ROUTINE FOR PUTTING ON WEIGHT

Plenty of rest and exercise, a good diet of fattening foods and no worries—those are the essentials

PUTTING on weight is very much more difficult than taking it off. Even thosefew extra pounds which can make all the difference to the appearance, comfort and, no doubt, general health, can be quite a problem.

Before embarking on a diet, it is always advisable to seek the advice of your own doctor. This is particularly important if there has been a sudden or prolonged loss of weight for no good reason and without affecting normal appetite. Where loss of weight is the result of an illness or operation, it is usually quite quickly and easily regained after recovery. The routine to be described will help in such cases, subject to the approval of your own doctor.

We are concerned here chiefly with that large army of men and women who are anxious to put on weight but who are the thin type by nature. Such people are born worriers, with excitable and energetic natures and over-active bowels, whose food does not remain in the intestines long enough to be properly absorbed.

Essential in the fattening process are:

• Keep calm and stop worrying. That is obviously a counsel of perfection to those who easily get worked up, but it can be achieved by cultivating outside interests that take your mind away from the source of anxiety (it may be professional, domestic, financial, or all three).

• Take plenty of rest. A minimum of between 8 and 9 hours in bed at night, plus between 10 and 30 minutes after every meal.

• Avoid rushing about, but take regular exercise. On no account jump up immediately after a meal; take life at a leisurely pace. Strenuous games are good if you really enjoy them, because they create appetite; so does any form of outdoor exercise, however mild.

• Eat well and regularly, and concentrate on the fattening foods (list follows). But be careful not to stuff between meals or you will defeat the whole object and be unable to eat your main meals, which are far more important. You must also avoid over-eating, with the inevitable danger of indigestion and biliousness. Aim at three good meals a day, plus any extras (such as sweets, etc.) which you really fancy and a hot, preferably milk, drink last thing at night. The housewife should take as many meals out as she conveniently can because she will not have the worry of preparing them.

• Cut down your smoking. It diminishes the appetitite, so, if you must smoke at all, only after meals, please.

Sugar, sweets, jam, marmalade, fruits in syrup, treacle, honey, Golden Syrup.

Cakes, scones, pastry, cereals, bread, biscuits, puddings.

Thickened soups and gravies, sauces made from flour, butter and/or milk.

Fried foods, cream, salad dressings, butter, dripping.

Pork, duck, goose. All fat meat and bacon. Tinned fish in oil.

Sweet wines, beer, stout, spirits, sweet aerated waters.

Dried fruits. Bananas, grapes, plums. Potatoes, peas, dried beans, parsnips, beetroot.

Cod-liver oil, Virol, olive oil.

Salt with food.

Foods with very little fattening value

Meat extracts. Marmite. Clear soups. Gelatine. Egg-white.

Green vegetables and salads. Vinegar. Tea. Coffee.

SPECIMEN DIET FOR PUTTING ON WEIGHT

Minimum: 1 pint of milk per day

On waking: Cup of tea, preferably with milk and sugar.

Breakfast: Cereal or porridge with milk and sugar or honey or syrup.

Bacon, egg, fish, etc.

Toast, butter and marmalade.

Coffee or tea.

11 a.m.: Coffee, cocoa or milk and a biscuit, or try this cocktail: One teaspoonful Spanish olive oil sandwiched between layers of orange juice in a wineglass. You can increase the quantity of olive oil gradually.

Lunch: Thick soup, if liked (if this makes it impossible to eat main course, substitute tomato or orange juice as an appetiser instead).

Meat, fish, game, poultry, etc.—both fat and lean. Serve with gravy, roast or fried potatoes and a green vegetable or salad with plenty of oily or cream dressing.

Pudding and / or cheese, butter and biscuits.. Coffee.

Tea: Tea with cake or bread and butter or banana sandwich.

Dinner: Thick soup (see Lunch).

Fish, meat or poultry, with gravy, at least one vegetable from list of Fattening Foods; one green vegetable or salad with cream or oil dressing.

Steamed or boiled pudding or milk pudding or ice cream.

Cheese with bread or biscuits and butter.

Coffee.

NOTE: Cocktails, wines. etc., may be taken as desired and obtainable. Stout or beer is good.

