ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER FOOD SCARE - A REPLY TO ANN ELLIOTT

 

ULTRA PROCESSED FOOD, ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER FOOD SCARE - A REPLY TO ANN ELLIOTT

Until January this year I wrote once a fortnight for hospitality blog Propel Opinion. Readers of my blogsite and of the Daily Sceptic will know that I was cancelled for the thought-crime of asserting that sex is binary and immutable, and since then my regular spot on Propel Opinion has been filled by others. One of these others is Ann Elliott, who wrote a typically vapid piece in this Friday’s Propel Opinion on ‘The dangers of ultra-processed food’. Ann, as is her wont, informed us she had been reading up on the subject having seen Tim Spector’s “Food for Life”. I was hoping she had a done a better job of ‘reading up’ than she did when she read up on the transgender issue, wrote a hatchet job on my article on the subject, and promptly added she/her pronouns to her bio and signatures, but, alas, I was disappointed.

A good starting point for an article on ultra-processed foods might be a definition. Ann refers to food that contains salt and sugar and is dense in calories and gives a few examples, but otherwise leaves it to her readers’ imagination. Which may be just as well. A far more erudite and amusing piece on this subject was written recently by Chris Snowdon, who is director of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Writing in The Critic, Chris writes:

“UPFs hide in plain sight. Definitions vary, but they mainly come in a packet and are made with preservatives, stabilisers, emulsifiers, colours or flavour enhancers. They include everyday items such as shop-bought hummus, stuffed pasta, hot sauce, curry paste, ready meals, some jams, most peanut butters, most breads, vegan meat alternatives, almost all cereals, most cured meats, burgers and sausages, soft drinks, sweetened or low-fat yoghurts, many free-from products, dairy replacements, and almost all the ice-creams, desserts, crisps, crackers and biscuits in the supermarket. If your trolley doesn’t contain a fair chunk of that list, then there are few possibilities: you have superhuman levels of willpower; you are very wealthy and/or have your own from-scratch cook; you are lying.”

Chris continues: “I buy many of these items all the time. Until recently, I didn’t think it was a problem. To be honest, I’m still not convinced it is a problem. The claim that they cause cancer comes from a rather sketchy preliminary study and the claim that they cause weight gain seems to be due to over-consumption rather than any inherent dangers in curry paste and ‘shop-bought hummus’.”

Ann Elliott asks: “Is the current anti UPF campaign just a fad, or is it likely to have a profound effect on how we eat going forward? Crucially, does it present a threat to our sector? Or is there a real opportunity for operators to really think about the food they serve and how it originates? Perhaps some could really grasp the nettle and take UPFs out of their menu entirely. Not a great prospect with everything else going on, but maybe a thought for the future?”

I’m not sure if taking UPF’s out of the food they sell is in the forefront of hospitality operators minds at the moment what with energy and food price rises and the hangover of covid debts, but Ann likes to jump on bandwagons and opine about things she knows little about.

It saddens me to see how the quality of contributions to Propel Opinion has fallen since I left. I am available to write on a small number of subjects that I genuinely do understand – for a small fee, obviously. I look forward to hearing from Paul Charity soon!

Paul Chase