belvita soft bakes

I saw the adverts for Belvita soft bakes recently so I thought I would try them. At the top of the pack it says 'slow release carbohydrates' with an asterisk and '4h' which I guess stands for '4 hours'. The asterisk refers to the statement 'belVita Soft Bakes with proven slow release carbohydrate ...'.

On the other side of the pack it states 'Energy for the whole morning' with two asterisks. They refer to the statement 'belVita Soft Bakes have a high content of slowly digestible starch, which is a slow release carbohydrate. Consumption of foods high is slowly digestible starch raises blood glucose concentration less after a meal compared to foods low in slowly digestible starch.'

If you look at Nutritional Information there are three asterisks that refer to the statement 'Contains minimum 15 g Slowly Digestible Starch per 100 g.' You would think that all this would mean that this product has a low glycemic index (GI). However, if you look at the list of ingredients on the base of the pack it contains sugar, glucose syrup, dextrose and  isomaltulose (a source of glucose and fructose).

From a list of ingredients it's difficult to know how much of these sugars go into the product. If we go back to Nutritional Information however, each 100 g of the product contains 21 g of sugars (for the Choc Chips version). Compare that to 0.8 g of sugars per 100 g of Sainsbury's rough oatcakes, which have no added sugars at all.

There's something seriously wrong here. Just because a product contains some ingredients which will be low GI, it doesn't mean that the product itself is low GI. The addition of these sugars means that it's not going to be low GI. No mention is made of GI on the box, so I expect they would say that they are not making the claim that they are low GI. But that is what they seem to want people to believe. Also, the 'traffic light' label isn't colour coded as with other products so you can't tell at a glance if it's high in sugars.

Oatcakes are much cheaper than soft bakes and seem to be a genuinely low GI product. Oatcakes would raise blood glucose concentrations less after consuming them, but that cannot be true of soft bakes. This will increase someone's risk of developing diabetes. It can also increase risk of obesity because people will feel hungrier sooner and more likely to want to snack. People are being misled in matters concerning their health and I think that's wrong.

We know from the recent Volkswagen scandal that big companies are happy to mislead the public. This shouldn't be happening. It's like Marks and Spencer who had a range of ready meals that they called 'Fuller Longer'. I have copied-and-pasted from here.

"In 2010, Marks & Spencer launched their ‘Fuller Longer’ range of products, where each dish is designed to contain the right balance of proteins and carbohydrates to increase satiety and therefore reduce the desire to snack in-between meals. Consumers certainly bought into the concept, with it being a big seller for Marks & Spencer.

However, it has now emerged that Marks & Spencer have been asked to change the title of their range, in light of Trading Standards discovering that they are in breach of EU law on health claims.

Health and nutrition claims are perhaps a point of confusion for many brand marketers. They know that health statements sell products but they are perhaps unaware of the legal red tape that surrounds their use. Under EU law, a health claim must be authorised by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and included in the list of authorised health claims in the EU Register before they can be used. Nutrition claims on the other hand, can only be used if they are listed in the Annex of the EU Regulation and meet the specific conditions stipulated."

What Marks and Spencer could have done is to remove all the added sugars from this range. They were all savoury dishes but they all contained added sugar. The could have taken out the high GI starches and replaced them with low GI starches. Long-grain rice could have replaced short-grain rice. New potatoes could have replaced ordinary potatoes. But they didn't want to do that.

Instead they left the ingredients the same as before but just rebranded the range 'Balanced for You'. Which doesn't mean anything nutritionally. Having a more meaningless name gets them off the legal hook. This has decreased my respect for M&S. They just want to cash in on a premium range of foods by confusing people about their health.

trust me, I'm a doctor

Last night I watched episode 2 of Trust Me, I'm A Doctor. Part of the programme was about pasta. It stated or at least implied that pasta is unhealthy, then showed a way of making it healthier. As it says on this page:-

'Although starch is an important part of a healthy diet, it’s easily broken down. As soon as we consume starch the body very quickly starts to digest it, releasing sugars into the blood which in turn causes our bodies to release the hormone insulin. It’s a boom and bust cycle that can take a toll on our health.'

That's very much a generalization. Starch is of two types, amylose and amylopectin. Amylopectin is easily broken down but amylose takes longer. Pasta is already a healthy starch, especially when it is cooked for a shorter time (al dente) and of a type that is thicker. If you want to lower the glycemic index even more you can combine it with protein, or add a mild acid such as lemon juice or vinegar, or add fat or oil. The programme was saying that if you allow cooked pasta to cool then it becomes 'resistant starch'.

So they're saying that pasta is unhealthy, but they have found a way to make it healthy. I'm sure these sorts of statements make the show more sensational, but it gives a distorted picture of what people should be eating. It's a pity because pasta and long-grain rice are the cheapest of foods, cheaper than sugar and processed foods. If you make starch too resistant to digestion then some people suffer bloating. I think it is possible that bad bacteria (and other micro-organisms) will thrive and not beneficial bacteria.

