoo artist Blane Dickinson. Dickinson put out a call for a volunteer because he wanted to do something different and because tattoos are often very personal, it can be hard to find interested parties for more unusual designs. Dickinson came up with the breakfast idea four years ago and has been waiting ever since. The tattoo took six hours to do and, if he had charged for it (which he didn't) would have cost £350 ($685).

Last year, the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) was involved with the promotion of several measures to restrict the content of food advertisements that were targeted at, or easily viewable by, children. Broadcasting regulator Ofcom instituted a ban on junk food ads that were targeted at 16-and-under TV viewers during non-primetime hours, which was a major victory for those supporting restrictions.

The FSA also supported a ban on online junk food advertising that was targeted at this demographic, a step which many believed was a step too far at the time. Clearly, times and opinions have changed, however, because further regulations have just been drawn up by the Department of Health's Committee on Advertising Practice that will ban "junk food companies" from advertising in magazines, on the internet, on billboards and at movie screenings that are targeted at under-16s.

Fortunately for the companies in question and the media outlets that rely on their advertising dollars, there is no official oversight of all these forms of advertising, which means that following the regulations is voluntary - for the moment, anyway.

Remember when we heard about the woman on the Maury Povich show that had a fear of pickles so intense that it was causing harm to her personal and professional relationships? Meet 29-year-old Dave Nunley, from Wyton in the UK. Nunley is not only afraid of pickles, but of every other food product out there - with the exception of cheddar cheese. He eats about 225 pounds of cheddar cheese, preferably grated, every year and has never eaten a hot meal in his entire life. On the rare occasions when he is able to tolerate other food, he will eat a packet of potato chips or some Ready Brek breakfast cereal. Nunley says that his food phobia is so intense that his "throat closes up, making him feel sick" when he even considers eating things other than cheese.

Doctors say that the cheese is keeping him alive, although it is not the healthiest diet you could subscribe to, as he would quite likely be starving to death if he didn't eat it. He has tried "hypnotherapy, acupuncture and even taken part in a BBC show about people with eating disorders" in attempts to cure the problem that has plagued him since childhood.

It could be worse, though. He could have settled on processed "cheese foods," like Velveeta, instead of mild cheddar.

Dieting may be worse for your waistline than you think, especially for women. A new study has shown that there is a greater association between guilt and chocolate in women who are dieting or have dieted in the past. This connection increases the likelihood of developing chocolate cravings, since negative emotions and comfort eating also have a strong connection in these women. The stronger the craving, the more likely the dieters were to give in to it.

The study was conducted at a university in England, where researchers showed women pictures of chocolate or nonfood items and asked them to report on the feelings that these images triggered. Their conclusion was that dieting "appears to have the opposite [of its intended] effect in that it can increase the desire for the actual foods [dieters] are trying to avoid." Hopefully, the next step in the study will look at how diets affect men's cravings, as well.

Having a positive body image and making healthy dining choices when possible, rather than opting for fad diets where long-term maintenance is unreasonable, is the best way to keep weight, cravings and guilt under control.

Since excluding imported organic products from using the word "organic" is probably not something that is going to happen in the UK any time soon, farmers are still looking for ways to strengthen their appeal with consumers and the position of their products on supermarket shelves. They are now proposing that the country of origin be clearly labeled on all products. Currently, all foods processed in the UK can claim to be "made in the UK," but this labeling scheme would have the country that the ingredients were sourced from identified.

The real motivation behind it is that foods sourced from elsewhere have less traceability than UK-based products, as manufacturing and processing standards may be lower elsewhere. A move like this would potentially increase the trust that consumers have in UK-made products, where the processing standards are known, and as a result, support UK-based farmers.

All sorts of safety issue plague parents and children these days. Playground equipment and activities are carefully monitored and toys are painstakingly screened, especially if, unlike video games, they involve movable parts that the kids might play with too vigorously, thus injuring themselves, or eat, injuring themselves further. When it comes to food, most safety issues have to do with concerns about food allergies, but perhaps in light of the burns allegedly caused by Starbucks hot chocolate in the hands of a very small child, some groups are looking to ban hot drinks altogether, rather than supervise their consumption.

The Pat-a-Cake Playgroup, which meets at a library in Rawmarsh, South Yorkshire in England, has been "banned from serving tea and toast on health and safety grounds." The risk for burns is, apparently, far to high for the city council's liking, so the parents running the group have been told that they cannot boil water in the room where children are present, and that adults must drink their hot drinks in a separate area, far from the children, if not a separate room entirely.

As you can imagine, the parents are considering disbanding the group to escape from the oversight of the council before they demand that children be outfitted in protective gear at all times to avoid papercuts.

Just over six months ago, Cadbury went through a major recall of some of their best selling products in the UK because the bars tested positive for traces of salmonella. In Canada, at about this time last year, the company had to recall some Cadbury Easter eggs because "pieces of hard plastic" were found in them. Now, the company is faced with yet another recall. This time, thousands of Easter eggs and chocolates were shipped out with no nut-allergy warning on the packaging, which puts those with such allergies at serious risk.

Since many of the chocolates have already been distributed, Cadbury is not only recalling them from stores, but chose to run ads in the newspapers to try to draw consumers' attention to the potential risk. A Cadbury spokesman could not give an estimate as to the exact number of products involved in the recall, but he speculated that the number of candies - primarily Easter-themed Cadbury Creme Eggs - would be in the thousands not the millions. The real danger for the company in this third recall comes from decreasing consumer confidence in their brand and whether the love of Creme Eggs (properly labeled ones) is enough to make consumers stay with them.

The UK's Soil Association has just put forward a proposal to exclude any foods imported by air from using the "organic" label on their products. In theory, the proposal is based around the "food miles" theory, which states that the nearer to the point of sale that food is grown, the better for the environment it is. The theory assumes that emissions from airplanes and long-haul trucks will be greater than any of the pollutants that result from shorter journeys. There are many situations in which the theory does hold up, but by and large, it has been debunked, so even though it is given as the primary reason for this suggested policy change, the real motivation is simply money.

The demand for organics is very high. Stores can charge more for organics, as can growers. By effectively prohibiting imports in a country where the farmland is so limited (compared to some other countries, such as New Zealand, Chile and the US), the Soil Association is simply driving high prices even higher. Such a move may support local farms, but unless their production is able to match demand, consumers are really going to feel the effects of a change like this one.

Having tea with milk or cream in it is not quite as popular in the US as it is abroad, but the practice is far from uncommon. Milk mellows the flavor of black teas and rounds them into a mild, satisfying drink. It seems that the addition of milk might also reduce the effects of some of the flavonoids in tea, so that those who take tea with milk are not getting all the "protective effects against heart disease" that they would be getting if they took their tea black.

This conclusion was published in the European Heart Journal just this month. The study looked at the ability of women's arteries to relax and expand after drinking tea, either with or without milk. The otherwise healthy participants showed a significant improvement in their blood flow after drinking plain tea, while the tea with 10% skim milk showed no benefits. Similar experiments were conducted on rats with the same results.