When does Intermittent Fasting become an Eating Disorder?

Over the festive period, I fasted more often than usual. This is my first Christmas since adopting regular intermittent fasting and the way I responded to the season's traditional gluttony highlighted something that's been bugging me for a while. At what point does a feast become a binge and when does a fast become guilt-induced starvation?

Fasting Rationale

Recognising that our ancestors did not have a consistent food supply and that our bodies function better when sometimes given a rest from the burden of digestion was a liberating moment. It freed me from the misguided shackles of the 5-meals-a-day mantra which is frequently chanted by shake peddlers, carb munchers, snack bar manufacturers and others whom it suits to keep us within 50 yards of a refrigerator at all times. I also find it a great way to achieve digestive stability.

My fasts are typically between one evening meal and the next. I am supposed to be emulating the random nature of ancestral living, but tend to pick Tuesdays and Saturdays because for a creature of routine like myself, being entirely random does not come easily; I figure my digestion doesn't understand what a week is, so as far my body is concerned, it's random.

Here are my four most common feasting and fasting scenarios:

FEAsting
Preemptive: I tend to eat more than usual the evening before a fast.
Post-fast: at the end of a fast, I tend to eat more than normal.

FAsting
Preemptive: I often fast on days I know I will be having a large evening meal.
Post-feast: I often fast the day after after an unexpectedly large evening meal.

You may question whether preemptive feasting or fasting are in the spirit of ancestral living - one could argue neither would make much sense in a hunter gatherer context - but I won't digress here.

License for Gluttony

Over Christmas and new year, I believe I used the principles of intermittent fasting as a license for gluttony. There were a number of meals arranged with friends or family where I knew there would be several courses. To prepare for the larger intake of food, I preemptively fasted. On each occasion, I then ate far more than intended. Far more. Likely causes of this shameless gluttony were: a) the food was tastier than usual (and, let's be honest, less strictly hunter gatherer), b) they were was social occasions, c) there was a massive surplus of food which it seemed only polite to help reduce and d) I was especially hungry because I had been fasting.

The following day, having gone to bed with a distended abdomen and a vague sense of self-loathing, I would arise with a determination to use a post-feast fast to achieve calorific parity and cleanse my system of the overload it had just suffered.

I blogged about one of these meals here last week. Skip to the Success and Gluttony section for the relevant part.

Eating Disorders

Before I go any further, I should explain that I do understand what eating disorders are. I am able to speak from a position of at least a little experience, having been close to two sufferers, one with anorexia and the other, bulimia. I am aware that the most significant drivers for eating disorders centre around control and self-esteem and that the condition has often arisen as a reaction to traumatic circumstances in sufferers' lives.

The point I want to make is that it's easy to cloak one's guilt about gaining weight and overeating in the hunter gatherer rationale. If I am totally honest, my primary concern during my own recent feasts and fasts was being able eat a large amount of food without gaining body fat. I felt guilty when I ate too much food and to compensate for this, starved myself the following day. Once I had a taste for excess, I did this several times.

Did my plan work? No. Next time I post my body composition graph, you'll see quite how badly it failed.

I don't have an eating disorder and unless something profound happens, I never will. I am lucky enough to have none of the personal circumstances typically required to precipitate one. Yes, I am fixated on maintaining a lean, muscular body and see unwanted body fat where others see nothing - but that makes me obsessive, not anorexic; but I can't help wondering whether there are a small number of people with less emotionally stable circumstances for whom intermittent fasting becomes a gateway to something less beneficial.

More Information

In case you are interested in understanding eating disorders a little more, here is the website I used to refresh my memory about some of the issues. I stress that I have not researched the topic extensively, nor looked into the background of this site - so I offer this link without any assurances of probity or quality.

As for intermittent fasting, the IF Life is a good blog for understanding the benefits and techniques.... Read more

The 5 Least Likely New Year Resolutions for 2009

Linda Van Horn, Chair of the USDA-appointed 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee In 2009 I am going to turn the USDA food pyramid on its head by persuading my committee to stop recommending people's diet include so much brown, starchy carbohydrate. I can see the evidence is starting to point towards a sea change in nutritional best practice and rather than wait for the bureaucratic oil-tanker to turn around I intend to set the cat amongst the pigeons by arguing vehemently against the compromising of my committee's objectivity by the agricultural department and industry lobbies.

Andrew Wadge Chief Scientist at the UK Food Standards Agency In 2009 I am going to stop publishing the eatwell plate on our website and ask my people to review the evidence for its composition. I have realised that the recommendation for bread, rice and pasta as a huge proportion of the ideal diet is based not on evidence but history - we've always eaten food in those proportions therefore it must be the right diet. I know I will probably lose my job because there will be outrage and confusion, but I am going to do it anyway because I know the long term health benefits to emerge from the mayhem will in the long term make it worthwhile.

Jeffrey Kindler, CEO of Pfizer In 2009 I am going to re-think Pfizer's business model. We will no longer base our strategy on the bottom line, which I recognise is driving practices not always in the best interest of public health. Instead, we will focus on what is genuinely in the best long term interest of the consumer, namely prevention through improved nutrition. I realise this has very little commercial potential compared to the market for drugs to treat the symptoms, but believe that by reinventing ourselves as a new, more ethical breed of drug company we will make the world a better place and set a precedent other companies may follow.

Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe In 2009 am going to take early retirement and begin a career writing children's books.

Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda In 2009 I am going to turn myself in. I am sick of living in caves and my friend Ahmed told me they have running water and cable at Guantanamo.

... Read more

Paleo Apple Crumble and the Chestnut Tojan Horse - Bending the Rules to Breaking Point

On Christmas Eve, my Mum and I baked an apple crumble as a dessert for the Christmas day meal. In spite of the family's recent conversion to a hunter gatherer diet, she was determined to maintain the tradition of serving this favourite, and in recent weeks we had been exploring how this could be achieved.

While creating this supposedly Paleo masterpiece through a kind of baking alchemy, I was asking myself this: at what point does contriving a recipe with technically Paleo ingredients stop being Paleo? (For the purposes of this piece, I shall talk about Paleo food, which you can take to mean food compatible with our evolutionary past. It's easier than typing 'hunter gatherer'.)

My gut-busting experience and subsequent research added particular relevance to this question, as you will see...

Traditional Recipe

Here is the traditional recipe, in summary:

Apples
Sugar
Flour
Butter

Make the apple mixture with the apple and some of the sugar and place in the bottom of the dish. Combine the flour, remaining sugar and butter to make a crumbly top and add to the dish. Bake.

Paleo Alternatives

We examined each component to look for Paleo alternatives.

