Every day, we're bombarded with conflicting information
about our favourite foods.
One minute we're told something's good for us. The next, it's not.
And we're left feeling guilty about what we're eating.
So we've been wading through the confusion
to separate the scare stories from the truth
so that you can choose your food with confidence.
Hello, and welcome to the programme that's here to stop us
being hoodwinked by the headlines when it comes to our food.
"Headlines" is the word, because I read the papers every day
and I have to say, I am confused,
because if you swallow everything you read
about what is or isn't good for us -
well, there wouldn't be much left you'd feel confident about eating.
If your head's spinning trying to figure out which advice is correct
and what you should be eating,
we'll be bringing some much-needed clarity to the table
as we discover how much of what we thought we knew
turns out to be wrong.
Coming up on the programme today -
we have reassuring news about red meat,
after particularly scary reports
threatened to butcher businesses like this one.
It was all a bit devastating, really.
You know, as the papers got hold of it,
and then, of course, it was broadcast on the news everywhere.
And at first, you know, people are scared witless, really.
For decades we were told fat caused heart disease,
but as reports suggest, some old-fashioned fats
are back in favour.
You really get the flavour of the dripping.
It really goes a long way, doesn't it?
It's absolutely marvellous.
And which bread is best - white or brown?
Why an old favourite may not be so bad as we're often told.
Now, if you're a committed carnivore like me,
you'll have been horrified by the news late last year
that eating too much processed red meat
like sausages or bacon can cause cancer.
Bad news for me. I have to admit, I still love a good fry-up.
Not every day, though. I couldn't do that.
Look at some of these headlines - Killer In The Kitchen, Banger Out Of Order.
- They're certainly not sitting on the fence with this, are they? - No.
- What about you? Do you still eat meat? - I do indeed.
My wife's vegetarian, but I'm not going to lie -
it was going to take more than these headlines to separate me
from a bacon butty, or at least until I knew for sure
what the risk is. So I set off to find out.
We're a nation that loves our red meat -
so much, in fact, that on average those of us who eat it
get through the equivalent of three steaks every week.
But last October, there were some particularly worrying headlines
linking red meat and processed meat
like bacon, ham and sausages with cancer.
My husband says to me,
"See? I told you we shouldn't eat bacon every day."
And then you turn around and think, "Well, they're the experts."
The report that sparked the headlines
from the World Health Organization
said processed meat in particular is a serious risk to our health.
Each additional daily serving of processed red meat,
the equivalent of one hot dog or two rashers of bacon,
raises the chances of dying by a fifth.
In the two weeks after the news broke,
British supermarkets saw sales of sausages and bacon
plummet by £3 million.
And butchers like this one in Twickenham saw their sales
of red meat drop by 10% overnight.
- How are you? - I'm very well, mate, yeah. Yourself?
Yeah, not too bad.
Those headlines couldn't have come at a worse time
for Lou and his team, as they were preparing for a special event
that was supposed to supersize sausage sales - not slaughter them.
It was Great British Sausage Week.
We were all geared up for a massive campaign
on sausages that weekend.
We'd got all sorts of brochures, posters.
We were going to do a big barbecue out the front of the shop.
So it was all a bit devastating, really.
You know, as the papers got hold of it, and then, of course,
it was broadcast on the news everywhere.
And at first, you know, people are scared witless, really.
We have our own pig farm as well,
- so we run about 150 to 200 pigs at a time. - Right.
So if the supply chain here sort of dries up,
we've got a ruined business.
I visited the shop a few weeks after those first headlines,
and I wanted to see if, now the dust had settled,
Lou's loyal customers had been put off red meat for good.
So do you mind if I get stuck in and talk to a few of your customers
about the concerns they have about red and processed meat?
- No, no problem at all. - Brilliant. - Let's get you kitted up!
Fantastic. Put on the famous red-and-white apron, huh?
Sales of sausages and bacon nationally,
already slowly declining,
dropped rapidly in the months following the new report.
But there's little sign of that here.
There were recent health scares - the World Health Organization
said that processed meat was very bad for you,
increased risk of cancer - what do you think about that?
There's always a scare, isn't there, about something or other?
I would imagine that it's complete tosh.
THEY LAUGH
No. You only live here once.
Enjoy your meat while you're here, while you can still eat it
and while your teeth are still in your mouth.
So enjoy it. Forget all the other scares. Move on.
Where's my ham?
- So you're not worried? - No, I'm not.
If you buy good quality from a reputable source,
then I think you're fine. You're absolutely fine.
In fact, all the customers I met had taken the news
with a hefty pinch of salt.
