Healthy eating advice for the year ahead

Healthy Food Guide’s experts share their tips for important diet tweaks that could make a difference to your health in 2015

Boost fibre – senior nutrition scientist Bridget Benelam
Fibre will be in the spotlight this year, as recommendations may be increasing from about 24g per day to as much as 30g per day. With average intakes around 18g per day, we're way below the current recommendation, let alone an increased level. Fibre can have a range of health effects - not just keeping you regular! It can help control blood sugar and blood cholesterol (mainly soluble fibre found in oats, barley, rye, pulses, root vegetables and fruit), can help support the healthy bacteria in your gut, may help reduce the risk of bowel cancer and can help with weight control.

To boost your fibre intake, make sure you get your 5-a-day, have wholegrains, or potatoes with skins, at each meal and go for high-fibre snacks, such as unsalted nuts and seeds, rye crispbreads or oat cakes.

Cut sugar - GP Dawn Harper
We all eat too much sugar and most of us don't even know we’re doing it! Start looking at a few labels and you’ll soon find hidden sugar in all sorts of places you would never have guessed.

Ditch beige - recipe consultant Phil Mundy
Cut back on all the pale carb heavy foods, such as pastry, biscuits, white bread and regular pasta, swapping them for wholegrains, sweet potatoes and other brightly coloured foods that will fill your plate for far fewer calories, while adding a lot more vitamins.

Reduce portions – nutritionist Amanda Ursell
If there’s one thing we can do to help reduce our calorie intake and, over time, our weight, it’s to reduce portion sizes. Shaving off 100 calories from breakfast, lunch and dinner, two snacks and one drink each day means we could drop 3,500 calories a week – which equals 1lb of fat. It may not sound much, but this adds up to 4lb a month, over half a stone in two months, almost a stone in three and over a stone in four. In other words, you could lose more than 3 stone a year just by making a little adjustment in portions each time you eat.

Get diagnosed – dietitian Norma McGough, Coeliac UK
If you think you have symptoms (of coeliac disease) that won’t go away, go to your GP and get your condition investigated – don’t try to second- guess what the problem is and treat yourself. For more information, visit coeliac.org.uk

Drink aware – dietitian Juliette Kellow
Drinks can contribute a huge amount of extra calories to our daily intake. A glass of orange juice with breakfast, a medium-sized coffee shop latte in the morning, a smoothie with lunch and a large glass of wine with your evening meal adds up to a massive 570 calories – that's more than a quarter of your daily calorie needs! Swap these for calorie-free options every day and in a year you could lose more than 4 stone!

And drinks can unwittingly push up our sugar intakes – the example above provides 49g sugar or the equivalent of around 12tsp of the white stuff (all sugars – regardless of whether they occur naturally in foods such as fruit or milk, or are added – count towards the maximum 90g a day that's recommended). Part of the problem with drinking calories is that our bodies don't recognise the calories from fluids as well as the calories from food. This means that although a drink can give us a calorie hit, it often doesn't leave us feeling satisfied or fill us up so we still continue to eat the same amount of food. The best drink, without doubt, is water – if you need a sweet hit, try sparkling water with a squeeze of fresh lime or lemon juice.

Choose mindfully - David Stalker, CEO, ukactive
All the time, we hear in the media that we should be cutting out fat, reducing sugar, exercising more, watching our weight. I’d like 2015 to be about simplicity and going back to basics. A little bit of everything is generally fine. Healthy living is about making mindful choices and consciously thinking about what we’re doing when we open the fridge, or avoiding that spin class to go down to the pub.

Ditch dieting - dietitian Helen Bond
The first thing should be to say no to the ‘D’ word! Weight-loss diets, gurus, celebrities and fads come up with anything and everything to help you see the number on the scales drop. But, if a diet is time-limited and has a start and a finish date, it’s bound to fail – that small break from bad eating habits means you’ll soon be back to lifestyle that made you put weight on in the first place. Evidence has shown that people who lose weight gradually are more successful at keeping the weight off long term. So get yourself on track, by making a plan and setting small, realistic and sustainable healthy eating and lifestyle goals!

Conscious eating – dietitian Tracy Kelly, Diabetes UK
My challenge to HFG readers is to develop a healthy relationship with food. Know what you are eating, the effects it has on your body and ask why you’re eating the foods you are. Many people eat when they aren’t truly hungry, ie, when they’re bored, stressed, feeling emotional, or to please other people. Be kind to yourself and enjoy eating, by choosing foods that nourish your body. And don’t ban anything. Instead, make informed choices. Recognise when you’re hungry and stop eating when you’re satisfied. Make yourself your number one priority! For more information about eating a healthy, balanced diet with diabetes go to diabetes.org.uk/enjoyfood

Move yourself! - Professor David Haslam, Chair of National Obesity Forum
Partly because I detest slow people who get in the way, for example stepping off an escalator and standing motionless at the top, and people who walk down Oxford Street at a snail's pace while texting their mother. But [I feel this way] mainly because moving one's carcass from A to B without the assistance of carbon-based fuel is a healthier way to go.

What have you resolved to change about your diet or fitness this year? Tell us in the comments below.