- The Apple Mixture -
Traditionally, Bramley apples are used for cooking (in the UK at any rate.) These reduce to a puree very easily and are therefore easier to work with. They are fairly sour, but that's fine because baking traditionally also involves adding copious amounts of sugar. We decided to use sweet eating apples and just work harder to achieve the desired consistency.

- The Crumbly Top -
Here's where it gets tough, given that the remaining ingredients are non-Paleo. It breaks down into three components - the bulk (flour), the fat (butter) and the sweetener (sugar.)

The Sweetener
This is a dessert, so clearly we need sweetness. We bought some Xylitol, based on my judgment that if we had to use a sweetener, then that one might be the least bad (my opinion on this is documented here.) There is an artificial sweetener called sucralose which I intend to explore in a future post, which might compete with Xylitol for least bad status - but for now, we went with Xylitol.

The Bulk
There are a variety of flours and flour substitutes out there - my favourite for this project was almond meal, well-documented here on Mark's Daily Apple as the staple for paleo baking. Unfortunately, we could not find any in the UK. We looked at coconut flour and chestnut flour as alternatives, deciding on the latter because it was more readily available. We also hesitated to use coconut flour, given our intention to serve the dessert with coconut cream.

When the chestnut flour arrived, we were surprised to find that it had so much sweetness of its own that we suspected no additional sweetener would be required. I'm not kidding - this stuff is sweet. I suppose this should have come as no surprise, because chestnuts are sweet and this is the dehydrated, concentrated form. At this point my Paleo Sense was tingling, but I chose to ignore it.

The Fat
This was the easiest part, as you might guess. Of the non-dairy alternatives to butter, coconut oil was an obvious contender - but for the reason above, using too much seemed like a bad idea. So we opted for 50% coconut oil and 50% lard.

Our Recipe

Here is a photo-by-photo full recipe in case you fancy trying it yourself (I don't intend to regularly post recipes - I leave that to Mark's Daily Apple, where there is a wealth of hunter gatherer style advice on cooking and baking to be found.)

Show/Hide Recipe

3 medium-sized, sweet apples
6 oz chestnut flour
1.75 oz coconut oil
1.75 oz lard

We peeled and cored the apples, then diced them into pieces around half and inch cubed.

These went into a pan with about half an inch of water. We brought the water to the boil, then put the lid on the pan and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Once the apple was a little softer, we used a wooden spoon to begin breaking down the apple. It was not necessary to use a potato masher because our apples were a softer variety, but this can be a good way to hasten the process.

Once the apple had reached a consistency that felt right for a dessert (not completely pureed, but also not too lumpy,) we took it out of the pan and...

...into the bottom of the dish where it would be joined by the crumble later. We greased this dish with coconut oil.

We weighted the coconut oil (which at this time of year is a solid in the UK, making this a lot easier) and the lard.

We weighted the chestnut flour and placed it into the mixing bowl.

We put some of the lard and coconut oil in with the chestnut flour, then used our finger tips to mix them together, aiming for a breadcrumb-like consistency. The trick is to keep bringing the flour from underneath to mix with the lumps at the top. Chestnut flour is more vulnerable than normal flour to 'clumping', so it was important to remain light-fingered. Adding the fat bit by bit makes the process longer, but guards against the clumping threat: once you have added too much fat, it's hard to get to the breadcrumb consistency without adding more flour, so if you have run out, you are in trouble! We continued the process until all the fat had been added.

We added the crumble carefully on top of the apple in the dish and placed the dish in the oven at 170 degrees centigrade for 35 minutes. After about 10 minutes we put some foil on the top - chestnut flour also seems to brown very quickly and after 10 minutes it was already brown enough.

The final product, once it had been removed from the oven: we let this cool then placed it in the refrigerator.

Success and Gluttony

Yesterday, after a traditional turkey dinner, distinguishable only from its non-Paleo equivalent by an absence of potatoes and stuffing and an abundance of parsnips, we reheated and ate our Paleo apple crumble.

If I tell you that I continued with the helpings long after the folks had given up, stopping only when the dish was so empty it scarcely needed to be washed, you may get a sense of how moreish our creation was. It did have a distinct taste, owing to the substituted ingredients - but it would be naive to expect the Paleo version of anything to taste exactly the same; and our Paleo apple crumble was certainly close enough to the mark for me.

It is a while since I have been rendered immobile by my own gluttony, but yesterday I succeeded in doing so. I sat in front of inane Christmas day television for 45 minutes, lightly sweating and contemplating severe abdominal tightness and faint nausea. My determination to finish the apple crumble had been reminiscent of the days when I ate foods containing sugar and routinely dispatched whole packets of biscuits without taking my eyes off the TV.

The Chestnut Trojan Horse

Suspicious and interested, I consulted Google, whereupon I encountered this study showing that chestnuts are composed primarily of starch and sugar. Yes, Sugar. Not sugars like fructose and glucose, which is what you expect to find in natural foods, but sucrose, the bad guy, recently in the dock once again as an addictive substance.

When is Paleo not Paleo?

The point - brought into sharp relief by my experience - is that the philosophy of eating like our hunter gatherer ancestors is about much more than a list of foods that are allowed and foods that are not. I am often asked by friends or relatives who have adopted the diet (or are interested) whether a food is Paleo. The answer is often yes, at which point their eyes light up. It's at this point that I become the spoilsport, explaining that it's not in the spirit of Paleo to eat a jar of honey three times a day.

When arch sugar junkie Mrs M (who was spending Christmas with her own folks this year) heard about the chestnut flour I thought she was going to somehow climb down the phone line to get her hands on it. The extent to which she is able to resist baking batch after batch of supposedly Paleo cookies next year will be the real test of her commitment to the philosophy.

Better than Wheat

For my part, I will be eating small numbers of roasted chestnuts when they are in season, just as our ancestors would have done - but chestnut flour baking will have to be off the menu under normal circumstances. In its favour is the fact that it is not wheat-based (the significance of which I talk about here) so if I am determined to treat myself in this way then it's the better option. However, with the memory of yesterday's experience still fresh in my mind (and still not feeling great as I write this,) I can't see it happening anytime in the next few months...

See Also:
We're all Junkies
Why (Refined) Sugar is Bad: Some References
Cigarettes, Sugar and our Innate Short-Termism
Sugar, Sugars and Sweeteners: The Definitive Guide
Doctors and Nutrition Part 2: My Wheat Experiment... Read more

The Hunter Gatherer Lifestyle: One Religion, Several Bibles

This week saw Mark Sisson post on his blog a preview of his upcoming book, The Primal Blueprint, which promises to be something of a bible for those wishing to emulate their hunter gatherer ancestors to live healthier, happier lives. Coincidentally, I have just finished reading The Protein Power Life Plan by Michael and Mary Eades, which, although it is not clear from its title, is similarly themed.

