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When is a healthy recipe not a healthy recipe?
It has become the fashion for most, if not all, of our lifestyle magazines to present what they call “healthy recipes”. This is a development that concerns me, not for the fact they are promoting...
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Do tales of expensive tomatoes really protect the public interest?
Media are required to walk a fine line between generating interest from their publics while ensuring they are not misrepresenting facts to do this. They also tend to target one aspect of an issue to...
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The expansion of New Zealand waistlines
With the release of the 2008/09 nutrition survey summary report last week, I was heartened to read that diet-wise, New Zealand adults seem to be starting to make the right choices. According to the...
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Motivating the imperfect, irrational human being
At the Dietitians NZ Conference in Nelson this year I attended a memorable workshop by Melbourne-based Psycoholgist John Boyle, on making changes and breaking habits. Lightbulbs went on in my head...
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Blind men and an elephant
There’s an old Indian tale about giving a group of blind men an elephant to describe through feel. As each of them is feeling different parts of the elephant, they end up squabbling as none can agree...
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Sugar – since when did the facts get in the way of a good story?
Last night’s Sunday programme on sugary soft drinks (TVNZ 10 June, 7pm) promised yet another “expose” of the type our current affairs love to hype up to get our eyeballs and ears on their screens at...
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Canned foods get a thumbs-up for sound nutrition and affordability
Image thanks to FreeDigitalPhotos.net The universal call to increase the consumption of fruits, vegetables, higher fibre foods and seafood, coupled with tightening family budgets, means that a study...
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Food Addiction
Are we using the term “addiction” too freely these days? Headlines portray a range of human weaknesses from social media “addiction” to shoe shopping “addiction”. We’ve long known about the serious...
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Who’s to blame? Time to try something different
We all know about the world’s obesity epidemic and the serious health consequences ahead of us. But we seem to be stuck in a blame game, rather than really committing to effective, collaborative...
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Where has all the common sense gone?
Fad diets. They’ve always been a bugbear to dietitians and nutritionists. Generally they’re written by people with no formal nutrition expertise or understanding of scientific evidence, but rather...
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Does commercial success by food companies equal public health failure?
Many public health advocates believe this about successful food companies: Food companies exist solely to make money, so they will sell whatever people will buy. Healthy food provides smaller margins,...
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Lessons from the sacred cow
Some cows are so sacred that they can get away with almost anything. One of these is raw milk. As someone who’s consulted to various branches of the food industry for around 30 years, you could...
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Advice to the Government
Earlier this week I was asked to speak at the Heart Foundation’s Biannual Forum on three things the Government could do to stop heart disease. While there is a lot of great material in their call for...
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‘Clean Eating’– new buzzword, old message
Image courtesy of vegetables.co.nz You’d have to be living under a rock if you haven’t heard the term “clean eating” being bandied around by diet advocates and eager adopters. But what does it mean?...
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Q. What’s the best thing about the Health Star Rating?
A. New Zealand actually has a Front of Pack Labelling (FOPL) system. According to my twitter feed I seem to be the only person who thinks the recent announcement* should be celebrated. As for the rest...
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