"britain" news and stories

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

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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?)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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