It's good news for Lou -
in his shop, at least, sales are back to normal.
It certainly has recovered right back to where we were before,
so it's not killed it dead in the water. Definitely not.
After speaking to a few people this morning, it seems that
although they may have been a little bit concerned initially,
after a fairly short period of time,
they've got back into their old routines,
and what they are doing is putting their trust
in the great British butcher to provide them with good-quality meat.
So we might not have fallen out of love
with red or processed meat entirely,
but those headlines WERE pretty scary.
The World Health Organization said that 50g of processed meat
every day - that's about two rashers of bacon -
could increase the risk of some types of cancer by up to 18%.
And as someone who's particularly partial to a good sausage sandwich,
that had worried me.
So, to make sense of it all, I've come to King's College in London
to ask Prof David Phillips
whether I should bin the bangers for good.
So, David, what is it in red meat that's dangerous to us?
Well, first of all, we have to distinguish
between red meat and processed meat.
So red meat, over here,
is fresh meat - be it lamb, pork or beef.
And then you have processed meat, which is food of similar origin
- but which has been preserved in some way. - OK.
So there's the sausages, bacon, ham, salami, pepperoni.
It's had preservatives added to it in order to prolong its life,
and that also altered its flavour,
and these are the things that we're familiar with.
OK, so we've got mince here.
Should mince be on the plate with the processed meats?
No, mince is still fresh meat.
It hasn't been preserved in any way.
It's been processed in the sense it's been mashed up,
but no preservatives have been added to it.
But the mince doesn't get off scot-free.
The World Health Organization's report said that processed meat
like bacon, packed ham and sausages carry the highest risk,
thanks to the carcinogens released when the meat is cured,
smoked or processed.
But the report also said that eating too much unprocessed red meat
carries a risk too.
But what is it about all of these meats that are dangerous to us?
Well, in the case of the red meat first,
this contains high amounts of a substance called haem.
Haem contains iron, and we need iron in our diets,
but also, haem can be broken down in the gut
to harmful chemicals, and we think it's possible
that some of these chemicals might be able to trigger cancer.
OK, and haem - that's blood, isn't it?
Haem is in blood. That's what makes blood red.
It carries the oxygen around our body.
Well, that sounds like a good thing.
So what is it about this that's dangerous for us?
Well, if we eat a lot of haem in our diet,
then that gets into the gut
and there it can get broken down into harmful chemicals
which could cause bowel cancer.
But the report also made clear that all processed meat,
whether it's red or white, carries an additional risk.
The chemicals that are generated
during the processing of the meat or in the cooking of the meat
can additionally cause damage to the cells in our bowels,
and that makes an additional risk of cancer.
As a result, the official NHS advice is not to eat more
than 70g of either processed or red meat a day.
That's about the same as two to three rashers of bacon
or two small slices of roast beef.
So should we be concerned about eating red and processed meat?
Not if we don't eat too much of it.
But it's fair to say that of the many cases of cancer
that occur in the UK, a small proportion of them
will be due to eating too much red meat.
A very small proportion, in fact.
In a group of 1,000 people
who ate a small amount of processed meat each week,
56 would develop bowel cancer.
But in a group of 1,000 people who ate a lot of processed meat,
only ten more, 66, would develop it.
So while statistically there IS a higher risk, it's not as high
as some of those headlines might have led you to believe.
In fact, it's thought that just 34,000 cases of bowel cancer
worldwide are caused by eating processed meat.
So no-one's saying that processed meat or red meat
will definitely give you cancer -
it's just that your risk of developing it is slightly higher
if you eat too much.
So should I feel worried or guilty
the next time I want to tuck into a bacon sandwich?
Absolutely not. I think you should think about
how many times you are tucking into a bacon sandwich,
rather than whether you tuck into one or not.
So despite those terrifying headlines,
there's no need to take red meat off the menu entirely,
not least because, in moderation, it can be really good for us.
And nutritionist Priya Tew can explain why.
So we've got lots of different cuts of red meat here,
which all look very appetising,
but apart from taste and flavour, do they offer us anything?
Absolutely. It's a brilliant source of protein,
it's leaner in fat than most people would think,
it contains B vitamins, some vitamin D and selenium
as well as iron and zinc.
And that iron in particular is an especially useful nutrient
for many of us.
We know that, worldwide,
population figures are that 30% of people are anaemic,
so they have low levels of iron.
When we look at the UK population, it's not necessarily that
everybody's going to have a problem with their iron,
but teenage girls, for example, pregnant women
are people who are more susceptible to having low iron levels,
so we definitely want to be encouraging them
to be eating red meat regularly.