Bedtime: A hot drink, preferably containing milk.

My recommendation: The 3-step dietary programme Do what I did, look the results

The dietary plans that follow offer simple, nutritious and delicious recipes on a staged regime that should take you from overweight to optimum weight and enhanced well-being.

The reason many people depend on junk and convenience foods is because they lead such busy lives. Most of the recipes in these plans are quick to prepare, and should be within the capabilities of even the most reluctant cook. There are exceptions: preparing the Chicken Soup will take a couple of hours, but it makes a lot and you can freeze separate portions, ensuring that you can have a nutritious low-carb meal even when the clock is ticking away.

So blitz your cupboards and discard any foodstuffs that don't fit the bill. The journey to a healthy, lean body begins here.

The Plans

The 3-step programme includes 3 eating plans. The Fast-Track Plan will help you lose weight quickly and give you that all-important boost on a 50 per cent protein/20 per cent carbohydrate/30 per cent fat regime that will initiate benign dietary ketosis. It should last for 7-21 days, after which you are ready to move on to the next stage. Your weight loss should be around 2-5.5kg (4-121b) if you are a woman and 4-7.25kg (8-161b) if you are a man, depending on how long you remain on this plan.

During the Keep on Tracking Plan you increase your levels of low-tomedium GI carbohydrates and move into a 35 per cent protein/35 per cent carbohydrate/30 per cent fat regime. You still monitor ketosis and watch how introducing higher levels of carbohydrates affects your weight loss, which should now even out to 0.25-1 kg (¹/2-21b) per week.

The No Backtracking Plan is your eating regime for life. You can gradually introduce fruit and vegetables, grains and pulses from the higher GI ranges, in moderation. It is important to keep an eye on how your body reacts to these and to establish your perfect weight-management level.

If you are a vegetarian, there is plenty of advice on how to adapt the plans and recipes to suit your dietary requirements. Granted, your choice isn't as varied as that of a non-vegetarian, but don't use this as an excuse not to give it a go. If you follow the basic guidelines and make simple changes to the recipes where necessary, you should lose weight and eradicate insulin resistance successfully.

FOOD TO THROW OUT

• White flour and sugar
• Honey
• Biscuits
• Crisps
• Sweets
• Sugary drinks
• White rice, bread, pasta
• Processed foods high in carbohydrates
• Ready-made sauces
• Gravy mixes

Customize the plans to suit your lifestyle and dietary preferences

The suggested menu plans are not set in stone - they are templates to encourage you to eat the right sort and amount of food.

If you wish to change a recipe - because you don't like lamb and would rather have chicken, say - it really doesn't matter. Just try to use foods of a similar dietary value. When swapping vegetables and fruit, go for ones in the same GI category; try to exchange meat for meat, or fish for fish, in the same amounts. If you change a recipe from meat to fish, you may need to use slightly more fish to give you the same level of protein. For example, 125g (4oz) of poultry or lean meat should be replaced with 175g (6oz) of fish.

Simplify the recipes

If you are short of time, or like your food a bit plainer, simplify the recipe. If you don't fancy Baked Tuna with Tomato and Herbs, adapt the ingredients, ensuring that you still have sufficient protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats - have a tuna salad with tomatoes and dark green leaves.

On a budget

If money is short and you find some of the suggested ingredients a little expensive, use some budgetary ingenuity to bring down the cost. Fresh salmon can be replaced with coley or whiting, or even tinned salmon.

Use the suggested meals as inspiration. In order to manage your weight in the future, you will have to experiment and be prepared to adapt.

High-quality protein continue...

Soya's starring role

Soya is another star player on the protein front, and although it doesn't have as high a BV as whey protein, meat, fish or eggs, it has a multitude of health benefits which more than justify its inclusion in a low-carb diet; and it is a great vegetarian option.

Soya contains all-important isoflavones, which can reduce insulin levels, decrease arteriosclerosis (thickening of the arterial walls) and lower levels of LDL (Low-Density Lipoproteins, or poor cholesterol). It has also been shown to reduce the risk of osteoporosis (softening of the bones), increase bone mass and enhance the body's ability to retain calcium.