Mark has been blogging about his Primal Blueprint for some time, but by choosing to publish a book to enshrine the philosophy he joins a more select group which, as well as Michael and Mary Eades, includes the likes of Loren Cordain and Art Devany.

There are some differences between the respective philosophies of these (and other) proponents of ancestral living. For example, Lauren Cordain's Paleo Diet emphasises the importance of lean meat, whereas others believe we should not fear saturated animal fat as it was a key part of our ancestors' diet. However, the commonalities far outweigh the differences, to the extent that choosing your bible is less about what you believe in and more about the angle from which you want to see it covered.

Michael and Mary Eades are doctors who have spent years treating patients with disorders like heart disease and diabetes by prescribing a hunter gatherer lifestyle, with dramatic success. So the underlying theme of the Protein Power Life Plan is how that lifestyle can be safely implemented in stages to arrest or reverse the progress of serious disease. To underpin their approach they devote more than half their book to a chapter-by-chapter coverage of key areas in which modern life is falling short of the optimum. Whilst I am not suffering from any of the conditions they have treated this way, and have no intention of following their stage-by-stage plan, nevertheless I found the book fascinating and enlightening. The doctors justify their recommendations with detailed but comprehensible medical explanations of the biochemical mechanisms at work, relating these to what we know about how our ancestors lived.

Loren Cordain combines supreme academic rigour with an interest in the human as an athlete. Whilst I have not read The Paleo Diet, I have read The Paleo Diet for Athletes, which along with his website and newsletters, is what I base my assessment on. Unlike the Eades book, Cordain references all his assertions, although I did not pay any attention to these, since I already know Cordain to be well-respected and certainly don't have time to explore the papers. My impression is that Cordain is the scientist and researcher of the field. He has authored and co-authored many academic papers that explore issues around ancestral lifestyle and the style of his writing reflects that - it's not as accessible as the Eades book, and so perhaps more for the academically inclined who demand evidence for every assertion.

Art Devany's book has been due for imminent release for so long that it has taken on an almost mythical aura. He released a paper some years ago outlining his 'Evolutionary Fitness' philosophy, which he is due to expand upon in the upcoming book. I think he may also have recently released the first chapter and perhaps even an outline of the all the chapters. Assuming his book turns out to be an expansion on the essay, and based on the time I spent reading his blog, my observation is that Devany's approach is influenced by his also being an economist and a weight lifting enthusiast. As with his co-proponents of the hunter gatherer philosophy, Devany covers diet as well as exercise, pitching his science somewhere between the Eades partnership and Cordain: whereas he goes into more technical detail that the Eades book, he does not use references. Nevertheless, as one might expect from the name 'Evolutionary Fitness', there is a sense that Devany's true passion is the exercise component.

So where does this leave the Primal Blueprint? On the basis of his blog and chapter outline, I expect Mark's book to neatly slot in as the first truly viable mainstream advocate for the hunter gatherer lifestyle. The thing about Cordain and Devany is that they are unashamedly technical and prefer, I suspect, not to sacrifice precision for the sake of the layman. The Eades book, does a great job of bringing the subject to the layman, but by its title and emphasis on treatment does to some extent exclude itself from the mainstream.

I think The Primal Blueprint will combine the best aspects of these other works into a hunter gatherer bible the man in the street will feel comfortable reading and recommending. As a former professional athlete who has looked into the science of nutrition and exercise in great depth, Mark is likely to justify the Primal Blueprint with as much science as the layman requires without blinding him with more than he wants. His blog has a vibrant community of readers and contributors, of which I am one. So although the others do offer a holistic view, I expect The Primal Blueprint to add a real-world, man-in-the-street feel that has not yet been seen.

The question is, in the field of promoting the hunter gatherer lifestyle, how mainstream is mainstream? Could Mark hope to match the sales figures generated by the Atkins movement, for which the primary sales driver was arguably vanity rather than a desire for health and balance? Is the idea of radically changing what you do now to pave the way for a happier, healthier life in the future something society is ready to embrace, or an idea likely to remain at the margins in a world still fixated on more immediate gratification?

I have given the hunter gatherer pitch to most of the people I know at some time. I'm getting pretty good at it. I am also getting good at recognising the difference between belief and intention to act.

The look I get from most people during my impromptu seminars says I believe you, but honestly, I just don't care enough to do something about it. These are the thirty and forty-something equivalents of young smokers, unable to see the point in forgoing pleasure now when the effects will not be seen for years, and are in any case determined by probability rather than certainty. They are not denying the facts, merely choosing to ignore them.

It's easy for people in the communities that surround our blogs to believe it's only a matter of time before the word gets out and everyone embraces the hunter gatherer philosophy; and whilst I remain cautious about whether we can realistically expect this to happen soon, I nevertheless think Mark's book has the potential to be the catalyst.... Read more

Doctors and Nutrition Part 2: My Wheat Experiment

In part one, My Yellow Skin Mystery, I described how a succession of doctors lacked the nutritional knowledge to spot that carotenoderma was probably at the cause of my yellow skin. This harmless condition is caused by consuming a lot of fruit and vegetables of a certain kind, information I had clearly volunteered during my consultations.

Since changing to a paleo/primal/hunter gatherer diet (and therefore ditching the juicing,) my skin has returned to its former glory - but the low blood counts identified by the doctors when trying to explain the skin colour, remain. The low counts turned out to have nothing to do with the skin colour, yet were a concern to the doctors, who referred me to various haematology doctors.

Here is where we pick up the story. Every 6 months or so, I am obliged to visit the oncology department at my local hospital, yield half a dozen vials of blood, wait while these are analysed, then have an amiable, but ultimately unrewarding conversation with a well-meaning haematologist.

Blood Counts we can't Explain

The condition with which I have been diagnosed is aplastic anemia. You can be diagnosed with this on the basis of your blood counts alone, regardless of whether there are any further symptoms. When I looked into the possible causes I discovered a whole variety, to the extent that one gets the impression aplastic anemia is a euphemism for low blood counts we can't explain.

Since climbing aboard the specialist merry-go-round I have spoken to at least three different consultants, had countless blood tests and, in one memorable episode, been subjected to a bone marrow biopsy. This was necessary to establish whether my low blood counts stemmed from something more sinister in my bones (such as the big C), which as it turned out, it did not.

Laurel and Hardy

In case you are ever in a position where a bone marrow biopsy is necessary, be aware that the clinician-to-patient lexicon is never further from reality than when you have the experience described to you. You know how doctors often talk about a little scratch when they mean the sensation of a needle being pushed into your skin? In this case I was told that it might be a little uncomfortable - which I soon learned translates into you will endure 20 minutes of teeth-clenching pain while the Laurel and Hardy of the haematology world good-humouredly blunder their way through the process of trying to drive a frighteningly large needle into your hip bone.

