Restaurants, sandwich chains and coffee shops will soon start to display calorie counts on their menus in a misguided attempt to fight UK's obesity.

Restaurants to display calorie counts on menus to help obesity crisis
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Within the next six months many well known chains, including Pizza Hut and Pret a Manger, will start to prominently display the calorie content of all of its food.

The idea is being pushed by the Food Standards Agency, the Government's food regulator, which wants all outlets from fish and chip shops to Michelin-starred restaurants to give details of what is in their meals.

If it is a success, the FSA is considering going even further by asking restaurants to publish so-called 'traffic light' labels on their menus, which would highlight in red if a dish was too salty, sugary or fatty."

Knowledge of calorie content will not help anyone to become less obese. Providing this information will be just another colossal waste of time and money. - To lose excess weight it is helpful to know the salt/sodium content, not the calories.

Obesity is not caused by eating fat or sugar or too many calories. Nor is it caused by inactivity/laziness. It is caused by weakened veins leading to fluid retention in the bloodstream, i.e. sodium retention and water/fluid retention, and thereby to excess weight/obesity.

The way to reduce/prevent obesity is to avoid salt and salty food, and to avoid prescription drugs as far as possible because these are a major cause of the the blood vessel damage that precedes the salt sensitivity/fluid retention.

Why not help with disseminating the truth? - If you have any friends who are overweight and know from experience that dieting does not work, tell them about my blog or send them a link to my website. - Better still, tell your MP about my website. - I'm afraid my own MP is as much use as a chocolate teapot...)o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Poor hygiene in a lot of popular food outlets

Exposed: the hygiene scandal on the high street
article in the Independent

Extract:

"Restaurants run by some of Britain's largest food chains are failing to meet basic legal hygiene standards, an investigation by The Independent has found.

A third of Yo! Sushi restaurants surveyed did not meet all the legal standards required of them, according to food safety ratings given by local councils. Twenty per cent of Pizza Hut outlets had similar problems while 18 of Pizza Express's 132 surveyed restaurants did not meet the standards.

Britain's foremost food expert, Professor Hugh Pennington, said the findings were disturbing.

Under the law, all restaurants are inspected every two years by environmental health officers and most hand out star ratings of between five and zero. Restaurants with no stars are "very poor" with a general failure to comply with legal requirements. One-star establishments have poor compliance while those with two stars need to make more effort to hit all the legal requirements – designed to stop the spread of bacteria that can cause gastro-intestinal diseases.

The Independent analysed the star rating of 1,270 outlets run by 10 of Britain's best-known restaurant chains. They include the likes of McDonald's, Burger King and KFC as well as more upmarket chains such as Pizza Express, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Wagamama. Separately we used the Freedom of Information act to obtain reports on the most unhygienic restaurants. All of the companies had at least one branch, and in some cases dozens, failing fully to comply with food safety legislation.

Yo! Sushi, the Japanese seafood chain, was the worst performer of the 10 chains, with eight of its 23 restaurants in our sample (two thirds of its 37 outlets) receiving two stars or less.

Almost one in five Pizza Hut outlets failed to score three stars, deemed as meeting all legal requirements. For Pizza Express, one in eight was found to have unsatisfactory problems.

Among the individual reports, an inspector who called at Yo! Sushi in Soho, central London, in October 2006 found dirty staff changing areas, failures in defrosting and cooking, dirty floors, mice droppings on a food shelf, slime on cutting boards and no records of staff training. "Staff understood the basics but were not attending to cleanliness," reported Westminster Council's inspector. The restaurant in Rupert Street was subsequently closed.

In January last year, Pizza Express in St Martin's Lane, central London, was found to have mice droppings under and behind the pizza oven, a dirty ice machine and dirty chopping boards.

At Pizza Hut in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, last September, dirt and grease were clogged in the broken flooring and the general standard of cleanliness was "poor". The chain was ordered to clean the walls, floors, wheels and under the equipment.

The problems were much less prevalent at chains such as Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Pret A Manger, which had good hygiene at 98 per cent of its shops.

Professor Pennington said: "Any restaurant scoring two stars [more effort required to meet all legal requirements] is unsafe. Lower scores indicate imminent danger. I would expect those with a score of zero to have been closed on the spot.""

BEWARE OF EXTREMELY HIGH SALT CONTENT IN MEALS AT PIZZA HUT, KFC, McDONALD'S AND BURGER KING. - CHILDREN ARE ESPECIALLY AT RISK.

Fast food 'almost as salty as the sea' - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Family meals at fast food outlets contain more than twice the recommended daily amount of salt, a new study claims.

Health campaigners say the "big four" restaurants - Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonald's and Burger King - are behaving irresponsibly by making some meals almost as salty as sea water.

A report by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) named Pizza Hut as the worst offender, with an average family meal containing more than twice the maximum level of salt for adults, and almost four times the limit for a six-year-old child.

Prof Graham MacGregor, the chairman of Cash and the director of St George's Hospital Medical School blood pressure department, accused the fast food chains of using excessive salt so children become hooked on them and help drive up profits.

"Salt is very addictive," he said. "You see this in children when you give them good, home-cooked food without much salt, they think it does not taste right."

"Cash is calling for firms to slash salt levels in their products and to display traffic light symbols on all products so customers can see at a glance how much their food contains."

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.