You're saying that actually these can offer
a lot of nutritional value and goodness as well?
Yes, I am. So if you were having 70g of red meat a day,
that's perfectly safe.
So that could be equivalent to you having your 4oz steak
a couple of times a week, for example,
making sure you are having some meat-free days as well.
So there is nothing wrong with having red meat
and even processed meat a few times a week
as part of a healthy, balanced diet.
That's music to my ears. And on that note,
I'm off to tuck into a juicy quarter-pounder, guilt free.
If the news about the link between processed red meat and cancer
has prompted you to cut back on the amount of red meat you eat,
visit bbc.co.uk/food for quick and easy recipes
that swap processed and red meat for healthier alternatives.
It was a huge relief to me to find
that I can still enjoy the odd bacon butty as long as it's not every day.
I have to admit, I took the report really seriously
because we've got cancer in our family,
though I have not cut back completely.
I still have a little bit of it, because I think in the end,
people go for moderation, don't they?
But it's not just the case that health messages can change
to make something that one day is supposedly good for you
turn out to be bad for you the next.
It happens, actually, the other way around.
Now, take saturated fats - found, of course, in things like
full-fat milk, butter and lard.
For years we were told that they raised our cholesterol levels
and were linked to heart disease.
The link now between saturated fat and heart disease is being debunked.
So have a look at this headline, for example -
Eating Fat Is Good For You.
After 40 years of warnings, the doctors say it's now healthy.
- That caught a lot of us by surprise, didn't it? - Yeah.
Because for years we were thinking about the fat.
The question is, to know which fats are fine
to go back on the menu.
Once upon a time, Britain's dinner tables groaned under the weight
of meals that we'd now consider terrifyingly unhealthy.
But in the '80s and '90s, a healthy eating revolution
swept the nation, turning lots of us into calorie obsessives
fearful of one thing more than anything else - fat.
And a host of new products appeared
with the promise that they were better for us.
# No artificial ingredients
# Nothing artificial
# That's the best feeling from Blue Band Margarine
# It couldn't be better. #
St Ivel Gold.
Half the fat of any margarine.
And it tastes...
smashing.
We swapped butter for margarine, lard for vegetable oil,
full-cream milk for skimmed.
We'd all got the message that saturated fat,
found in animal fats like lard and butter,
was clogging our arteries and putting a strain on our hearts.
So instead, we turned to products that were low in saturated fats
that we were advised were much less likely to cause heart disease.
And that way of thinking stuck with us for decades
until a clutch of recent reports seemed to suggest
that we should forget all of that.
An international study has discovered little evidence
that polyunsaturated fats,
which are found in olive oil, nuts and fish,
offer better protection from heart disease than saturated fats.
Suddenly, it seemed the fats that for years we'd been told
were bad for our hearts might not be.
And the ones we'd replaced them with weren't necessarily
any better for us after all.
So, what to believe?
Some people have said that you can't eat butter,
that's got a lot of fat in it,
and then other people say you can eat butter.
I know that there are good fats and there are bad fats,
but I couldn't tell you the difference.
Your good fats are things like
- natural olive oils, that sort of thing. - Omega. - Yeah.
Your bad fats are the animal fats.
I must admit, I really do like butter,
so I'm actually going onto butter
away from so-called healthy margarines.
I have to admit that the idea that butter
needn't be one of my guilty pleasures is great.
But what has changed? I've come to meet Prof Bruce Griffin
at the University of Surrey
to try to get a clear answer on this once and for all.
Saturated fats, processed fats - we all get very confused,
so just explain the difference between them.
The main two categories of fats are saturated fat
and polyunsaturated fats.
Now, classically, saturated fats come from animal sources,
and polyunsaturates come from plant sources.
Classically, butter contains about 50% saturated fat,
and this spread would contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fats.
Saturated fats tends to be solid at room temperature,
like the fat we have here.
And polyunsaturated fats tend to be liquids at room temperature.
It's those solid saturated fats that had long been linked
to heart disease, which is why we were all encouraged
to reduce the amount of animal fats we ate, like butter and lard.
Meanwhile, polyunsaturated fats
were thought to actually protect the heart.
But the reports published in 2015
poured cold water on all of that.
They compared dozens of studies that took place over decades
and concluded there was simply no proof that saturated fat
caused heart disease, or indeed that polyunsaturated fats didn't.
There have been some very large studies called meta-analyses,
which have tried to demonstrate a relationship
between the intake of saturated fat and cardiovascular disease,
and they haven't been able to do it.
They've shown no relationship between the intake
of saturated fat and cardiovascular disease.
