Artificial transfats damage our sewers as well as our health!

Artificial transfats damage our sewers as well as our health! Read this excellent Guardian blog article.

Artificial transfats are such an insidious poison. They shouldn't be there in food, of course. They are not necessary for our bodies; they are damaging, of course, and the cumulative damage results in degenerative disease. This degeneration causes personal suffering and public expense in dealing with the avoidable illnesses that result. It's interesting to read in this article how as well as clogging up our blood vessels, these toxins also clog up our sewers and cause nuisance and expense there too.

Are you wondering why poisons are added to food products like biscuits, cakes, fast foods, processed meals, takeaways, etc? It's because transfats increase the shelf life of these products, and thereby add to the profits of the Food Industry. And the government (and, indeed previous administrations too) favours food company profits over public health. - It's the same with salt added to manufactured food, but that's another shameful story.

Cancer specialists warn about the high costs of excessive unproved cancer treatments

BBC News informs us that a "group of 37 leading experts from around the world say the burden of cancer is growing and becoming a major financial issue... Lead author Prof Richard Sullivan told the BBC: "It's not just pharmaceuticals. Biomarkers, imaging and surgery are all getting through with very low levels of evidence - the hurdles are set too low." The report calls for a proper evaluation of the relative merits of conventional surgery and less invasive robotic surgery."

This is a view that certainly finds favour with me. With the incidence of cancer so much on the increase, it is more and more clear that cancer prevention is of paramount importance. Most people know that smoking is the main cause of lung cancer. As well as cigarette smoke, many other chemicals, including household chemicals, are carcinogenic. Also radiation, so avoid scans unless they are strictly necessary. - See http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Cancer-What-Causes-Cancer?.htm And be wary of artificial sweeteners. And do you know that breast feeding reduces cancer risk in mothers? There is a great deal more information about cancer prevention on this page.

Added later: I forgot to draw attention once again to the need for a legal ban on food manufacturers adding transfats to so many of their products. Transfats have been linked to breast cancer risk, as well as to many other health problems. So these cancer experts may like to consider pressing Andrew Lansley, the 'Health' Secretary, to get transfats banned pdq, instead of leaving it to the food industry to go at their own, s-l-o-w, voluntary rate of reduction.

Poisoned for Profit: Toxic Transfats still Allowed in UK Food

The Independent has a feature article about the continued scandal of UK food manufacturers being allowed to add transfats to their food products. "Within many shop-bought pastries, cakes, doughnuts, crisps, processed meats, soups, frozen food, biscuits, chocolate bars, breakfast cereals and takeaway food, exists an ingredient that the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared toxic in 2009. It's hydrogenated vegetable oil, otherwise known as trans fat, and it doesn't even have to appear clearly on ingredients labels. Have a look, and you might find it called 'shortening', or 'hydrogenated fats', maybe 'hydrogenated vegetable oils' (HVOs), perhaps 'partially hydrogenated vegetable oils' (PHVOs), or... not mentioned at all. " Outrageous, isn't it?

Trans fats are useful to the food industry principally because they increase the shelf life of the harmful products they sell as food. But trans fats are not food. They are manufactured substances that do not exist in real food. - Real food, i.e. the natural fresh food that's good for you, tends to go off once it has been kept too long and is no longer fresh. Food that can be stored 'safely' for very long periods of time by means of highly unnatural processes is not really 'safe' at all. - If even germs and other microbes turn up their little noses at it, it should have no place in our stomachs! Since trans fats cannot be metabolised by the body they can only get up to a heap of no good once we've eaten them.

Why are consumers being sold this garbage then? With the health damage (individual suffering and national financial cost of treating the diseases caused) that inevitably accompanies it? Thousands of people dying before their time? - It's pretty clear we have Andrew Lansley, the Dark Lord of UnHealth, to thank for this lamentable state of affairs. His evident conflict of interests leads him to favour food company profits over the health of the citizenry (his ostensible job). Some other countries have managed to Ban Transfats from food despite the blandishments of big business. Our country should do the same. If you want to sign a petition about it you can do so here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/330 though to be honest, I don't think it will do any good.

House of Lords committee finds Nudge Theory for improving health is not good enough

BBC News reports that The House of Lords science and technology committee finds Nudge Theory with regard to improving the nation's health is not good enough, and that legislation is also required. Well I'd certainly go along with that. - The current health nudges/snippets of advice include that increasing exercise levels helps with reducing obesity - but it doesn't! - and that saturated fat causes heart disease - but it doesn't! - and that high cholesterol levels should be treated by taking prescribed statins - although these drugs do most people more harm than good and cost a lot of money.

