NHS healthy food guidelines - confusion

[beatrixpotterspencil]

And it isn't just the NHS, there are countless health bodies throughout the western world who still believe we ought to choose trans fatty oils in margarine over butter.
As far as I am aware, margarine has long since been considered a franken-food, yet the NHS is still advising diabetics and those with cardiovascular disease to swap butter for marg, meat for white bread and full fat yogurt for the reduced fat, sugar filled monstrosities.

I am 48, very slim and eat butter, virgin olive oil, meat (usually poultry or fish), full fat yogurt, avocado, cheese, cream, greek yogurt, olives, stuff that is going to kill me apparently since reading about saturated fats on the NHS last night.

I thought the saturated fat = bad cholesterol had been debunked, but according to most health bodies, recent research still posits it as a major contributor to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It seemed odd to choose to choose a low fat, processed alternative to an already 'healthy' food? (yogurt). So my natural Greek stuff is inferior to a sugar stuffed muller light?

I'm one of those spectacular wankers who makes their own pesto
I must definitely be unreasonable!
So I am well and truly one foot in the grave according to the health service.
When looking for their suggested alternatives to sat fats, most of the recommendations were for white, sugary breads and cereals. It is apparently better for me to chuck down a ton of rice crispies than some microwaved scrambled egg with a splash of milk.

Is this confusing anyone else? My family tended to eat similarly to me and were always healthy/slim. Perhaps it is just genetic luck and we have been juggling with an early death

I don't read a lot about nutrition, but do love cooking and following tasty recipes, so was surprised to read this. Over the years, and especially on MN I have picked up some great ideas and wasn't aware that people were still pushing hydrogenated oils as healthy.
And if they are not, why the heck are so many health bodies promoting it?
Even my own GP said my diet was excellent. I am confused!

“It seemed odd to choose to choose a low fat, processed alternative to an already 'healthy' food? (yogurt). So my natural Greek stuff is inferior to a sugar stuffed muller light?”

Why would you swap plain yoghurt for flavoured yoghurt? Plain low fat yoghurt also exists and the ingredients are just yoghurt, from skimmed milk.

Full fat flavoured yoghurts are also packed full of sugar and many have other weird ingredients in them - they’re not just yoghurt with added fruit.

Given their influence in food, I would put money on it that there's a lot of sponsorship going on in the areas of nutrition and food

To be clear, that diagram was posted by an American writer (Nina Teicholz), with the following:

Many of these companies partner with USDA to bring your kids school meals, school breakfasts 'food baskets' for the poor, etc. This cannot be ignored as one possible reason that poor, disadvantaged people have higher rates of diet-related diseases

I agree OP, I'm very much of the opinion that processed foods and too much sugar are the stuff that's bad for us. I eat dairy, including full fat Greek yoghurt on some berries for breakfast most days, butter, olive oil, nuts, avocados, meat including red meat (albeit not terribly often and we mainly eat fish and some chicken day to day), plenty of vegetables, but do eat more carbs than perhaps I should (Not because I think they're inherently bad for me but just because I am short and 40 and it's terribly easy for me to put on weight / hard for me to lose it these days).

I too am slim but I realise that most dietary advice doesn't really have me in mind

@OneTC

I too am slim but I realise that most dietary advice doesn't really have me in mind

True, but I would imagine they ought to be concentrating on long term health. Slim people still get heart disease and strokes. especially older woman past meno, thanks to drop in oestrogen.

And an overweight person swapping to low fat high sugar isn't optimal. My next door neighbour is old, overweight and has diabetes. She follows the guidelines to a tee and has low fat everything. And she is still unwell. I can't see how this contributes to her long term health.

You'd think a national health service would prefer to not to spend so much later after the damage was done. The diabetic guidelines are equally odd.

@BIWI

To be clear, that diagram was posted by an American writer (Nina Teicholz), with the following:

Many of these companies partner with USDA to bring your kids school meals, school breakfasts 'food baskets' for the poor, etc. This cannot be ignored as one possible reason that poor, disadvantaged people have higher rates of diet-related diseases

Is she the one with curly hair? I'm sure I've seen one of her talks online! She was rather adamant about margarine!

I was anorexic in my teenage years/early 20s. I would have the lowest fat of everything and spend hours in wh smiths reading calorie books or memorising the kcals/fat in various foods and looking at every label before I would eat something.
I remember staying in a hotel in Spain or Greece and feeling quite distressed that I had no access to my beloved shape yoghurts or St ivel gold margarine. But actually the holiday helped me rediscover "real" or unpackaged foods like crusty bread, butter, fresh fruit and veg, Greek yoghurt, ice cream etc
That didn't "cure" me, as such, but I tried since then, and since recovery to eat less processed food and I never eat low fat versions of nice food.
DC had some homework once to make a healthy cake. I tried to make one following a recipe and it was horrendous. It would be much better to just have a smaller piece of proper cake!!?
I love baking, and make all sorts of cakes and tray ages but I normally only do it if there's a fete or occassion so we're only going to have a small amount of cake to consume.
I downloaded the (I think) NHS food scanner and basically alpen cereal bars or low fat processed cereal bars seemed to be the "healthy" alternative for any chocolate or sweet things. Diet coke was applauded as a good choice. I drink quite a lot of diet coke but I'm under no illusion that it's healthy.

I agree OP. If people just ate moderate amounts of proper food the health of the population would be be in a much better place.

If I could be minister for better food in this country, the first thing I would do is ban dextrose, fructose and the like. These often appear in 'healthy' low fat products but just fire up an insatiable greed for sweet stuff. It's a disaster health wise.

My second move would be to ban the use of thickeners and emulsifiers and things like mono diglycerides of wotsits.