And this has led to people believing
that our recommendations are maybe incorrect
that we should be reducing our intake of saturated fat.
My immediate reaction on reading the latest headlines,
and maybe your thoughts as well,
was that if they were right, perhaps it was time to start
rethinking our relationship with fats.
Now, for years, I've used low-fat spreads and oils
in place of the butter I'd much rather be using,
all because I'd been worried about that link with heart disease.
And maybe the apparent change in the advice explains
why some long-forgotten fats are now coming back on the menu.
Shaun Searley is head chef at this restaurant in London,
where he serves my mum's good old favourite - dripping.
For years firmly out of fashion, it's now the latest fad.
James Martin, for example, says it's the secret to fruit cake,
and Heston Blumenthal to roast potatoes.
Shaun, thank you very much for letting me come into your kitchen.
Way, way back, my mum would have had dripping and also lard.
But maybe we could have the definition
of the difference between lard and dripping?
Yeah. I mean, it's simple, really - lard would be pork fat,
and dripping would come from beef.
But unlike my mum, Shaun's using his dripping very sparingly.
Its potent taste means that you don't need much at all.
And all it will do is add layer upon layer of flavour.
You talk about the flavour being everything
for this particular dish - do you find that
because it is so flavoursome that you actually use less?
Absolutely. I mean, the richness will go a lot further
than, say, a butter, which has quite a neutral flavour.
Especially something that you've bought, sort of a generic style.
This beef fat is going to be...
It's going to last you double, probably, the butter.
Beef dripping, into the pan, your toast goes in.
'The dripping's distinctive aroma
'really does take me back to my youth...'
Bit on the side.
'..but will it taste as good as I remember?'
Can't wait to try this.
Mmm.
You really get the flavour of the dripping.
It really goes a long way, doesn't it?
And I think when you've fried it with that sourdough,
you get these kind of sweet, nutty flavours from the beef fat.
It's absolutely marvellous.
When my mum was cooking with dripping or butter,
our national diet was very different.
In the late '50s we ate - wait for this -
129g of butter a day.
That's more than half a pack each.
But since then, encouraged by the message that saturated fats
were especially bad, we've reduced our butter habit
to just 40g a day.
And we also slashed the total amount of saturated fat we ate
from 111g a day each in 1975
to 81g a day each in 2012.
And that's no bad thing, because although we do need some fats
in our diet to help absorb vital vitamins, amongst other things,
back at the university, it turns out that what's really behind
all those headlines isn't quite as simple as it might have appeared.
The implication of some of these reports in the papers
is that you can have as much saturated fat as you want
- and it's not affecting your heart. - No, that's not true.
These very large studies haven't necessarily come up with
the right answer, because the relationship between saturated fat
and cardiovascular disease is more complex
than we have understood in the past.
The truth is, putting together all the research
hasn't been able to prove a link
between saturated fats and heart disease.
It doesn't mean for sure that there isn't one,
or, indeed, that you can suddenly eat as much butter as you like.
Which is why the NHS advice on this hasn't changed.
But the new research does mean if you gave up these fats
purely because it seemed there was a definite, proven risk
with heart disease - well, I'm afraid that wasn't the case.
I'd love to take some advice about keeping your heart healthy.
What would your professional advice be there?
Well, overall, I think what we've got to do
is move away from focusing on single nutrients,
like certain types of fat, and look at whole diets.
Because it's whole diets and dietary patterns,
changing the dietary pattern, that we know has a benefit
of protecting us from cardiovascular disease.
The best evidence we have is the effects of the Mediterranean diet,
which is low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fats.
It's one diet that we know actually works
in preventing cardiovascular disease.
It's altering our overall dietary pattern that's important.
And while it's good news that saturated fats need no longer
be demonised as a particular cause of heart disease,
eating too much of any kind of fat can lead to obesity,
which does damage your heart.
So the message is still, put simply, don't eat too much.
For a man, the limit should be 30g of saturated fat a day,
and for a woman, it's 20g a day.
But at least you don't have to avoid it altogether.
Well, seeing as I'm partial to a bit of butter,
what should I actually be putting on my toast every day?
Should I feel guilty about having it?
I don't think so, as long as you're aware
that that's providing about a quarter
of the recommended level of intake of saturated fat in your diet,
and you impose some control
over the rest of the day and what you eat.
I think common sense and eating these foods in moderation
is very important. Not just for saturated fat intake,
but also for the energy intake to maintain your body weight,
- I think is critical. - So moderation is your phrase?
Moderation, yeah.
So, much as I really enjoyed it,
I won't be putting dripping on the menu in my house too often.