I am quite sure that in the context of the pain endured daily by many, less fortunate people, this was a walk in the park - but I still chuckle now when I think about the well-intentioned fraud practised by my consultant on that occasion. The icing on the cake was when, on my next visit, I explained how extraordinarily unpleasant the whole ordeal had, in reality, been. Well, it is one of the most painful procedures we do, was her response. As I recall, I was practically stuck mute by the chutzpah of this descriptive u-turn, and therefore unable to make my feelings known.

Protein Power

I am just coming to the end of The Protein Power Life Plan by Drs Michael and Mary Eades. It's a great book, and I will review it in due course. In the chapter The Leak Gut: Diet and the Autoimmune Response, the doctors discuss the theory that proteins called lectins found in grains are able to force their way through the protective barrier of the gut wall, whereupon they are attacked by the cells of our immune system, which see them as foreign. The likeness these lectins bear to other cells in our body lead our immune system, which of course is a fast learner, to turn on itself, causing, over the long term, autoimmune diseases like arthritis.

Bread-Guzzling Population

When I read this I had something of an epiphany. Even though I have only been on a hunter gatherer diet for a little over 12 months, I have not been eating bread in significant amounts for several years. Never really like it. More of a porridge/oatmeal guy.

If the normal ranges against which my blood counts are being evaluated are based on the bread-guzzling general population, then my counts might appear relatively low because in the general population, immune systems are more active.

On my most recent visit to the hospital, I raised the question of diet with my current specialist. Experience has taught me that the direct approach does not tend to work - unless the specialist already has an inkling about a theory, coming right out with it will elicit an expression of benevolent disinterest. So I told him about my diet, being careful to make clear my avoidance of bread, pasta, rice and beans. Ironically, it was the absence of dairy in which he showed any kind of interest and there was certainly no hint that he might be aware of the lectin connection.

So I thought: what if guzzled wheat-based food for 2 weeks prior to my next blood test. Since my counts have been consistently at the same level for a few years, might this be a perfect opportunity to prove or disprove my theory?

Asking Dr Eades

Lacking confidence in my own knowledge and knowing that my theory was probably grossly simplistic, I put it to Dr Michael Eades via a comment on his blog. He kindly responded:

I really don’t know. You may be one of those people who are walking proof of the idea of biologic variability. Most people have blood counts within a certain range (considered normal). You may be one who has low-counts that, while abnormal for others, may be fine for you. Especially since the bone marrow (Ouch! indeed) and the other battery of tests was negative. And you may well be correct about the grains. Since ‘normal’ people consume a ton of grains, and since the ‘normal’ ranges were set by looking at zillions of blood counts from ‘normal’ people, it may be that those on no-grain diets have different counts.

I don’t want to recommend that you load up on bread before your next test because it’s against my religion, but I would be really interested in learning the results of your tests if you do. I’m not sure because I don’t eat much bread and we don’t keep it around the house so I don’t have a loaf to look at, but I think most bread is fortified with folic acid, which could affect blood counts. You could always bake your own to avoid this variable.

So there you have it - my potential wheat experiment. The question is, do I care enough about proving my theory to subject my body to two weeks of gut-bloating wheat guzzling? I had an opportunity to do it last month, but did not dare. I know this may sound strange to someone who has not experienced eating the hunter gatherer diet. Perhaps I will do it early next year.

Doctors and Nutrition

So, once again, I am staggered by the conspicuous absence of knowledge about nutrition in the medical profession. You would expect, given there are strong links between aplastic anemia and autoimmune disease, that a haematology specialist would be aware of the dietary lectins theory - which is, incidentally, widely documented beyond the Eades book.

I know I am on shaky ground here - I have little or no medical knowledge of my own and yes, the specialist might have read Eades' book from cover to cover and dismissed the theory out of hand. Thus, by not mentioning it, maybe he was merely giving me the benefit of his own, expert assessment. But I doubt it. Given that he spent 25 minutes talking about various - by his own admission - tenuous reasons why not eating dairy could be the cause, it would have been odd not to mention other theories.

There's only one way to find out: watch this space next year for an update on the wheat experiment...

See Also:
Doctors and Nutrition Part 1: My Yellow Skin Mystery
My Wheat Experiment Blood Test Update
Doctors and their Good Intentions: the Blood Test Fiasco Continues
[Blood Test Update in Post on Weight Loss]... Read more

Roll Call of Shame: Companies who Don't Listen

Since I started this blog in the summer, one of my themes has been taking food retailers and manufacturers to task about their ingredients.
I have not directed my attention towards the obvious bad guys like McDonalds or Coca Cola because there are plenty of people already doing that. Instead I have targeted companies who market products as healthy when they are not. In one sense, these companies are worse because they prey on people's best intentions.

I have contacted nine companies, of whom only one has yet had the decency to answer all my questions in a full and frank way. So here is the roll call of shame - companies who failed to respond or responded unsatisfactorily. I am also including their contact details so that, should you be minded, you can email them to ask why they ignored our concerns.

Julian Graves - when I made my sugar pusher accusations they responded, but showed a spectacular lack of insight and failed to respond again when challenged on key points.
Contact: Steph Goodman (PR Manager) - steph.goodman@juliangraves.co.uk

Holland and Barrett - failed to respond to my initial sugar pusher accusations and then later to a further post when I learned they had bought Julian Graves and already owned GNC, who I discovered were also selling sugar-laden snacks.
Contact: Barry Vickers (CEO) - barry.vickers@hollandandbarrett.com

Marks and Spencer - the one beacon of light in this mire of disinterested rubbish vendors. When I posted about the sugar in their roast chicken, they responded, responded again and then responded yet again, until at least we understood why. They should not be part of the roll call of shame, but I am including them as a benchmark to show that not all companies show the same contempt for the enlightened consumer.

Sunridge Farms - failed to respond when challenged about the ingredients in their 'All Natural', 'Healthy Snack', Golden Bridge Mix.
Contact: http://www.sunridgefarms.com/contact

DeLano's Markets - failed to respond when challenged about selling Sun Ridge Farm's fraudulently marketed snack, their response being, in effect, 'not our problem.' This is the email, which was so glib I did not consider worthy of posting at the time:

It is not our practice to comment on, or get involved in, the marketing and development of grocery offerings that are not produced on our premises. Although we don't always agree with description and packaging of an offering, it would not be the deciding factor for offering it for sale in our store's. As a grocery purveyor we feel it is our responsibility to source the products our customer request, and bring them to the sales floor at a fair retail and value. At DeLano's we pride ourselves in doing just that.