Soya is also of particular benefit to women, as the isoflavones it contains mimic the action of the female sex hormone oestrogen. It is believed that a diet high in soya can reduce the density of breast tissue, therefore lowering the risk of developing breast cancer.

Make it organic

The quality of the meat and fish we consume has dropped dramatically during the last century. Gone are the days when we were eating meat that came from animals allowed to graze freely on nutritious grass, and fish caught inunpolluted rivers and seas. Today, most farm animals are fed on grains that are high in carbohydrates and omega-6 fatty acids, then pumped full of antibiotics and hormones. And fish are being farmed in restrictive conditions, rendering them more fatty than their wild counterparts.

The only real answer is to buy the best that you can afford - the organic option being the healthiest and most nutritious. Organic is better because the quality of the food is better. It isn't loaded with drugs and hormones, isallowed to graze naturally, and quite often comes from wild sources, so that the level of omega-3's is higher, levels of saturated fats lower.

Protein Q&A

Q. Where does whey come from?

A, Whey comes from milk. During the process of turning milk into cheese, the whey protein is separated from the curds.

Q. Why use whey?

A. It contains the perfect combination of amino acids, in just the right concentrations for optimal performance in the body. Both hormonal and cellular responses seem to be greatly enhanced by whey supplementation. If you are trying to increase muscle mass, whey protein is invaluable in building and retaining muscle tissue.

Q. How do I know how much protein I need?

A. Easy-just follow these simple calculations. If you are sedentary you need 0.8g protein per kilogram of bodyweight (0.36g per pound of bodyweight). If you are active, you need 1.4g protein per kilogram of bodyweight (0.64g per pound of bodyweight). So a woman weighing 63kg (1401b) who exercises needs 88.2g of protein per day. A woman weighing 63kg (140Ib) who isn't active would be fine on 50.4g of protein per day.

Q. Can I have all my protein in one meal?

A. No, it is best to spread it out over the day, so divide it between your three meals and two snacks. You can do this by having eggs at breakfast, a portion of nuts for your morning snack, some fish at lunchtime, a whey protein shake as an afternoon snack, and finally by including a piece of lean meat in your evening meal.

What Kind of Protein is Best?

There is a lot of confusion about "superior" and "inferior" proteins—so called "complete" and "incomplete" foods. At the beginning of the century, researchers doing animal experiments discovered that rats could live and grow on a single food such as eggs. Eggs, like meat, fish, and cheese, were therefore dubbed "complete" proteins. Vegetable foods such as rice, legumes, seeds, nuts, corn, and wheat were called "incomplete" since on their own they were unable to maintain life and growth. What all this meant is that the so-called "complete" proteins contain all the eight acids which humans cannot make for themselves in adequate amounts. But what they didn't take into account is that vegetable food—say, corn— together with another—say, red beans—also contains the eight essential amino acids and, provided you eat one vegetable together with another, you are getting the full complement of the eight essential amino acids in good balance. Better still, you are getting them without the fat that accompanies protein from animal foods. The idea that we need animal foods in order to be healthy is simply untrue. Populations numbering in the millions in different parts of the world have lived and developed enviable health and strength for thousands of years on a purely vegetable diet.

The best—and often the cheapest—sources of protein are the unrefined, unprocessed vegetable foods—complex carbohydrates complete with their natural fiber content, vitamins, and minerals—whole grains such as rice, wheat, oats, barley, legumes including lentils and beans; mixed seeds or mixed nuts; fruits, and vegetables from salad greens to carrots and potatoes. Eaten together in salads and casseroles, bread and soups, they provide low calorie menus without the danger of high fat from the intake of animal foods. The Lifestyle Diet provides 15 percent of your daily calories in the form of protein. It allows you to eat four ounces of meat, fish, or poultry (preferably fish) three times a week. On the days when you choose not to eat these foods you can have instead four ounces of mixed nuts or two eggs. It completely eliminates all cheese except those such as cottage cheese and curd cheeses made from low-fat milk.