Still to come - how the original superfood
was banished from our plates for 20 years
thanks to science that simply doesn't stand up.
In the '80s, we had all sorts of scares -
cholesterol in eggs was bad for you. Then Edwina did her bit,
and we saw the bottom of the market then, I guess.
The food we eat has amazing powers
and can help our bodies conquer all sorts of common conditions.
Every day, GP Dr Rangan Chatterjee sees patients
whose problems could be helped or even solved by changing their diet.
So we asked him to share some of his secrets.
Today, it's the digestive system - the group of organs
that convert food into energy that fuels the entire body.
When it comes to problems with the digestive system,
there's nothing more important than what you eat.
One in three of us suffers some kind of digestive discomfort,
with the biggest complaint simply the pains we call indigestion.
Typically, when people get indigestion,
they get pain in their upper abdomen or behind their breastbone.
Often a result of eating too fast or too much,
indigestion is caused by acids that break down the food inside us,
irritating the lining of our stomach.
The foods that typically can cause us symptoms
are fried, fatty foods -
sometimes sausages, sometimes bacon -
fatty foods such as cream.
If you cut these out,
often people find an improvement in their symptoms.
Other common triggers for indigestion can be curries,
cucumbers, citrus fruits and carbonated drinks.
Now, you may know that if you put a penny in a glass
and you pour cola in, it will clean it overnight,
and that's because of the kind of acid that's in the cola.
It's corrosive, and it's called phosphoric acid.
And that could precipitate acid reflux
and more indigestion symptoms.
That's why, if you do have indigestion, I'd certainly say
you should cut down on fizzy drinks or even eliminate them if you can.
Instead of the fizz, reach for a tea -
but not one made with mint.
We may have used mint to aid digestion for generations,
but in some cases it's been found to actually make heartburn worse.
So you'd be better choosing one made with ginger to settle your stomach.
Or you could reach for the so-called friendly bacteria
found in probiotic tablets, which might help balance the stomach.
Probiotics might also be beneficial for sufferers of another
common digestive condition - irritable bowel syndrome.
IBS is estimated to affect up to one in five of us
at some point in our lives.
Irritable bowel syndrome is the name we give to a collection of symptoms
that include tummy ache, diarrhoea, constipation as well as bloating.
The abdominal swelling we call bloating can be extremely painful,
so if you're prone, steer clear of such wind-inducing foods
as not just the notorious baked bean
but cabbage, cauliflower and even some fruits.
Now, the fruits that can cause this are things like apples and plums.
And instead of apples and plums, you might want to have
fruits such as bananas and oranges.
Those same uncomfortable symptoms can occur
if you have an intolerance to dairy.
Milk contains a sugar called lactose.
Lactose can be very difficult to break down
for a lot of IBS sufferers.
Stopping having lactose and actually having milks without lactose,
such as lactose-free milk or soya milk,
can often help with your symptoms.
As we'll see later, another everyday food
that is often much maligned can also worsen wind and abdominal cramps
if you've got a sensitivity to gluten.
Bread which contains wheat
can often be difficult for the gut to break down,
so instead of these,
you may want to go for some wheat-free substitutes instead.
IBS sufferers who are sensitive to wheat
can get that vital fibre instead from nuts,
leafy green veg like kale and spinach,
and best of all, ground flaxseed, easy to sprinkle on top of a yogurt.
And the good doctor has another tip we can all take on board,
whether we have digestive problems or not.
It's not just changing what you eat, but when you eat.
Try not to eat anything three hours before you go to bed.
Going to bed with a full stomach is going to increase the risk that
you push stomach acid out of your stomach and into your oesophagus.
Add to that the advice your mother used to say -
don't wolf your dinner down - and you should be able to enjoy
eating good food without the bad effects.
Next, our daily bread!
So, Chris, what would it be for you? Would it be ordinary white bread
or would it be big, fat, chunky wholemeal?
Do you know what? I don't mind either, actually, but for some things it has to be white bread.
So if I was having a bacon sandwich, it would have to be
- on a sliced white. - Nothing else would do? - I don't think it would taste the same.
The nation, apparently, is falling out of love with bread,
because a lot of the headlines say that it makes you fat.
And I have to admit, I have cut back as much as I can on bread -
and she pulls her stomach in! HE LAUGHS
So, should we be avoiding it?
Or do you think there's more to the humble loaf than meets the eye?
Well, there's definitely more to some loaves than meets the eye.
And there's one type in particular that you may well
change your mind about after watching this.
We used to love these conveniently packaged loaves so much
that we judged everything else against them,
describing the most impressive new ideas
as "the best thing since sliced bread".
But things have changed.
