balanced for you

In papers are full-page ads for the Marks and Spencer range of foods 'Balanced For You'. They are advertised as 'High Protein Healthy Meals'. What is healthy about high protein? High protein is a fad that began with athletes who thought they could get bigger muscles by eating protein at certain times such as after a workout.

There is no evidence that for ordinary people eating more protein improves health. People already eat more protein than they need. Extra protein is just extra calories and is only going to make people fat. It seems that Marks and Spencer are happy to confuse people about their health to make a profit.

The three examples all contain animal protein. The main one illustrated is Pulled Pork Ramen, which contains sugar. High Protein Healthy Food, it says on the packaging, the other two examples say High Protein with Balanced Carbs. The word 'balanced' is nutritionally meaningless.

I get the feeling that there are a lot of people who wish to confuse the public about their health to get their way. They are not honest. I heard someone on the radio say that some people can't afford to eat less meat of better quality. I think she hasn't understood what this means. If you eat half the meat you used to, then you can buy meat at up to twice the price while still saving money.

It's not difficult to understand. Did she really not understand, or did she just want to confuse people?

What some people can't afford is to eat more protein than necessary, and to eat animal protein which is the more expensive type of protein. People have been persuaded to munch their way through vast quantities of cheap chicken, pork sausages and cheap cheddar because they think they need the protein and because they think that's all they can afford. They are wasting their money.

People with vested interests, such as farmers and retailers, have to stop trying to confuse people.

Here are other examples:-

• vegetarians and vegans eat lots of avocados, which means more forest cut down
• we will have to grow more soya to feed vegetarians and vegans, which means more forest cut down
• if we grow trees on pastureland it will decrease biodiversity

Vegetarians and vegans don't eat more avocados than anyone else, when we cut the number of farm animals then people can eat the grains and pulses we currently feed to animals, if you plant native trees eg oaks and not one species of conifer there will be greater biodiversity.

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.