The Food Magazine issue 78

July/September 2007

Is ignorance bliss when eating out? Should restaurants have to provide nutritional information on their menus?

School kids not put off by healthy lunches Campaigners say that recent reports about the dramatic decline in consumption of school meals have been overstated and give a misleading impression of the true state of this provision.

Kids against cocoa slavery Chocolate manufacturers such as Nestlé, Mars and Cadbury are not doing much to stop child slavery in the Ivory Coast, so school kids in Tonbridge Wells are taking a stand.

EU slack on tackling obesity The European Commission's talking shop on tackling obesity - properly titled the 'Platform on Physical Activity, Diet and Health' - has decided it will need at least two more years before it can judge whether it has achieved anything useful.

Sweet confusion at the breakfast table Research published by The Food Standards Agency indicates that many people remain confused about the high levels of sugar in breakfast cereals.

Superfoods will need to justify claims A new European Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation came into force on 1st July, to help protect consumers from misleading claims. No food will be able to claim it is a 'superfood' without scientific backing. Other claims such as 'good for your heart' and 'helps lower cholesterol' will also need to be based on good science. The claims will be verified by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). However, EFSA has allowed itself a further two years to evaluate the claims – so do not expect to see an end to misleading ‘superfood’ claims just yet.

The soft sell? We do not expect ice creams and ice lollies to be healthy - after all, they are basically a frozen, sugary treat, but what is really in them?

How super is that store? Vicki Hird, from the Real Food Team at Friends of the Earth, reports on the fight to control supermarkets.

Farmers finding new markets Jessica Mitchell meets Somerset farming families who are wary of the supermarket way of doing business.

Food production must support health and the environment Is the Common Agricultural Policy helping to make us fat and unhealthy? Modi Mwatsuma reports.

US farm policy - corn in everything Jean Snedegar reports from West Virginia. "As I walk around the supermarket, nearly every product I pass contains corn. In the meat coolers it's corn-fed beef and corn-fed pork. Next to that is corn-fed chicken and corn-fed turkey. Even some of the farmed fish is corn-fed. In the dairy section too, milk, butter, yoghurt and cheese are from corn-fed cows, and eggs from corn-fed chickens."

Edible landscapes on housing estates Food growing provides a sense of place - quite literally putting down roots. There is nothing more fundamental than claiming a patch of ground and planting a few vegetables. The Women's Environmental Network has recently been working with housing associations, local councils and tenants to set up projects that match up those with a desire to grow food, with public institutions that actually control access to land around the places tenants live.

Pineapple bling Courtney Van de Weyer reports on a business in Uganda linking land rights and food production.

Quit drugs, start cooking Changing an individual's eating habits is not easy, and this can be especially true for those who have much else on their plates. Substance misusers are a group that have failed to be included in most mainstream healthy eating projects, but a recent pilot project in Brighton aimed to address that failure.

The cost of calories The Food Magazine went out shopping in a low-income area in inner East London, to see how much food cost in terms of the calories you can buy for your pennies.

Cadbury Schweppes accused of misleading 'all natural' claims. Cadbury Schweppes could face paying out six years worth of refunds if a New Yorker succeeds with a court suit against the soft drink giant's labelling practices. Hemant Mehta has filed an action accusing Cadbury Schweppes of misleading customers with claims that certain products, including its Snapple juice and tea drinks, were "all natural" when they were not.

Advertising rulings
Garlic butter without garlic, or butter
Sausages are ‘hard work’
85% of women found it beneficial?