Contact: Desiree DeLano - desireed@delanomarkets.com

Wholefoods - failed to reply when I emailed them to draw their attention to my post about the sugar-laden snacks on sale in their New York store.
Contact: Ashley Hawkins - Ashley.Hawkins@wholefoods.com

The Vitamin Shoppe - when I posted about their sugary goods then emailed them, they sent two auto responses as I was passed from department to department, after which, nothing.
Contact: customercare@vitaminshoppe.com

Eat Natural - When challenged about the unnatural ingredients in their products, failed to respond.
Contact: simple@eatnatural.co.uk

The Natural Confectionery Company - I recently challenged them about the unnatural ingredients in their products. At the time of writing, this remains a recent correspondence, so there is not yet any shame apportioned! I received this response last week:

I am afraid that we are unable to answer your query in this department, however, we
have forwarded your e-mail to the relevant area and they be in contact with you
shortly.

I will keep this page updated as things develop.

See Also:
Campaigns... Read more

Sugar, Sugars and Sweeteners - Spotlight on Xylitol

Summary
Alternative Names
Chemistry and Origins
Classification
Regulation
Where it can be Found
Taste, Calories and Digestion
Health Implications and Safety
Other Information
My Opinion

Introduction

As part of the Definitive Guide to Sugar, Sugars and Sweeteners, each month I will try to cover one in detail so that eventually the guide becomes a one-stop shop for all you ever wanted to know...

Summary

Xylitol is found in a number of fruits, vegetables and plants, such as plums and mushrooms. It is used worldwide, most commonly to sweeten chewing gums and dental products, as it does not cause damage to teeth. It is seen as a healthy alternative to sucrose because it has fewer calories and a reduced effect on blood sugar. There are currently no known serious health effects from consuming xylitol.

Alternative Names

Birch Sugar

Chemistry and Origins

Xylitol was first used in Finland during the second world war because of sugar shortages. The Finns extracted the xylitol from the plentiful birch trees found in Finland. After the war, people noticed a marked reduction in tooth decay amongst those who has been using xylitol instead of sugar. Further research into its benefits led to wider adoption later in the 20th century and more industrialised production.

Xylitol is one of four isomers of 1,2,3,4,5-pentapentanol. It's molecule is achiral, which means it can be superimposed on its mirror image.

Classification

Xylitol is a sugar alcohol and therefore classed as a natural sweetener.

Regulation

Xylitol was approved by the FDA (America's Food and Drug Administration) in 1963 for 'special dietary uses' and in 1986, recognized as a 'safe sweetener'. Xylitol is approved throughout Europe for various dietary, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic uses. It has also been approved by a variety of other organisations including the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods (MAFF) in 1994, at national level in more than 40 EU countries and in 1997 by the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Where it Can be Found

In nature, xylitol can be found in small amounts in a variety of plants, most commonly fruit, berries, vegetables and mushrooms. Examples are raspberries, yellow plums and strawberries. It is also found in corn husks oats and the birch tree.

As an additive, xylitol is most commonly used in chewing gum, but is also found in many dental and pharmaceutical products, some of which include xylitol for its medicinal properties. However, increasingly it is being used as a general sweetener for food and drink. As well as being used as an additive by manufacturers, it can be bought in large amounts in the same way as sucrose (sugar) and is being used domestically for baking or to sweeten food and drink.

Taste, Calories and Digestion

Weight for weight, Xylitol is just as sweet as sucrose (sugar) and has a very similar, though slightly menthol taste. However, it contains only two thirds of the calories. Only a small proportion is absorbed through the small intestine and converted to glucose in the liver. The slowness of absorption means that the majority moves down to the lower intestine, where it is metabolised by friendly bacteria into short-chain fatty acids. These are mostly returned to the liver for oxidation, providing energy. As a consequence, xylitol has a negligible or zero effect on blood glucose levels and has been widely used for many years in diabetic diets.

Health Implications and Safety

The only reported negative effect of xylitol consumption is that of gastric discomfort and upset when large amounts are consumed. This is a symptom associated with a number of the sugar alcohols and broadly speaking is a consequence of their partial digestion.

However, a number of claims for the positive health effects of Xylitol have been made:

Teeth: as well as providing a non-damaging alternative to other sweeteners, xylitol is also believed to actively prevent tooth decay by helping teeth to re-mineralise.

Bones: research conducted on rats suggests that dietary xylitol can improve bone density, pointing to the possibility of its use to treat osteoporosis.

Infection: xylitol has been seen to increase the neutrophil activity - these are the white blood cells involved in fighting many bacteria. Xylitol chewing gum has been successfully used to treat ear infections, which is believed to be a result of anti-bacterial properties combined with the beneficial effects of regular chewing and swallowing.

ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake)
A collaboration between the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that no daily limit be placed on xylitol consumption. This means there is no ADI specified, which is the safest category for a food additive.

Other Information

Domestically, xylitol can be used in same quantity as sucrose (sugar) in food and drink. It dissolves quickly, mixes easily, and is heat-stable for cooking or baking. However, unlike sucrose, it does not caramelise.

My Opinion

Xylitol appears to tick all the boxes - it's not bad for the teeth, does not create blood sugar highs and lows, has fewer calories and even has some medicinal properties; and at present there is no evidence of harm.

So if you need some sweetness in your life and fruit is not enough, I guess this would be the least bad option. Okay, it might not be zero calories like many of the artificial alternatives, but it clearly trumps them by virtue of the absence of scare stories.

However, when it comes down to it, you don't know what you don't know: who's to say in 20 years we won't discover that regular ingestion of xylitol causes some kind of health problem? Admittedly, it was discovered around the same time as aspartame, which is associated with many supposed side-effects and worrying studies. So even though it has had just as long to be investigated, xylitol is not implicated in the same way. Whether this is a function of increased safety or differing levels of scrutiny is not clear.

Final thought, then: consuming anything in amounts that differ significantly from the diet we evolved to eat has the potential to have long term effects, so I would suggest that even this apparently benign sweetener should be used occasionally rather than installed as a household regular.

Summary
Alternative Names
Chemistry and Origins
Classification
Regulation
Where it can be Found
Taste, Calories and Digestion
Health Implications and Safety
Other Information
My Opinion

See Also:
Sugar, Sugars and Sweeteners: The Definitive Guide... Read more

The (Un)Natural Confectionary Company: Schoolyard Logic Strikes Again

When I was at school it was common to reply to an insult by highlighting that I (the insultee) did not share some unpleasant characteristic with the insulter. For example:

Insulter: You've got stupid shoes! Stupid shoes, stupid shoes, stupid shoes.....

Insultee: Yeah, well at least I don't have a girl's haircut.