In 2015, we spent almost £100 million less on sliced bread
than we did just a year earlier.
And while many of us do still love our daily bread,
the decline in popularity of some of our best-known varieties
reflects growing concerns that bread is just not good for us.
- I love bread. I absolutely do. - SHE LAUGHS
Unfortunately for my waistline, yeah, I like bread.
I'd eat it every day if I could.
Bread's one of those things everybody eats.
And if you want to grab something quick, it's a sandwich,
it's generally a bread type of product.
I think, like, I try and be healthier
by choosing brown over white,
but really, is that any healthier?
Well, now, there's a question.
Because while we're buying less bread across the board,
we still buy twice as much sliced white bread than brown,
even though white bread is considered less healthy.
But is white really the nutritional poor relation we often think it is?
Well, I've set up my own bread stall in a Cambridge market,
and I'm asking passing shoppers which type
is most likely to end up in their basket.
So, out of this, which bread would you buy?
So I have four different sliced loaves -
a value sliced white,
a medium-priced white toastie,
a mid-priced loaf of sliced wholemeal,
and a premium seeded loaf.
Which bread do you buy, out of this table?
I have to buy two, cos my children don't like wholemeal,
so I have white and wholemeal.
And what do you think is the difference between the two?
I mean, apart from the fact that one's brown and one's white!
Well, this has more taste, obviously.
This is healthier for you, really.
Out of all these slices of bread, which one would you buy?
- Ooh. This one. - This one? - Yeah, I would go for that one as well.
- You both would buy the white. - Yeah. - Why's that?
I like white bread a lot more, personally.
I'd probably be buying the wholemeal of these, most likely.
And do you ever buy white?
- Yes, I do occasionally buy white. - Why's that?
I think white tastes better.
Do you think there's much difference, really,
between the brown and the white?
I know there's more fibre in the brown.
But generally, bread is bread.
It's carbohydrates - it's not necessary good for us
in large quantities, whatever we choose.
It's interesting - while most chose the wholemeal loaf,
because they thought it would be better for them,
they said they actually preferred the taste of the white.
And it's true that wholemeal and seeded loaves
are the healthier choice,
but white is not exactly a nutritional no-go.
It does contain more salt and sugar than other loaves,
but it has less fat and calories than the brown.
Well, this one actually is higher in calories than the white.
- Really? - Yes. - Wow! - Does that surprise you?
Yes, I would've thought, if anything, they were very similar.
- This one has a few more calories in it than the white. - My word!
So you really don't know what you're eating nowadays, do you?
I'm so took back with that. That's mad.
Those higher calories come from good fats and fibre, thanks to the seeds
and wholemeal flour, something that the white simply can't compete on.
But it puts up a better fight on other fronts.
Looking back, white bread has been made to be good for us
ever since the Second World War,
when the Government started fortifying the typical loaf
with added vitamins and minerals.
Even today, white bread is fortified with calcium, iron and B vitamins,
and in some cases can contain more calcium than its wholemeal cousins.
That's just one of the reasons Linia Patel, who's a nutritionist,
believes that bread of whatever colour can be good for us.
So, very commonly, people come to me and they say
they're not eating bread because bread is fattening.
I think it's just a myth.
I think we associate bread being a carbohydrate
and we associate carbohydrates being fattening for us.
Actually, that's not the case.
Bread can definitely be healthy and it's got key ingredients,
so it's a good source of fibre.
Also, if you're going for a higher-fibre bread,
you're going to get B vitamins, minerals like iron and magnesium.
While white bread does contain fibre, whole-wheat can contain three
or four times as much, something we don't eat enough of in the UK.
That may be why, in an attempt to tackle declining sales,
M&S recently announced it would be adding fibre to all its white bread
and rolls to make them more nutritious.
The store says it's "bread with benefits" is being introduced
because the days of the traditional white loaf are numbered.
But while it's true that we're now spoilt for alternatives,
there's no escaping white bread is still the UK's favourite.
And because we no longer buy it every day,
we expect it to last longer than it used to.
Morris Bakers in Chorley turns out tens of thousands of rolls
and loaves every single week.
That kind of mass production relies on speed, so this bread is made
very differently to the traditional methods.
The demand for a soft white loaf
or the soft sandwich rolls, et cetera,
is still massive, so to fulfil that demand
we need to make it in a manner that puts out the big-time elements.
Traditionally, bread dough needs to be left for anything up to
three hours to let the yeast ferment and the bread to rise.
But modern baking methods
have cut that fermentation process right down,
thanks to the use of additives
that do the job in a fraction of the time.