If you prefer, you can take all your protein from vegetarian foods. The question of a vitamin B12 deficiency on a vegetarian diet is always brought up as evidence of the need to eat meat, although long ago biochemist Schweigert of the American Meat Institute researched the question and discovered that the need for B12 rises and falls with the amount of protein eaten. B12 is available in dairy products and eggs included in the Lifestyle Diet. In this kind of protein-economical diet it is correspondingly low. Schweigert also discovered that the whole wheat grain is a usable source of B12 provided it is not processed into white flour. If it had not been, then the millions of people in different countries who have lived almost exclusively on a vegan diet (vegetarian with no milk, dairy products, or eggs) would have suffered B12 deficiencies.

DO 'traffic light' shopping

Weight loss starts in the store. Yes, this is true - if you have it in stock, you feel compelled to eat it. So buy according to the traffic light system: green for go, orange for caution and red for stop. A typical (basic) grocery list will look like this:

Green-coded foods - enjoy in varying quantities, every day: oats, fresh or frozen vegetables, fruit, grains, dried beans and lentils, rice, pasta, non-oily fresh, canned or frozen fish, white chicken meat without skin, herbs, spices, stock powders, fat-free dairy products, cold-pressed virgin olive oil, whole wheat bread.

Orange-coded foods - enjoy in moderate quantities, no more than four times a week: canned vegetables, oily fresh, frozen or canned fish (in brine), unsalted nuts, skinless chicken (dark meat), refined clarified canola or sunflower oil, 2% dairy products, soup powders, canned soups, fish paste and vegetable bread spreads, white bread, red meat.

Red-coded foods - enjoy in really small quantities, no more than once a week: canned fruit, full-fat and cream cheese, fish canned in oil, bacon, butter, cream, chicken with the skin, offal, cakes, confectionery, anything coated in crumbs or baiter and deep fried.

Gone fishing

Fish should not only be reserved for Fridays; it should be consumed at least four times a week. Gram for gram, fish offers the most beneficial nutrients with less harmful fat than any other animal protein foods. The oily fish varieties (salmon, sardines, mackerel, pilchards) are rich in Omega 3 and 6 oils, essential for:-

• Your brain: keeps the mind alert, brain tissue fluid levels high, regulates brain metabolism, improves neurotransmission and in short, enhances your mental functioning.

• Your looks: ensures optimal functioning of skin and nails, the formation of new skin cells and alleviates skin and nail problems.

• Your senses: maintains and protects - and may even improve-your eyes, your sense of taste and smell, your balance and hearing.

• Your heart, lung and cardiovascular systems: increases oxygen supply, boosts circulation, heals blood vessel damage, prevents arteriosclerosis and positively lowers blood pressure and cholesterol.

• Your uro-genital systems: ensures sex hormone production, reduces PMS,improves fertility, protects prostate and testes in men and improves urinary problems.

• Your nerves: protects the nervous system.

• Your immune system: supports and improves your immune system.

• Your muscles and skeleton: it is an anti-inflammatory agent and eases muscle aches and pains.

Oily fish contains on average 12 to 16 g of fat per 100 g portion. This does not mean you should avoid the oily varieties. On the contrary, study the list of benefits again and see how important it is to eat them regularly!

Non-oily varieties such as hake, sole, kingklip and tuna are low in kilojoules, tasty and versatile, they provide you with super-A protein without the risk of high fat consumption, These varieties contain on average 1 to 2 g of fat per 100-g portion, a real bargain if you're hungry and feel like a large portion of protein!

However, as is the case with all foods, the way in which you prepare fish will make the difference to the size of your dress. All varieties of fish, from the robust sardines to subtle hake, taste better if prepared simply: grilled with a light sauce of lemon and herbs. Those crispy coatings we love so much, only serve to mask their taste. Be honest, don't you eat fried fish because it is actually the batter you love so much? And guess what: its the oil-and-batter combination that loves your hips so much that it clings to them forever!

Chicken considerations

When it comes to enjoying lean animal protein, chicken is a great second choice after fish. The reason is the visibility of its fat, Most animal proteins have fat hidden in the flesh, whereas chicken has most of its fat concentrated in visible fat and of course in the skin. By removing the skin and visible fat from a chicken, you reduce the amount of fat you will be consuming by as much as half.