Victory was typically judged by an ad hoc jury of peers (whoever happened to be standing around) by subjective analysis of the comparative seriousness of the two accusations, and the extent to which each was justified.

Of course it was also about the delivery - the insultee may have had stupid shoes, but did it look like he cared? Did the girlie-haired insulter smart from the riposte? And what was the relative social standing of the verbal duellers? If Silly Shoes was more popular then his shoes could be pretty silly before accusations of feminine coiffure could sway the onlookers.

Where am I going with this? Well, lately I have become increasingly irritated by a marketing tactic employed by food manufacturers that reminds me of this childish logic.

A friend has just sent me a bag of sweets/candy manufactured by The Natural Confectionery Company. On the front of the packet it proudly trumpets no artificial colours and no artificial flavours. To me this employs tha same absurd rationale - replying to an insult with a proclamation about some other flaw one does not have. When you consider the vast array of ways in which a food can be unhealthy and damaging, these statements just look like childish replies to some unspecified rival (who does include those ingredients in their own products) in order to convince the jury (we, the consumers) to buy their product:

Yeah, but at least we don't have artificial colours and flavours

What no one in our playground ever did was to say to a couple of insult-trading kids:

You know what? You do have stupid shoes - but the fact that you do not have a girl's haircut in no way justifies your shoe selection. You need to talk to your parents. Grow a pair and exercise your right to choose shoes you want instead of those your mother thinks look nice. And as for you - ditto with the hair. If you instructed the hairdresser then shame on you - otherwise, you should also grow a pair and make your own decisions. Your non-stupid shoes simply do not mitigate this character flaw.

It certainly would have been refreshing - as you know, I'm a big fan of tough love.

So to get to the point, The Natural Confectionery Company is patently failing to adhere to the spirit of the UK FSA guidelines on what constitutes natural ingredients. Their website conveniently does not list the ingredients but I can tell you from the packet I have in front of me that the top ingredients for 'Jelly Squirms' are sugar, glucose syrup and modified wheat starch. Just the sort of things you find lying around the forest floor every day.

I explained all this to the Eat Natural company in Eat Natural? Not According to the Food Standards Agency. First, that sugar is not natural and second, that their weasel tactics of avoiding a direct breach of the guidelines by giving their company a name containing the word 'Natural' rather than using it in product names, simply won't wash.

I will contact the Natural Confectionery Company and make them aware of this post. Their contact form is easy to fill out, so feel free to do the same.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I will be putting together a roll call of shame to highlight the increasing number of companies who fail to have the courtesy to respond, including their contact details, so that others can contact them. This will let them know that more people than just one crazy blogger disapprove of what they do.

See Also:

Campaigns
Eat Natural? Not According to the Food Standards Agency
Tough Love - Reasons not to Quit You don't Normally Hear... Read more

New Evidence: High-Carb, Grain-Based Diets could be Secret to Longevity

Guest Post by A. Hack

A study published this week in the Journal of Nutritive Science suggests that high-carb diets rich in grains may be the secret to a long life.

Professors Heimlich Manoeuvre and Claus Van Munchausen from the Institute of Nutritionally Nutritious Nutrition followed around 300 cases over 12 months to test their hypothesis that greater consumption of grain-based carbohydrates leads to increased longevity. The study found a strong relationship between age at death and the consumption of grain-based carbohydrates.

To avoid confounding factors that might contradict their hypothesis, the professors excluded people who ate a low carbohydrate diet (fewer than 80% as a proportion of calories.)

"This study is all about understanding the effects of carbohydrate on age" said Professor Munchausen,"so by choosing a sample that includes only people who eat plenty of carbohydrate we ensure a meaningful set of results."

In addition, the professors sampled only people who were eating fewer than 500 calories per day and engaged in vigorous exercise for 2 hours or more per day.

"With so many people exercising and dieting these days it was important to study the effects of carbohydrate in a context that reflects society's current trends," said Professor Munchausen.

One controversial aspect to the study is the high number of deaths in the sample, primarily from malnutrition, dehydration and exhaustion. Critics have accused the authors of 'ambulance-chasing' and 'prowling eating disorder web sites like vultures' - but the professors remain defiant.

"These people fail to understand the difficulty in designing a study of this nature," said Professor Munchausen, "and in any case the subjects were quite willing participants once we had offered them money."

Further criticism has come from those claiming conflicts of interest lie at the heart of this study. Asked about his membership of the American Grain Association and European Grain Farmers Committee, Professor Manoeuvre was dismissive.

"I am perfectly capable of separating my commercial and academic roles," he said, from his 15-bedroom, 10 million-dollar, sea-front property. "These accusations are motivated by jealousy and a desire to see others fail."

Meanwhile, Professor Van Munchausen, whose wife chairs the Bread Users and Manufacturers Society, insisted there was no way his research could have been influenced by external factors. "I do not get involved with BUMS," he was keen to stress. "I leave that up to my wife."

In spite of question marks over the methodology, many are proclaiming the death of low-carb diets and sales of bread have increased by 10% overnight.... Read more

One Year Later: Hunter Gathering and Body Composition

It's 12 months since I radically changed my diet and exercise to mimic our hunter gatherer ancestors. I hesitate to give my lifestyle a label after this recent clarification from Mark Sissons made me remember that there are, so to speak, a number of tribes. Paleo, Primal, Evo-Fitness - I am influenced by them all but for the sake of neutrality will stick to Hunter Gatherer.

Either way, I have Natural Messiah to thank for the introduction and to commemorate the anniversary I thought I would share the data I have been recording on body composition since 2005. Scroll the graph to the right to move forward in time. If you are less interested in the physical aspect, I explain here how it transformed my formerly routine-bound life.

I recorded the data by weighing myself each night before bed using a set of Tanita scales. They have metal pads that use a combination of height, weight, electrical resistance and standard formulae to estimate body fat percentage. There's no doubt that this is a rather blunt tool to measure body composition and I treat with a pinch of salt the readings it gives me each night. Nevertheless, it has become something of a ritual - one routine I was evidently unable to give up.

Notice the telltale rises and falls between November 2005 to November 2007 as I vainly followed the bulk-and-cut dogma espoused by bodybuilding magazines. In fact at the time I was doing a lot of running too, which no doubt made matters worse. You can see that each time I went through the bulking phase I gained muscle but also fat - then when I cut the calories to lose the fat, off came the muscle as well.

You can see that from November 2007 to the present day I have lost over a stone in weight. For the most part, my fat has continued to fall while muscle, bone etc has remained static. In the last couple of months there has been some loss of muscle, bone etc. One thing this may be attributable to is hydration. Around two months ago I decided I was over-hydrated and stopped drinking so much water. This was partly because I could find no research proving it was of benefit beyond a certain point and partly to see whether it would help me sleep better (it did.)

