- Garrath Williams is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Lancaster University
- Argues consumers are confused about which nutrients are good and bad
- Says focus needs to be on how food is made, not obsession with fats/carbs
- Raw ingredients ‘reduced to pulps and powders, concentrates and extracts’
Garrath Williams For The Conversation
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Last week, the National Obesity Forum caused a furore by claiming that eating fat, including saturated fat, will help cut rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Public Health England hit back, calling the controversial advice ‘irresponsible’.
There’s wide agreement that modern diets have led to a rise in illnesses such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Like most research, the recent controversy focuses on whether specific nutrients are the cause.
I’m not qualified to decide whether fat is good for you or will help you lose weight.
But as a philosopher, and someone who has studied diet and health-related behaviours, I am curious about the question.
What we ask determines what sorts of answer make sense.
There’s wide agreement that modern diets have led to a rise in illnesses such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes – but is it the nutrients they contain, or the way food is produced, that is to blame?
Does it make sense to focus on nutrients such as fat or carbohydrates, for example, or should we reframe the question?
There are many ways to think about the dietary changes in Western societies over the past century or so.
Of course, we can think in terms of nutrients: more sugar, more refined carbohydrates, more animal fats, more oils.
The academic also maintains chemicals are used to emulsify and enhance flavours (‘some of these familiar, such as salt, others unknown before modern chemistry’)
Focusing on specific nutrients such as fat or cholesterol has often damaged the reputation of whole foods.
Many people limit their consumption of eggs, butter or red meat, for example.
Processed food companies are in a better position to defend their products, though.
Packaging can easily make or insinuate health claims.
New technologies pound and process and bleach and coat, change liquids into pastes or solids, extract the last scraps from animal carcasses, claims Mr Williams
Margarine might be made who-knows-how with industrial trans-fats, but it can be formulated to be low in cholesterol to reassure us of its health value.
The breakfast cereal might be over a quarter sugar, but the packaging emphasises the fibre or vitamin or iron content.
No one can see or taste nutrients themselves.
To focus on them means trusting labels and mistrusting your senses.
Confused, we pick up a low-calorie fizzy drink, then choose a low-fat yogurt that contains all the sugar we just tried to avoid.
When healthy eating guidelines focus on nutrients, we become more susceptible to the processed food and drink industry.
Claims that ‘fat won’t make you fat’ make headlines.
I think they hide a more important idea also hinted at in the new report.
On top of modern industrial agriculture, industrial food processing represents the biggest change to human diets since people began farming.
Major food and drink companies compete with one another.
But as Carlos Monteiro, a professor of nutrition and public health at the University of São Paulo, remarks, ‘they all have the same overall policy’ – promoting ultra-processed foods.
Instead of asking about specific nutrients, we might also ask whether the rise of processed foods has contributed to the rise in diet-related diseases.
And perhaps the best health advice is not to obsess about the latest demon nutrient, but to prepare whole foods for ourselves, adapting the old adage: everything in moderation, especially ultra-processed foods.
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