We need to add emulsifiers, fats and sugars and ascorbic acid,
which help the dough to mature in a short period of time.
The modern process not only cuts down the time it takes to produce
one loaf from anything up to five hours to less than three,
but it also means that bread has a longer shelf life.
The major benefit of making bread this way is that the consumer
gets a loaf, as long as they keep it wrapped up,
they can keep it for a number of days
and they are having little waste.
Many of the natural nutrients are lost
when flour is milled for white bread, but because it's the law that
our white loaves must have all that extra calcium, iron and B vitamins,
on balance, experts say there's no significant difference between
the nutritional content of a traditional loaf and a modern one.
But whether it's white, wholemeal, gluten free or rye,
the bread Linia crowns best of all is the kind you make yourself.
Go home and try bake your own bread
or if you can't do that, just go to your local baker,
because what you're going to get is you're going to get bread
that just has five basic ingredients.
Your flour, your yeast, your oil, your salt and your water.
And if that's not practical,
one reason why sales of mass-produced sliced bread
have been declining is
because more people have switched to buying bread from a part of
the supermarket where you'll find a simpler, fresher loaf.
If you go to the supermarket's bakery
and get one of the loaves that's freshly baked,
that's going to be better for you than actually buying a loaf of bread
that are going to be pre-packed in the supermarket.
Of course that goes for all loaves, not just white,
and whilst it seems that the white-sliced loaf isn't quite
the nutritional no-go area it's often thought to be,
Linia's own choice would always be something
that's little bit more wholesome.
Go for something wholegrain and seeded
because what we get in the wholegrain and seeded is fibre.
Now, fibre is a really important nutrient
that helps our guts work better,
but it also helps balance our blood sugar levels
and control our appetite, which is essential
if we're managing our weight or if you just want to be healthier.
Now, earlier I found out how 30 years of health advice
telling us not to eat certain fats
because they'd cause heart disease has now been disproven, meaning
we shouldn't worry about putting some good old-fashioned fats
back on the menu.
The same thing happened with eggs and the health message this time,
though again has been disproven, has been a very tough one to shake.
When I was growing up, eggs were the original superfood,
before the term had even been coined.
Eggs is cheap, full of proteins,
and what's more, they helps you to face up to the day.
And to face up to her, I need 'em.
Ah, yes, there's a lot more goodness in eggs than people realise.
Marvellous. In the 1960s, we ate up to five eggs a week each.
But less that 20 years later, the mighty egg fell from grace.
In 1988, the then Health Secretary Edwina Currie announced that most of
the egg production in the country at the time
was affected with salmonella.
The advice is not to eat raw eggs
or uncooked food containing raw eggs.
To be absolutely safe, they should be hard boiled...
despite consumer resistance.
Egg sales fell 60% overnight and didn't recover
because shortly after came more bad news.
We were told that eggs were packed with cholesterol,
which caused heart disease, so we should limit how many we ate.
And as recently as 2012,
one headline even declared eggs
that were as bad for you as smoking.
The yolk is what they're saying
is bad for you, in terms of eggs now, from what I've been reading.
The white is what everyone is going crazy about.
Well, I think we've reached a point that you're actually frightened
to know what you can eat any more, cos of all the headlines,
you think, "Oh, my God, today I can't eat bacon,
- "tomorrow I can't eat gluten." - Eggs or dairy.
So I think everybody is really quite confused about what to eat.
It's a similar scare story to the one we heard about earlier,
which turned us away from saturated fats.
But in this case it was worse
because while eating too many saturated fats,
or indeed any fats, still isn't a good idea,
when it comes to eggs, it now seems that all
the time they were as healthy as we'd been told in the first place.
So to find out if one of my favourite foods
is all it's cracked up to be, I've come back to see
Prof Bruce Griffin at the University of Surrey.
Professor, for many years now we've heard the controversy,
too many eggs are not good.
Where do you stand on the mechanics of all that?
Well, for many years, there was this popular misunderstanding that
the cholesterol in eggs,
which is actually contained in the egg yolk,
is the same as cholesterol that gets into our arteries
and causes heart disease, and they're really not the same thing.
When scientists began to study the link between cholesterol
and heart disease in the '70s,
any foods high in cholesterol became suspect.
And with one egg containing two-thirds of your recommended
daily amount, it's no surprise that they very quickly found themselves
off the breakfast table.
But the science simply wasn't sound.
There was no evidence to suggest that the cholesterol in eggs
was leading to increased coronary disease and coronary heart disease.
We've now found out that the amount of saturated fat
has a much greater effect on your blood cholesterol than
the relatively small amounts of cholesterol in food like eggs.