Other things to consider are that the composition of my muscles may well have changed now that I am not following routines design to bloat the muscles or consuming a high carbohydrate diet.

The real test, of course, is how you look. My own sense, and the considered opinion of Mrs M (whose honestly about such matters frequently borders on the undiplomatic) is that even though I now weigh only 11 stone, I look a lot better than I did in 2006 when I was 11.5 stone.

I will periodically update the graph so you can see how things pan out.

Don't worry, I don't plan to publish photos of myself with no shirt on. Ever.... Read more

Marks and Spencer Chicken - the Final Word

Why is there Sugar in my Chicken?
Sugar in my Chicken Part 2: Marks and Spencer Respond
Marks and Spencer Chicken - They Respond Once More (Part 3)
Marks and Spencer Chicken - the Final Word (Part 4)

Marks and Spencer have responded swiftly to my most recent post. Amazingly, they have addressed my central question - why will they not sell cooked chicken that I can season myself instead of adding salt for me? This is what they said:

Thank you for contacting me again.

Whilst I do agree that supplying a chicken without any salt would solve some concerns about the level of salt being consumed by the public, ultimately we need to offer products on our shelves that are going to sell in order to remain open for business.

Research with our tasting panels has shown that this is not what the public on the whole is looking for and that they do want our chicken to have a small amount of salt added to enhance its flavour.

Whilst reducing salt in the diet is an important factor for many people, I feel it prudent to point out that a small amount of salt is actually recommended in the government's guidelines on nutrition. Our Technologists do bear these guidelines in mind at all times when considering seasoning our products.

I also feel it appropriate to point out that the majority of our customers shop with us for the simplicity and ease with which they can cook our food. Most customers don't mind paying slightly higher prices for products they can take home and conveniently cook without having to go to lengths to add flavour to the product.

Turning to our Technologist's research into this matter, you have my assurance that she isn't simply waiting for mail to arrive before taking action. The tasting panels themselves form part of the research they conduct and these have shown time and again that customers do want their products to be pre-seasoned to enhance the flavour.

Whilst I can't discuss the ins and outs of our Technologists job profile, I can assure you that they are continually researching whether our products need improving and if so how this can be done. We are well known for our innovation in the food market and I am confident that this reputation is well deserved given the excellent range of products we have on offer at this time.

As mentioned previously, we don't have any plans to offer a 'season to taste' chicken as we don't believe there is sufficient demand to make this commercially viable. However, we will continue to conduct our internal research into such matters and will continue to listen to the feedback of the public through our regular tasting sessions and independent customer feedback such as yours. Should we ever feel there is a market for such a product, we will of course act accordingly.

I believe that the above, in addition to my previous emails, has answered all of the points you have raised and do now hope you will feel able to bring this matter to a close.

So finally they have spelled out what we all knew to be the case from the start - that this is all about commercial viability and customer demand - in other words, money. They are a business, they have shareholders and as such are required to make money for those shareholders.

There are many nuanced arguments we could explore around whether supply drives demand or demand drives supply when it comes to the taste of food - and the extent to which a supposed commitment to the health of customers should mean that more effort is made to drive demand with some risk to short term profit. However, for now I intend to cut Marks and Spencer some slack. If I were feeling pedantic I would pick them up on their latest idea that they should put salt the chicken because the government says so, but I'm not, so I won't.

They deserve a great deal of credit of one thing: their willingness to engage. Throughout this correspondence I have taken a determinedly devil's-advocate stance, sometimes taking literally their points, often choosing to feign ignorance of the commercial pressures that apply (which is of course necessary or we'd make no progress at all.) Their Customer Services department and then the Chairman's Office did try to palm me off with the standard flannel about helping customers be healthier - but they spent significant time corresponding on this matter and ultimately made absolutely clear their position and motives.

In these financially tight times I would far rather a company like Marks and Spencer stayed in business than some of the slippery vendors who have entirely failed to respond in recent months. So for the time being I will let Marks and Spencer devote their time to making money and hope that this exchange and your comments have given them ideas that lead to healthier foods in the long term and helped them to see the value a more honest dialogue with their customers.

As for the slippery vendors, I think it will soon be time to publish a roll-call of shame. Sun Ridge Farms, for example, whose sugar-riddled pseudo trail mix ("All Natural Golden Gate Bridge Mix") is marketed as a healthy snack...

The Series:
Why is there Sugar in my Chicken?
Sugar in my Chicken Part 2: Marks and Spencer Respond
Marks and Spencer Chicken - They Respond Once More (Part 3)
Marks and Spencer Chicken - the Final Word (Part 4)

See Also:
HFCS, the Little Man and Big Business Part 2 - Making a Difference
San Francisco Part 1: Stretching the Definitions of Natural and Healthy... Read more

Doctors and Nutrition Part 1: My Yellow Skin Mystery

A few years back, Mrs M's mother decided that I looked yellow. At the time I was eating what I considered to be the ultimate in healthy diets and was as fit as I'd ever been, so you can imagine the scepticism with which I greeted this suggestion. I mentioned it to a few friends but was surprised to receive responses along the lines of Yeah, I suppose you do.

Made quite indignant by this apparent conspiracy, I wanted to know why no one had mentioned it before. I examined photos and disputed opinion, but eventually could see that the only way to put this one to bed would be to get medical opinion. I would go to the doctor, who would proclaim me to be entirely well.

At the doctor's I answered all the questions I had expected, was prodded in the traditional places and yielded fluids of various kinds. Since I knew I had no other symptoms, it was no surprise that this initial examination yielded nothing.

Low Fat Diet

Keen to impress with my diet and lifestyle but acknowledging I may not have it entirely right, I did some quizzing of my own. Could eating a very low fat diet cause it? What about my punishing running and weights regime? I described my diet in detail - the steamed white fish, the six pieces of fruit per day, the daily litre of freshly juiced fruit and vegetables, the eggs, muesli and the oatmeal.

This was when it started to dawn on me that doctors (I saw a number during this period) might not exactly be experts in the field of nutrition. When I explored with them the more nuanced aspects of my diet, a faint glaze would develop in their eyes, their polished bedside manner unable totally to conceal the lack of interest; and when I solicited opinion, there were so many hedges and caveats that I frequently departed with more questions than answers.

Tests

Yet one useful thing doctors can do is run tests - which is exactly what they did; and the good news was that they were now able rule out all kinds of obvious problems. No, it was not jaundice. My liver was fine. My vitamin profile was excellent. I had slightly elevated levels of creatinine, which might have been due to the exercise, but a subsequent retest proved this not to be a problem. Kidney function was also normal.