Why free school meals are a good thing

By nutritionist Amanda Ursell

Pupils at Walnut Tree Walk Primary School in London sat down to lunch with Nick Clegg last December. But not everyone's so impressed with the School Food Plan…  

Free school meals for all infant school children in English primary schools became a reality with the start of the autumn term. So how come some people are against them?

The provision of free school meals for all children in reception classes and years one and two was a key recommendation of the independently produced School Food Plan, published by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent in July last year.

You don’t have to look far for vocal dissenters of the scheme – complaints include kitchens not being ready, meals not being balanced and the bad economics of offering free meals for children of parents who could afford to pay.

As a nutritionist, I find it hard to see that a programme that sets out to provide every small child aged five to seven with a balanced meal at lunchtime can be a bad thing.

Pilot studies in Durham and Newham in London, carried out between 2009 and 2011, have shown that the children who were given healthy, free school lunches were two months ahead academically, compared with their non-free school meal contemporaries. They revealed an increase of almost 25% in the consumption of vegetables, an 18% reduction in the consumption of crisps, a reduction in sugary drinks and an increase in water as the drink of choice.  

I’ve also heard fantastically positive success stories from head teachers and school cooks who believe that classes of children who eat together and learn together, whatever their backgrounds, is a good thing.  

The bottom line is that children concentrate better, feel better and probably, as a result, behave better (allowing a teacher to do their job with fewer interruptions), when they’ve eaten good food.

Some lunches may not yet be nutritionally ideal, some school head teachers not fully engaged, some school kitchens and cooks not fully ready and up to speed, but it’s a work in progress and we need to look at the longer term.

The school lunch system needs ‘customers’ to survive: the more children eating at school, the better the meals and service can be. So, once they’re in the system, it’s hoped that those entitled to continue to have funding for their lunches will do just this, while those who can afford to pay also continue.

Whichever way you cut it, I’m a supporter. I hope we see the scheme succeed and, crucially, that the children for whom it's intended benefit nutritionally, academically and socially through the simple pleasure of being able to sit round a table and enjoy lunch with their friends.   

Is fruit juice really as bad as cola? HFG reports…

Sugar is currently being touted as public health enemy number one and has rarely been out of the news since campaign group Action on Sugar launched its attack on the white stuff earlier this year. But while limiting trips to the biscuit tin, stopping short of ordering a pud when out for dinner, and avoiding snacking on sweets, chocolate and cake are no-brainers, one area that’s left many of us confused is fruit juice.

Until recently, most of us considered fruit juice to be a healthy drink that helps to boost our vitamin intake and counts as one of our five-a-day. But now fruit juices have come under fire for their sugar content. Indeed, figures from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey reveal fruit juice provides around 8% of the sugar in our diet – a significant amount. But some anti-sugar campaigners have gone as far as to suggest avoiding drinking fruit juice altogether, claiming a glass of OJ is as bad for our health as a can of cola. But is this really the case?

‘A 330ml can of cola typically contains around 140 calories and 35g sugar – that’s equivalent to almost 9tsp sugar,’ says HFG nutrition consultant Juliette Kellow. ‘In reality, that’s not dissimilar from a 330ml bottle of fresh orange juice, which has around 150 calories and 33g sugar – just ½tsp sugar less. With figures like this, it’s easy to see why some people are confused and think they’d be better off drinking the cola.’

But it’s not so much fruit juice that’s a problem – it’s the vast serving sizes we tend to have these days, explains Juliette. ‘Unlike cola, which contains sugar and no other nutrients, pure fruit juice can boost our intake of vitamin C and antioxidants. But as is the case with many of the foods and drinks we now consume, we have a tendency to supersize them, which doubles – if not triples – the calories and sugar contents and leaves us with a drink comparable to no-nutrient fizzy drinks.

But while fruit juice provides nutrients, it doesn’t contain the healthy fibre you get from eating the whole fruit. ‘Drinking fruit juice won’t fill you up in the same way as eating fresh fruit will, meaning it’s easy to take in excess calories,’ explains Juliette.

So what should we do about our morning glass of OJ? ‘You can only count 150ml fruit juice as a portion of your five-a-day – anything more than this does not count,’ says Dr Susan Jebb OBE, a nutrition scientist and obesity expert. ‘The fact that juice is only considered to be one portion is intended to signal that a small amount is fine, but since it doesn’t have all the healthy components of intact fruit, it should be consumed in strict moderation. And five-a-day does not include fruit drinks with added sugar.’ In other words, it’s fine to include pure fruit juice as part of your five-a-day – but only in controlled amounts.

‘A 150ml glass of freshly squeezed OJ contains around 65 calories and 3½tsp sugar – roughly the amount that occurs naturally in an orange,’ explains Juliette. ‘So if you stick to that serving size, there’s no reason not to include fruit juice as part of a healthy balanced diet.’

However, Juliette believes the juice industry could do far more to promote this message. ‘I’d like to see a move towards producing individual 150ml cartons or bottles, and watered-down juices for adults that contain just 150ml juice – there are plenty of similar products aimed at children,’ she says, ‘I’d also like to see 150ml given as the typical serving size on nutrition labels for large cartons of juice, rather than the 200ml or 250ml that’s commonly used.’