Another nudge is called voluntary agreement, and that is when the manufacturers of unhealthy food agree to reduce levels of harmful additives/contaminants/poisons in the processed junk/food they inflict on consumers, and then do this reduction by miniscule amounts at the speed of an exhausted snail on tranquillisers. - My especial grouse about this is the continued presence of toxic synthetic transfats in manufactured biscuits, cakes, etc. Adding these factory-produced poisons to food intended for human consumption should be banned by Law, and that Law backed up by criminal sanctions against the CEOs of any companies that continue to add them to their products.

If the continued rise in incidence and severity of obesity that wreaks havoc on the economy and great, unnecessary suffering on huge numbers of individual people, is ever to be stemmed, and, hopefully, reversed, then any nudges/advice given should be supported by reliable evidence that it is correct, and not just the repetition of unproven mantras, assumptions and misinformation.

The Food Programme Radio 4: Transfats are poisonous. Why is the Food Industry still allowed to put them into our food?

The transfats to which I refer are the artificial transfats that are added to food products, mainly in order to increase their shelf-life. In other words, they increase the profits of the food manufacturers. Artificial transfats are not a natural constituent of any food whatsoever. The body does not have a natural way to metabolise them. It cannot use them as food, because they are not food. They are toxic to the body. Toxic is a synonym for poisonous. For most consumers it is next door to impossible to know whether some of the foods they buy contain any of these poisons or not, and if they do contain any of these poisons, how much? and how much harm will they do? They damage your body and your brain. They contribute to your risk of stroke, heart disease, memory problems, dementia and more.

On the Food Programme on Radio 4 this week "Sheila Dillon investigates the issue of trans-fats in our food, and asks whether a voluntary agreement by the food industry to eliminate them by the end of the year is enough to prevent the kind of health problems associated with a diet heavy in industrial cooking fats." - I can tell you the answer to that question right now: it isn't...)o: - No way! No! It is not!

If you listen to this programme on iPlayer you will hear Sheila Dillon ask pertinent questions and you will hear slithering responses just as oily and toxic as the transfat content the apologists seek to defend. And do not be fooled by the talk of small quantities and of small percentages of calories from these transfats. They are very harmful even in very small quantities. And the damage they do is cumulative. - Remember the old adage: poison comes in small packages!

If you eat shop-bought biscuits, cakes, bread, pizzas, margarine, vegetable shortening, ice-cream, puddings & pudding mixes, ready-made pies, some confectionery - this list is not exhaustive - then you will almost certainly have eaten artificial transfats. Some groups of people are more reliant on processed foods than others are, and some groups of people, e.g. people whose health is already compromised by degenerative disease, are more vulnerable to the harm that artificial transfats cause in the body.

Unfortunately, the groups most at risk from these transfats are of minor importance to UK legislators. Otherwise there would be a BAN on adding these poisons to our food. Adding these poisons to our food swells the profits of the Food Industry, i.e. big business. Food Manufacturers are the groups whose welfare is important to our legislators. Their welfare is paramount.

That processed foods so often contain artificial transfats is yet another reason why, as far as you can, you would do well to avoid processed food, and eat fresh food that you eat raw, or that you cook yourself.

Excellent article by Alex Renton about toxic trans fats and the harmful products that contain them

See Daily Mail article. It looks as if it's best to avoid transfat-containing Krispy Kremes and Elmlea cream substitute with a bargepole. Don't make yourself ill and be one of the thousands of people who die before their time just for the sake of a doughnut and some artificial cream! - And check out those biscuits!

I urge you to read the article. I'm sure you will find it eye-opening. And then ponder why on earth Andrew Lansley as Health Secretary is against banning trans fats from food! - He should be relieved of his post; he is a laughing stock among people interested in promoting health. He is bringing the government into disrepute. What on earth were they thinking of to appoint him to such a powerful position in which he can do such harm? Were they just 'aving a larf? From his reaction to the Whitewash Report about the UK's Swine Flu Vaccine debâcle, he clearly favours Big Pharma as well as Food Inc...)o: - Please, Mr Prime Minister, can we have a Health Secretary with a bit of interest in keeping citizens healthy, rather than boosting the profits of big business?

Andrew Lansley is in the wrong job. He is putting the profits of the Food Industry above the health of UK citizens.

See this Daily Mail article in which you will read that although trans fats are believed to cause 7,000 premature deaths a year, Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, opposes a ban on their use as an additive in biscuits, etc - an additive that prolongs the shelf life of the product, but endangers the life of the person who eats it. And this, even though NICE recommends banning trans fats.

This is a Health Secretary who has gone over to the Dark Side. Let's have him out of the Government PDQ. And let's have that ban on trans fats ASAP. Read more about trans fats here: www.tfx.org.uk.