There are types of carbohydrate that are collectively known as FODMAP. This is an acronym used for substances that don't get digested well in the small intestine. They are consumed by bacteria in the large intestine and can cause health problems.

should you cut back on pasta for your kids?

On Saturday (23/03/13) there was an article in The Times called 'Five foods you must cut back on' by Rachel Carlyle and Melissa Little. This was in the Child Health section. Number one of these five foods is 'Refined carbs'. They are including pasta and white rice as among refined carbs. It is true that some starchy foods are not so good to eat. They are digested rapidly whereas it is better to have starches that are digested more slowly.

I agree with them about mashed potato and white bread. However, I do not agree with them about pasta and rice. It is not true that eating pasta or white rice (if it is long-grain) is 'a bit like tipping a packet of sugar straight into the bloodstream'. Pasta and rice are cheap foods that a lot of parents rely upon to feed their children and themselves. They are quick and easy to prepare and do not require any skill. Children love them. So if they are telling the parents of Britain to stop feeding their children pasta and rice that is a big deal.

The way that we can see how rapidly a carbohydrate is digested is by looking at the Glycemic Index. The higher the number on the Glycemic Index of a food the less valuable it is. Below I have given the GI values for a number of starchy food, with the lowest GI at the top.

• pasta (depending on how cooked and shape) 40 to 60
• brown rice 55
• white long-grain rice 56
• basmati rice 58
• sugar (sucrose) 68
• white short-grain rice 72

These figures are averages. It can be seen that white short-grain rice is indeed as bad as sugar. However, other forms of rice, and especially pasta are nowhere near as bad as sugar. I think that they are assuming that only wholegrains are good for you in terms of how rapidly a starch is digested. There is some truth in that, wholegrains tend to be digested more slowly, but that is not the only factor.

So, I would say to the parents of children don't stop serving pasta and rice to your children. Instead cook your pasta for a shorter time and choose a shape that is thicker. Choose brown/long-grain/basmati rice instead of white short-grain. A variety of different types of rice is more enjoyable anyway.

Pasta and rice are cheap and easy to prepare. It doesn't take much to make them palatable. You can use pasta sauce from a jar, but I have found out recently just how cheap and easy it is to make a pasta sauce from a tin of chopped tomato and a few other ingredients. I have made an arrabiata pasta sauce - the recipe is widely available on the web.

The big problem that I have with this article is that people are always saying that healthy foods are expensive. They recommend wholegrain pasta and brown rice. These are more expensive, although not always as expensive as you might think. Ordinary pasta and (long-grain) white rice are fine though, and they are cheap and children love them.

Another thing that they recommend is small amount of carbohydrate (of any kind). I disagree with this. I think that the bulk of our calories should come from low-GI starches. If not from them, where are most of our calories going to come from? They mention fats. They say saturated fats are bad but unsaturated fats are good. Not all unsaturated fats are good though. Omega-6 rich fats are not a good thing even though they are unsaturated.

They seem to be a bit confused about guidelines. They state 'The guidelines say that fat should make up approximately 35% of your calorific intake' and 'Children do need a bit of saturated fat, but only 10 per cent of the total fat intake should be saturated'. In fact, the guidelines say that total fat limits for children/adolescents from the age of 4 to 18 should be 25% to 35% of total calories. So they should be having less than 35%. The guidelines say consume less than 10% of calories from saturated fats. So these figures of 35% and 10% are upper limits and not how much we should be eating. We should be having less than these amounts, considerably less. Children don't need any saturated fat, but 10% should be the upper limit.

more on sugar in savoury foods

Since writing a post about the unfortunate addition of sugar to savoury foods by manufacturers, I have found another example of it. This is in a food that is marketed as being healthy. I was in Waitrose yesterday and I bought a Chilli Bean Wrap, 'packed full of vegetables and wholesome beans'. The pack also stated 'selected by our nutritionists and chefs to give you tasty and nutritionally balanced food to fall in love with'. It sounded good to me so I bought it. If you have been reading this blog you will know that I believe a combination of grains, pulses and vegetables is cheap and healthy and tastes good.

When I started eating it I thought it tasted like it had sugar in it. I looked on the label and there is sugar in the chilli sauce and also in the wrap. One of the reasons I bought it was that I try to eat foods with a low Glycemic Index (GI). This means that the carbohydrate in the food will be digested more slowly so that you don't get a lot of glucose entering the bloodstream all in one go. If you eat more low-GI foods you are less likely to get diabetes and heart disease. A combination of grains and pulses is good for that, but sugar is not.

I feel that I have been conned by Waitrose. I feel that we are all being manipulated by manufacturers and retailers. They want to climb on the healthy food bandwagon to make more money for themselves while confusing their customers and contributing to ill health. Who are these 'nutritionists' anyway? Why would a nutritionist say it's just fine to add sugar to an otherwise healthy food? They're not doing their job properly.


this is how it's supposed to be