The question presented once a chicken is on the serving platter is "... white or dark meat?" Regardless of your personal taste preference, you might be interested to know that skinless white meat is the choice if you want to include very little fat in your meal. It contains around 4,5% fat, whereas the dark meat (skinless) contains 9,7% fat. On the other hand, if nutrients are what you are after, go for the dark meat. It contains about twice as much zinc, folate, and vitamin A as white does,

All this proves that when it comes to choosing your chicken, you have only a few simple and sensible choices to make. How to prepare it is a much harder decision to make. There are thousands of rich and tempting chicken recipes (remember the one roasted, skin and all, with chutney and mayonnaise?), so invest in a few low- fat chicken recipe books for your body's sake.

The decision whether or not to remove the skin should be determined by the method of cooking you are planning to follow. Since you will be eating according to the 'Have-a-life' eating plan, you might want to indulge in some crispy chicken now and again. For this purpose, and only this, you would leave the skin intact. It protects the bird from the heat, keeping the meat moist. Therefore, a bird with its skin must be prepared in a 'dry' way, such as grilling, roasting or barbecuing. Pierce the skin all over with a sharp instrument (toothpick or meat skewer) and roast raised, on a rack, so that the fat can be released and drip away. Cooking it in this way releases even more fat and gives it a crispier-than-usual skin - a pleasant bonus for your trouble.

Cooking a skinless chicken has the advantage of drastic fat reduction, but it can possibly become dry and stringy. Which will make you dump your diet faster than you can say: "Pass the gravy". However, poaching, boiling, cooking, stewing or making a casserole, are 'wet' cooking methods for which the skin's protection is not really required. If you cooked the chicken with its skin intact in this manner, the unnecessary (and unwanted) fat will simply leech out into the sauce, and invariably end up on your plate and in your body. There is no point in doing this, especially if you consider that you would never have eaten the fat on its own. So why eat it mixed with (or floating on top of) other juices and flavours? It will just end up floating around your thighs, somewhere under your skin. Your orange-peel skin, at that!

Making the most of meat

Meat only poses two possible threats, namely its visible fat and the fact that too much of any good thing is .... well, not much good. Eating too much meat means you are eating too much saturated fat, absorbing too many unwanted fat kilojoules and pushing your protein intake through the roof.

Enjoyed in moderation though, lean red meat (with all visible fat removed) is quite a bright star in the nutrient skies. It is rich in potassium, B vitamins, zinc and iron and an excellent source of protein. Served in small, lean portions with the addition of dietary fibre, red meat will enhance your health rather than harm it.

Fibre, as found in grains, dried beans and vegetables, helps to fight heart disease, digestive disorders and certain types of cancer. These foods, when served with meat, will assist your body in coping with the hidden fats in the meat. Fibre-rich foods will also help you feel satisfied faster and for longer - an excellent way in which to help you control your meat intake and so too, those unwanted fat kilojoules.

You can make some clever cuts in your meat consumption, and I am not referring to cutting it out. I mean buying and eating cuts that contain less of the hidden fats (often called the marble fat) and cholesterol-causing saturated fat. Be 'pound' wise and buy clever cuts. Those are the hind-quarter cuts such as fillet, rump, topside and leg of lamb. They contain the least hidden fats. However, even after the visible fat has been removed, you'd be surprised to know how much fat is hidden in what you deem 'pure' meat.

The cooking method also dictates how much fat you will eventually consume. Red meat actually loses weight during cooking or grilling on a rack, and depending on the period of time for which the meat is exposed to the heat, between 7 and 23% of the fat could drip away. That is provided of course you don't consume the pan drippings! With stews and casseroles, in which the fat becomes part of the sauce, no dripping away of fat takes place and it seeps into the cooking liquids. Those you end up eating by way of the gravy or a sauce. And needless to say, frying meat in fat or oil obviously adds even more fat (and unwanted) kilojoules to your unsuspecting body - rather a stupid thing to do if you want to be lean and healthy. So consider your cut and its cooking method with great care if you care about your weight.

Best of all course, is to go wild. it you enjoy red meat, 'have venison often. A very large serving of grilled game steak (300 g) will only add a humble 9,6 g of fat to your intake, whereas a similar serving of grilled beef steak (rump, fat removed) could add as much as 30 g of fat.