However, there was something that was not right. My blood counts. The red and whites were at the very low end of normal. So I wanted to know - could this make me yellow? No, not really, was the answer.

This is where the whole business changed. I was referred to a haematology specialist, who asked me many more probing questions and prodded in new places. She was no more interested in my diet, of course, and frankly even less interested in the yellowness. She was, however, very interested in my blood counts, and a regular schedule of tests quickly took shape. Soon, the yellowness had become a historical footnote and the blood test roller coaster was under way. With the blood I parted with over the following two years you could have fed an army of vampires.

Mystery Solved

For now I want to wind the clock forward. Two years later, roughly six months ago, there was an equally abrupt pronouncement about my skin colour, this time from Mrs M herself. You aren't yellow anymore, she had decided. Once again I canvassed wider opinion and this was confirmed. It was official - I was no longer yellow. Yet my blood counts remained the same.

By now my Googling skills and nutritional knowledge were more advanced, so I set about looking into it. Before long I had identified a harmless condition called carotenoderma, the primary symptom of which is yellow skin and the cause of which can be "...excessive dietary intake of carotenoids..."

Wikipedia lists many fruits and vegetables with which the condition has been associated and it looks startlingly like the diet I was eating at the peak of my yellowness. The 8 apples, 5 large carrots, 100g of spinach and whole cucumber that went into my juicer each day might alone be responsible, but on top of that were the fruit and vegetables I was eating in whole form.

Nutritional Wisdom

For me that was all the evidence I needed - because it had been almost exactly 6 months ago I had decided to ditch the juicing altogether on the basis that it was not in keeping with my Paleo lifestyle (I'm fairly sure hunter gatherers did not have access to Champion juicers.) So I had figured out in 10 minutes on the Internet what the collective nutritional wisdom of 3 doctors and a specialist had failed to diagnose in 2 years of consultations.

The low blood counts question does remain a mystery of its own and we will explore the possible dietary explanations for that in part 2.

See Also:
Doctors and Nutrition Part 2: My Wheat Experiment
My Wheat Experiment Blood Test Update
Doctors and their Good Intentions: the Blood Test Fiasco Continues
[Blood Test Update in Post on Weight Loss]... Read more

Marks and Spencer Chicken - They Respond Once More

Why is there Sugar in my Chicken (Part 1)
Sugar in my Chicken Part 2: Marks and Spencer Respond
Marks and Spencer Chicken - They Respond Once More
Marks and Spencer Chicken - the Final Word (Part 4)

UK retailer Marks and Spencer have replied to my most recent questions about their sugar and salt-adulterated roast chicken.

In the original post, Why is there Sugar in my Chicken, I published my correspondence with M&S customer services, in which I tried to establish why both salt and sugar had been added to the roast chicken I bought from their chiller cabinet. Their clumsy, copy-and-paste style responses did not address my central questions, which were a) Why can't you let me add my own salt and b) Why do you have to add sugar?

When I published the post I included a new, public letter, in which I spelled out these questions once again. I also emailed Sir Stuart Rose, chairman and CEO of Marks and Spencer, to let him know about my concerns.

As if by magic, I received an email from 'The Chairman's Office' which I posted in Sugar in my Chicken Part 2: Marks and Spencer Respond.

Now, at least, the sugar mystery was solved. Apparently amounts too small to affect the taste are used so that during cooking it caramelises. Customers have told M&S they want to see chicken with the ' typical golden colouring'. Typical, one might ask, of what? Of roast chicken, they might reply. So if it's typical of roast chicken, why does the chicken you are roasting not take on the typical roast chicken appearance on its own? I must have been stunned into inaction by the absurd circularity of this rationale, because I decided to let this one drop.

I focused instead on the reasons why I was being given no choice about whether to have salt on my chicken. The Chairman's Office, like Customer Services before them, had failed to address the salt-choice question, instead pointing out their efforts to reduce salt levels and the fact that independent panels of tasters had established the levels of salt they added.

So at the end of that post, I published a second open letter, asking, once again - why can't I just add my own salt? I also outlined some commercial benefits this might have. You can see the letter here.

So now, after a considerably longer wait, I have received this response from the chairman's office:

Our Food Technologist for this area has advised me that yours is the first question of this nature raised with her or her colleagues in the poultry department. It would therefore appear that at present there isn’t sufficient demand for a self seasoned chicken.

As mentioned in my previous email, sugar is functional to colour and salt (at low levels) adds flavour. Therefore, at this time, we don’t have any plans to change this set up and will continue to season the products in this manner.

However, we do understand that as times change and more focus is placed on additives and seasonings, demand may change and the Technologist will therefore be keeping a close eye on this for similar reports and feedback and any changes to the market.

I hope that the above detail will help to clarify this matter for you and to bring a sense of resolution to this issue for you.

I do wonder about the term 'self-seasoned chicken'. Would it be overly literal of me to picture the chicken feverishly shaking a salt cellar above it's head on the way into the oven?

Joking aside, I am perplexed by the casual way in which M&S have concluded that there is no demand for self-seasoned chicken. After trumpeting in their first letter that the levels of salt are determined by independent taste panels, the Chairman's Office now tells us that when it comes to determining whether there is demand for a version of the chicken with no salt at all, they rely on an assessment of the Poultry Department mailbag. Considering their stated commitment to lowering salt and making it easier for customers to lead healthier lives, this is an oddly loose approach to what would appear to be a no-brainer for achieving those goals.

I do like that last sentence though. Either Mr Rogers is extremely earnest and genuinely wants to see me achieve closure or he's slyly injecting sarcasm into his closing remarks to imply that I may be a little unhinged and in need of help for my 'issues'.

Here is my response:

---

Dear Mr Rogers,

Many thanks for your latest response. I do feel as though I am nearing closure, but there is one outstanding issue I must raise.

You have highlighted the commitment of M&S to reducing salt levels and helping customers to lead healthier lives. Yet offering a version of the chicken with no salt at all would be a no-brainer if these objectives were genuinely top-of-mind. The fact that M&S appear to be waiting for the poultry department to get wind of any such demand rather than actively seeking customer opinion about it calls into question this commitment. Clearly you are not strangers to rigour, given your use of independent taste panels, so I am especially confused.

My question is simply this: how will your technologist be keeping an eye on the market? Do you have any plans to proactively research customer demand for self-seasoned chicken as part of your commitment to helping customers lead healthier lives, or should I conduct the research myself and ask those in favour to contact the poultry department?

Yours Sincerely,
Methuselah

---

See Also:
Why is there Sugar in my Chicken (Part 1)
Sugar in my Chicken Part 2: Marks and Spencer Respond
Marks and Spencer Chicken - the Final Word (Part 4)... Read more