I've got a friend whose (overweight) children are only allowed to drink green milk because blue milk is 'fatty', but then you watch them wolf down 3 burgers each, in white rolls, with a side of chips and she says nothing to stop them because that's 'proper food' .

It just all makes me very very thankful that my mum had sound nutrition values and gave us a brilliant start in life, we are all healthy size and weight and have had very very few illnesses and health conditions compared to a lot of our contemporaries. Be glad you can read through the crap and make wiser decisions OP

I’ve stopped listening to it to be honest, the guidance changes like the wind. Im sure there was something in the news a few years ago about a study showing how bad something was (maybe salt?) and then years later it was shown that actually it was sugar that was the issue and the initial research was sponsored by some sugar company or something like that.

Everything in moderation and you can’t go far wrong.

Completely agree OP. The NHS nutritional guidelines are atrocious, particularly for diabetics. I have lost count of the number of times, when I was well-controlled, that I was encouraged to cut out fats like butter and yoghurt and replace them with low fat (high carb) alternatives. They also disapproved of the low number of carbs I was eating, despite the fact that I hadn't replaced the carbs with a huge amount of fat, and had massively upped my veg and salad. When I follow their advice I put weight on fast, become more insulin-resistant and frankly, I feel worse. An NHS dietitian told me once that they don't tailor advice for diabetics - the 'healthy eating plate' is what they have to teach is healthiest for everyone. Anybody who says one specific diet is best for everyone should not be trusted in my opinion!

It's well out of date, particularly on cholesterol and rubbish low fat products with loads of additives.

They should be focusing on people getting enough fibre and iron and cutting down on highly processed carbs and sugar. I haven't mentioned protein as I think there is too much focus on that and the Western diet usually contains enough.

Having said that the NHS sites did lead me to the Nutracheck app which is absolutely bloody brilliant.

Also portion sizes.

Alexa started giving me nutritional advice the other day, it was all parroted from the NHS and every bit completely nonsense.

Nhs nutritional advice is horrific
My understanding is that the main concern is obesity
So ‘less calories’ is the only thing they can focus on
Advising people to consider a holistic approach is too much for our stupid brains, and we can’t be trusted to have smaller portions. so they simply go with ‘low fat, low calories’

Oh and you might want to look up the documentaries on "the men who made us fat" (or something to that effect) - I haven't seen the one that's on (maybe channel 4?) at the moment, but there was one a few years ago with Jacques Peretti and he talked about how when studies in the 70s showed that the combination of high fat and high carbs led to obesity, the sugar industry lobbied hard, and the WHO changed their advice to say that people should limit their fat, instead of that they should limit both, as a result. It was a hugely political issue.

If they are going to redesign their advice they need to come at it from a world of food abundance, but a lot of it fairly nutritionally poor and designed to make you eat as much as possible of that food without realising you are full.

Having my lunch at home mostly for the past two years has made me realise how absolutely shit most bought prepared food is.

NHS dietary advice is woefully out of date, and they are still stuck in the very wrong calories in/calories out. I can’t believe that the website still recommends filling up on pasta and potatoes.

The British Heart Foundation was offering better advice last time I looked, and Nuffield Health suggest following the Mediterranean diet.

There are some great YouTube videos on insulin resistance and how this is the root cause of many modern health problems, including obesity.

@beatrixpotterspencil

This from NHS regarding reducing fats - it does suggest some obviously healthy stuff but also swapping most natural fat stuff to 'reduced fat' alternatives (so marg, spreads, low fat yog). I've seen the ingredients in some of that stuff and they are ....interesting to say the least.

This does specifically say it is tips to reduce fat, and to be fair the suggestions would probably reduce the amount of fat you are consuming. The issue of course is whether that is something we should be aiming for, and it does seem to be a rather outdated goal.

But is this advice for people who do need, for whatever reason, to reduce their fat intake, or is it advice that they suggest everyone follow? There's a big difference between the two.

I agree with OP.

Have a look at documentaries and lectures on the University of California television channel, e.g. The Unsweetened Truth and What We Can Do About It; or FoodGate: The Break-in, the Cover-up, & the Aftermath and various other presentations.

Being healthy isn't just about obesity (in fact it isn't about obesity primarily) - it's about health span and longevity.

@pandora206 I agree health isn’t just about obesity but it is one of the most visual clues that people may be insulin resistant.

Our understanding of what healthy food is and why certain foods are healthy has expanded greatly in the last 10 years. We now better understand why intermittent fasting works, we know the effect artificial sweeteners have on the brain, we know why combining certain foods is bad, yet unless a person is willing to invest the time and effort to find out and apply the information , very little messaging hits the mainstream.

@Cluelessmouse

Nhs nutritional advice is horrific My understanding is that the main concern is obesity So ‘less calories’ is the only thing they can focus on Advising people to consider a holistic approach is too much for our stupid brains, and we can’t be trusted to have smaller portions. so they simply go with ‘low fat, low calories’

This is what I wanted to say.. but said better than I could have

[quote QforCucumber]@EdithStourton

Rapeseed oil isn't good for you anyway.

I thought vegetable and sunflower oils were the 'bad ones' and rapeseed and olive oils were 'good'?[/quote]
According to DH, though it's high Omega 3 (which we tend not to get enough of), it's also high in Omegas 6 and 9 which we tend to have too much of in our diet.

He's not an expert though. He just read a lot about how to improve his diet.

@Worldgonecrazy there has been very interesting research into healthy living over the last couple of decades that hasn't reached the mainstream for some reason (possibly related to commercial interests). It's no wonder people are confused.

@pandora206. There is no money in encouraging healthy living, but a lot of money in keeping people unhealthy.

Everyone has been shouting ‘protect the NHS ‘ for the last two years, yet if we really wanted to do this, promoting true long term health should be our main focus. Unfortunately I think many people want a quick fix rather than longer term solutions.