And that's what's behind the change in advice.
It had previously been assumed that eggs and saturated fats
both had a similar effect on the level of cholesterol in your blood.
But that's not the case.
And it's now accepted that saturated fats have a much bigger impact.
So eggs, which result in far less cholesterol remaining in your blood,
are off the hook.
And yet, in the '80s and '90s, we were giving up eggs in our droves
because we were told that more than three or four eggs a week
would be bad for us.
That had a devastating impact on egg farmers like David Brass.
In the mid to late '80s, we had all sorts of scares -
cholesterol in eggs was bad for you, eggs are bad for you,
because there's fats in them, and Edwina did her bit
and we saw the bottom of the market then, I guess. Then the market was
very stable. It didn't grow much at all for years and years and years.
It took until 2009
for business to improve,
after headlines like these
proclaimed not only that
eggs could now go back on the menu,
but even that it was safe to eat them every day.
And ever since, the good news has kept coming.
It was a massive change in advice, and it seems extraordinary now
that we'd been so put off of food that does us so much good.
Eggs are designed to support life, so they contain a very
broad profile of micronutrients
and a very high grade of protein as well.
If there was to be a superfood,
an egg has to be the superfood because of its nutrient composition.
So I could have as many eggs as I want per week, give or take?
Well, it's perfectly safe to have up to seven eggs a week
or an egg a day, as we used to say.
"Go to work on an egg" used to be a famous slogan
and that certainly isn't going to cause us any harm,
but we don't want to eat anything in excess.
I have to say, that old slogan "go to work on an egg", actually,
I genuinely find that I work well on eggs. How good are they for you?
Well, they are an excellent source of dietary protein,
and we've just completed some studies to show that
the dietary protein can actually suppress your appetite throughout
the day and increase that feeling of fullness, so you tend to snack less.
And what's it better than?
Well, the protein in an egg, for example,
is more bio available to us than
the protein you get from fillet steak, for example.
Better than a fillet steak?
Better than a fillet steak, with respect to protein.
Well, well. I've long been a fan of eggs,
but that comparison with steak I'd never heard before.
And I must say, I've been sharing it with people ever since I heard it.
But off the back of that much more positive health message,
sales of eggs have been rising, and as a nation we now bake,
boil, scramble and poach almost a billion of them every month.
That's great news for producers such as David.
The market has grown almost exponentially in the
last couple of years, it's a wonderful place to be.
The last 12 months has been almost like a perfect storm,
more and more good news about eggs, so we sell more because of that.
You just can't get the eggs.
The stores are empty all the time,
double-digit growth month after month after month.
The egg industry is booming again.
But of course when advice on an issue like this
changes in such a dramatic way, it can cause real confusion.
I'm old enough to have been through, "It was good for you,
"now it's bad for you, now it's good for you,"
so I just don't take any notice, I just don't listen to them.
Thing is, they do a big issue on, like,
"Don't eat eggs. Don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other."
So everybody doesn't do it,
but 12 months down the line, when you've given up something
that you quite like, then they say,
- "We're sorry, we got it wrong." - "Eggs are all right."
"Eggs are all right to eat."
I think, in another study a few years ago, it said,
"Too many eggs will cause you cholesterol,"
but now it's, "Eggs are fine."
Again, it's just that flip-flop media sensationalism.
The reality is that science just doesn't stand still.
And when new information is discovered or released,
the coverage it gets can sometimes end up muddying the real message.
Do you find it as frustrating as the general public,
the way the studies sort of change their mind all the time?
It's not really new information.
It's just looking at old studies and re-examining old data
and finding that when you remove the effects of saturated fat
and you look at dietary cholesterol in isolation,
it has a relatively small effect.
Eggs is full of proteins, very economical and...
Full of nourishment and wonderful value for money.
'We may not yet be eating quite as many eggs as we did in
'Tony Hancock's day,
'but maybe it's time to wheel out those old ads once again.'
Look, six eggs and only five soldiers.
It can be extremely frustrating not to mention confusing
when new reports pop up out of the blue saying the complete opposite
of things we've long believed to be true.
Now, the tricky thing of course can be knowing
which new advice to follow and which to take with a dose of salt.
And while hopefully we've helped you a little bit with that today,
if in doubt, take a common-sense approach before
- cutting something out of your diet entirely. - Absolutely.
If you only eat the food that's suddenly bad every now and then,
well, that's usually going to be fine to carry on doing so.
But just remember, you'll find more on some of the topics
we're discussing throughout this series at bbc.co.uk/food
But I'm afraid that's all from us now.
- Until the next time, goodbye. - Thank you for your company, bye-bye.