Similarly, if you enjoy poultry, be game for game. Ostrich, pheasant and quail are ultra-lean and 300 g of roast game will only provide you with about 10,5 g of fat. On the other hand, if you roasted (with the skin intact) and consumed its domesticated counterpart the chicken, the exact same size of serving will happily lay in the region of 39 g of fat on your body.

Be cautioned, though; game and venison tend to be dry - as a result of their low fat content - so don't defeat the whole object by adding buffer, oil, bacon, lard or cream to the dish. Use wine, fruit and stocks instead to moisten the meat. As for a sauce or gravy, the stock of game or venison is delightfully robust in flavour. Reduce your cooking liquid by boiling it rapidly with garlic, aromatic peppercorns and herbs until richly brown and thickened to your liking. A wiser, leaner and more nourishing bet than a creamy sauce, for sure.

Don't inhibit your^- nutrients

There is no point in trying to follow a healthy diet if you are not aware of the fact that the absorption of certain nutrients can be inhibited. In other words, their assimilation and uptake by the body can be hindered by some or other bad food combination with nutrient inhibitors.

The nutrients most at risk are calcium and iron. Thus, try not to consume calcium-rich foods with alcohol, high-fibre cereals or red meats - they restrict the absorption of calcium. This means for example, that it is not wise to combine cheese and wine or cereal and milk. Serve wine with low-fat meat, chicken, fish, fruit and vegetable snacks and your cereal with fruit juice instead of milk. Vitamin D, however, aids the absorption of calcium. As sunlight is an excellent way to improve your vitamin D levels, serve lean, fruity milkshakes around your pool instead of fruit juices. That way your body will benefit fully from your clever combinations.

The absorption of iron is hampered by the simultaneous intake of tea, red wine and high-fibre cereals, so don't serve, say, iron-rich liver with whole wheat bread or brown rice, Rather serve it with potatoes or white rice. On the other hand, foods rich in vitamin C assist in the absorption of non-heam iron (iron derived from vegetables), so combine those foods for optimum nutrition. For instance, a salad made from iron-rich spinach, vitamin C-rich tomatoes and sweet peppers would be an excellent choice for super-A nutrient absorption without any threat of inhibitors.

Combat Heart Disease

The danger of heart disease can and should be combatted on a daily basis in every home in South Africa - in fact, only in this way can we hope to lower our tragically high CHD statistics. Here are some tips for preventing the development of two of the major offenders - high blood cholesterol levels and hypertension - that you can put into practice in your own kitchen:

To cut back on saturated fats:

1. Choose poultry, fish and lean cuts of meat more often and remove the skin and trim the fat from meat.
2. Drink skim or 2% milk rather than the full-cream version. Eat low-fat cheese instead of hard cheese such as Cheddar.
3. Use tub margarines and/or vegetable oils (sunflower, olive oil) that are high in unsaturated fat instead of butter, lard and hard margarine - which are all high in saturated fat.
4. Cut down on commercially prepared and processed foods made with saturated fats and oils (such as biscuits, pies and pastries).

To cut down on dietary cholesterol:

• Eat less organ meat such as liver, brains and kidneys.
• Eat fewer egg yolks and try substituting two egg whites for each whole egg in recipes.

To increase complex carbohydrates:

• Eat more whole grain breads and cereals, pasta, rice and legumes (dried peas and beans).
• Eat fruit and vegetables more often.

To lose weight:

• Eat fewer kilojoules daily (cutting back on fat will really help).
• Burn up extra kilojoules by exercising regularly.

To reduce your total salt intake:

Remove the salt cellar from the table.

• Gradually reduce and/or omit salt in cooking (see below).
• Avoid foods with a high sodium content - the major culprits are canned, processed and convenience foods, such as bacon, sausages, salami, potato crisps, salted nuts, salty biscuits, powdered soups, gravy powders, stock cubes, sauces and dressings.
• Read food labels and avoid foods with added salt/sodium.

To cut back on alcohol:

• Choose low alcohol wines or beer.
• Dilute white wine with mineral or soda water.