As for fizzy drinks such as cola, the advice is simple. ‘Swap them for calorie- and sugar-free versions – or better still, water,’ says Juliette. ‘Research shows regular soft drinks provide 15% of the sugar in our diet, rising to a massive 30% in teenagers. Cutting them out is a really easy way to reduce our consumption of sugar and, therefore, empty calories.’

But it’s not just drinks we need to be wary of. According to data from market research company Kantar, presented yesterday at a conference held by The Food & Drink Innovation Network, since sugar hit the headlines sales of chilled fruit juices have dropped among certain consumer groups, but overall sales of biscuits have seen very little change!

The sugar saga: is the food industry really to blame?

By Rebecca Almond

The issue seems deceptively simple: sugar is calorific, harmful to teeth and has no nutritional value, so manufacturers should remove it from their products – case closed. Well hang on just a minute Mr Prosecutor, this is far from a cut and shut case…

You see, while sugar isn’t essential in the diet, it does serve other key functions in the production of foods and drinks beyond adding sweetness – such as providing texture, bulk and extending shelf life – so removing sugar completely isn’t always a feasible solution. 

Encouragingly, though, members of the UK’s Food and Drink Federation(FDF) have pledged to help improve public health by reducing the amount of sugar in products where this will result in an overall calorie reduction. But to extract some of the sugar from a product requires something else to take its place, and looking at the options it’s slim pickings: 1g sugar contains 4kcal, 1g protein contains 4kcal and 1g fat contains 9kcal. So is it time to stop wagging the finger at the food industry? Well, not quite…

This year sees the rolling out of mandatory on-pack labelling as part of a new European Regulation – great news for those of us who are keen to make healthier food choices. But there’s a big gap between manufacturers providing labelling information and consumers understanding what it truly means. If I’m honest, a front-of-pack label that tells me there are 9.5g sugar in a pot of fat-free yogurt isn’t all that helpful. What does 9.5g sugar look like? Aside from whipping up the occasional weekend bake, I’m not in the habit of weighing out sugar. Teaspoons, sugar cubes… that sort of measurement I can relate to.

Then there’s the ingredients list. ‘Where sugars are included in products, the different sources are clearly labelled in the ingredients list and the amount of total sugars is provided in the nutrition table,’ says Barbara Gallani, FDF Director of Regulation, Science and Health. Clear, yes, comprehensible, no. Sugar comes in many guises: sucrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, treacle… Sometimes these sugars occur naturally in foods (milk, yogurt and fruit) and other times they're added (biscuits, cakes and chocolate). The reality is, unless you know the lingo, even detailed food labels won’t always be that useful. So what’s the solution?

‘While there’s certainly room for the food industry to reduce the amount of added sugar in products, without them having to add more fat or salt, it’s crucial that we help consumers understand the often complicated information provided on pack,’ says HFG nutrition consultant and registered dietitian Juliette Kellow. ‘As a rule, foods that contain no more than 5g sugar per 100g are ‘low sugar’ products.’ Websites such as nhs.uk/Change4Lifetranslate the sugar jargon and provide useful sugar swap suggestions, and of course there’s the expert advice in your Healthy Food Guide magazine. But perhaps the easiest way to cut back on added sugar is for us to eat homemade meals: ‘Cooking meals from scratch using fresh ingredients means you’ll know exactly what’s in them and you won’t need to worry about hidden sugars,’ says Juliette.

What changes, if any, would you like to see the food industry make to their on-pack sugar labelling?

Could chocolate and wine save us from type 2 diabetes?

By Tracy Kelly, Diabetes UK clinical adviser

According to research just published, eating high levels of flavonoids is linked to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Flavonoids aren’t only found in healthy food such as berries, apples and pears, but also in wine and chocolate – so can it possibly be true?

The study does seem to show an association between flavonoids and lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Almost 2,000 women completed a food questionnaire designed to estimate total dietary flavonoid intake, then their blood samples were analysed for evidence of both glucose regulation and inflammation and were used to give an indication of insulin resistance. The researchers found that those who consumed plenty of anthocyanins and flavones (two specific types of flavonoids) had lower insulin resistance and were also less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

But we need to interpret the findings with caution. For one thing, there have been contradictory findings from other studies. For another, even if high flavonoid consumption and lower type 2 diabetes risk do tend to happen together, it doesn’t necessarily mean one is causing the other.

So what should people be doing to reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes? Diabetes UK already recommends a healthy lifestyle that involves doing regular physical activity and eating a healthy diet to help maintain a healthy weight. This includes eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, many of which are rich in flavonoids. But we don’t advise going mad for red wine and chocolate, which also contain them.

Our advice is to limit your consumption of these – and that’s unlikely to change, even if further research does demonstrate that flavonoids reduce type 2 diabetes risk. That’s because any health benefit from the flavonoids would be dramatically outweighed by the calories in the chocolate and the alcohol in the wine!

So although this is interesting research, the findings don’t alter our recommendations for lowering your risk: eat a healthy, balanced diet and get plenty of physical activity.