Cutting salt out of cooking

You can get used to cooking with very little or no added salt by:

• Using garlic, dry mustard, peppers, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes to add flavour to meat and vegetable dishes in place of salt.
• Adding a little wine to casseroles and stews. The alcohol willevaporate during cooking, but the flavour remains.
• Adding sliced lemon or lemon juice to white meats and fish.
• Using herbs (such as basil, origanum, sage and thyme) and spices (such as cardamon, cinnamon, cumin and nutmeg) for flavour.

Food additives and contaminants continue...

Pesticides and consumer protection

Food law is very clear on the subject of the excessive use of pesticides and penalties for side-stepping the regulations are such that it pays growers to adhere closely to the letter of the law. Most pesticides may not be sprayed over food crops within stipulated times of harvesting (which vary according to the type of pesticide) and

this aspect is particularly strictly monitored by the Departments of Health and Agriculture.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that it is in any case not in growers' interests to use excessive amounts of pesticides on their crops, purely from an economic point of view, since agricultural chemicals are extremely expensive. Nor is it worth a grower's while to risk his reputation - and his livelihood - by careless practices which can easily

be detected.

`Preventing contamination'

The use of pesticides is only one area of food production where the problem of contamination has to be guarded against. In fact, a host of measures are enforced to prevent the poisoning of food by microorganisms. A good example is the law that forbids fresh meat and processed ready-to-eat meat products to be sold side by side, as fresh meat is highly contaminated by bacteria. These are of course destroyed when the meat is cooked, but can in the meantime contaminate the processed product. A case in point was the well- publicised outbreak of salmonella poisoning in North Wales in July 1989 which was traced, according to the press, to a shop selling both fresh and cooked meats. About three hundred cases resulted, with

three deaths.

Likewise, it is against the law to sell a 'blown' can since it could contain the deadly toxin, clostridium botulinum.

Health inspectors visit all food manufacturers and retail food outlets on a regular basis; samples of products are passed on to government laboratories where they are analysed; anyone found to be contravening the health regulations is taken to court. A case in point is the `boerewors scandal' of a couple of years ago which highlighted the use of prohibited animal off cuts in the production of this traditional sausage; the culprits were brought to book and fined heavily.

It should be added that a good deal of 'informal' policing also takes place amongst food producers themselves, who are always on the lookout for malpractices by their competitors in the marketplace! While this should in no way be regarded as a substitute for controlled monitoring, it undoubtedly contributes to consumer protection. One important regulation which is however flouted fairly often is the law stating that people who serve or handle unwrapped food behind shop counters must always wear either plastic or rubber gloves while doing so. (They are in fact required to wear hair nets as well.) Since the hygienic aspects of foodhandling are extremely important, consumers should make a practice of reporting sloppiness in this area, either to store managers or to their local Department of Health.

The sweetener scare

The heart of the problem of food additive legislation is how tointerpret data which gives results that do not translate simply into an immediate threat to public health. A prime example of this is the controversy that erupted over the compounds used in artificial sweeteners, both in the USA and in this country.

Artificial sweeteners have recently come under considerable scrutiny in this country. This follows widely publicized research in the USA after the cyclamate scare in 1970, when the Food and Drug Administration banned this compound due to the fact that laboratory tests on rats which had consumed huge amounts of cyclamate indicated that it may be carcinogenic. Then in 1977, saccharin came under suspicion when the FDA questioned the safety of that compound. The concern resulted from the restrictions imposed by the Delaney Clause (see above) and the hysterical public response it provoked is still causing repercussions today.

However, as it turned out, the quantities eaten by the rats were so high that they probably would have died of obesity long before if they had taken a comparative amount of sweetener in the form of sugar - meaning in effect that valid assumptions could not be made from this data. It should therefore be stressed that there is no evidence that, taken in reasonable quantities, any artifical sweetener is harmful to human health.

In this country the law with regard to artifical sweeteners states that any of some twenty permitted compounds may be used in food products separately or together, but that the name of the sweetener must be given, followed by wording stating that the compound is an artificial sweetener. Next to this, the producer must state whether or not sugar has been added as well. Certain sweeteners provide small amounts of kilojoules and the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act states that this must be indicated on the label as follows: . no
permitted sweetener shall be described as low energy', 'low kilojoule', 'non-nutritive', 'artificial' or words with a similar meaning, unless the energy value of the equivalent of 1 teaspoonful of sucrose is not more than 5kJ'.