Visits by appointment please. Contact me on twitter @rooftopvegplot
2021
Once again I'm moving my blogposts to a different website - but that is mainly because I'm blogging much more about nutrition and health these days. But feel free to search this site, if your intrest is gardening. I still maintain my rooftopvegplot and most of the posts here are still highly relevant for urban organic vegplotters. You'll find me now at https://saytomato.org/
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Anyone who knows my blog, will know that I'm close to fanatical about fresh produce and home cooking. Now a new piece of research has come out, which provides some new justification for my stance. You may have heard the debates in the media today about the findings of a Sorbonne study that indicates that over-processed foods increase the risk of cancer.
I have to say that the debate I've heard and the articles I read weren't all that enlightening. I wonder whether this is just too explosive? Is it too dangerous to Big Food, the ultra-processing side of the food industry. If you are The Guardian or the BBC, you will have the suits leaning over your shoulder, making sure that what you say isn't actionable.
I'm not linked to any manufacturer. I don't make a bean from advertising on this site, neither do I work for food manufacturers. Here I'm giving you the undiluted facts, and links to the original research should you wish to read for yourself.
The real story started two years ago, when the UN declared 2016-2025 The Decade of Nutrition. Part of this massive worldwide project which tackles malnutrition in all its guises, from starvation to obesity, was initiating the NOVA project. It is really NOVA and what it says about ultra-processed foods that is most interesting. That paper was published last spring.
As far as the UN are concerned the evidence already exists that over-processed foods are bad for us and the planet. Over-processed foods are formulations from industrial sources - in some cases not really food at all. They contain unhealthy fats, starches, free sugars and salt as well as additives. They typically contain little or no intact food. They are energy dense, and while they may look attractive and seem rather like a cake or a cordial that you might make yourself, analysis shows that they are far higher in calories, typically containing 300-450kcal/100g for 'energy bars' and 400-500kcal/100g for biscuits and chips.
"When formulated as drinks ultra-processed products are often sugared, and are usually depleted of nutrients, or devoid of nutrients."
The UN and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are so concerned by these ultra-processed foods that they urge governments to make policies right now. They say that the evidence already exists to justify governments to slow, stop and reverse the increases in production and consumption. For example in the USA, an estimated 57.9% of the US food supply of 2009-10 was in ultra-processed foods. No wonder that 65% of Americans are overweight.
It isn't that difficult to cut ultra-processed foods from your diet. NOVA divides food into four categories and provides a rule of thumb for each category. These categories are really different to the old division of protein, fats and carbs that we are used to:
Don't confuse this with 'clean-eating' that cuts everything except minimally processed foods from the diet. Natural foods like fresh cherries are clearly excellent. Making a cherry crumble is okay too, as long as you use basic (normal) ingredients and don't overload the recipe with sugars or fats. Its okay to purchase a cherry crumble from a reputable shop- check the ingredients list to see how close to home made it actually is. Canned cherries may be okay sometimes - that is simply processed foods - not as good as fresh - but better than nothing. What you should avoid is a processed 'cherry drink' that might actually contain no fresh fruit at all and simply be a concoction of sugars and chemicals. - That's the ultra-processed variety.
Studies, based on the NOVA classification, have been rolling in for some time, and the Paris team's analysis of over 100,000 adults across 5 years, is just one of many. It is one of the few that looks at cancer. It concludes that there is a significant link between consumption of over-processed foods and all cancer, but especially breast cancer. Other contributory risk factors like smoking, age and the contraceptive pill have been, as far as it is possible to do so, statistically accounted for. While this study isn't conclusive (one study never can be), the work is adding weight to the body of evidence that over-processed foods are bad for us. In the UK analysts have investigated the relative price of ultra-processed foods compared to fresh and associations between ultra-processed foods and cardio-vascular disease. Some governments, like Brazil have completely re-configured their food education to take account of the new thinking.
We don't know yet whether over-processed foods are the silver bullet that can bring us back to a healthy trajectory and conquer world obesity. What we do know and what the UN/WHO have been completely clear about its opposition to the 'big food' companies that formulate habit-forming, sometimes quasi-addictive foods, which make it hard to make healthy choices and to avoid over-consumption.
The US product illustrated is Kool-Aid Liquid Drink Mix Cherry and advertises itself as containing '0% juice' Ingredients: Water, Citric Acid, Malic Acid, Gum Arabic, Sucralose(sweetener), contains less than 2% of artificial flavor, Acesulfame Potassium(sweetener), Potassium Citrate, Sucrose Acetate Isobutyrate, Red 40, Blue 1, Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Sorbate(preservatives).
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I'm moving over to a new website - called the Nutritional Garden from now on. So if you've enjoyed these blogs please migrate with me to:
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I was delighted to find this book waiting for me when I returned from holiday over the weekend. Yes, I am a bit biased because Anna Pitt asked me to contribute a recipe and I have done so. It's a pleasure to see my own simple offering there amongst a cornucopia of excellent ideas.
Anna is an environmental campaigner, after my own heart. She's spent a serious amount of her career championing food waste up and down the country. She's an avid social media geek and I found her - or did she find me? - on Twitter. @AnnaPitt
She has recognised the link between the quality of our diet, where we get the food from, how we treat it and whether we throw it away. People are slowly beginning to realise that sell-by dates and best-before dates are generally a marketing ploy. If it looks edible - it probably is edible (unless you are medically vulnerable).
I eat mouldy cheese, limp lettuce and rotting fruit. And you know something? Sometimes it tastes better. A little over-ripe fruit added to a pie or conserve intensifies the flavour without the need to add so much sugar. Anna advises going back to old fashioned tried and tested methods of ensuring that the food on your table is good enough to eat. For example, she advocates the 'sniff test'.
But there are good suggestions in here that were new to me. For example she advocates cutting celery from the top, rather than blade, by blade. It keep much better if the bulb is whole.
This is a very wide-ranging book. It's not just recipes and rhetoric. There are authoritative chapters on the history of food waste, about linking food waste to hunger and malnutrition. There's even a discussion about the effect on our economy, with loads of facts and figures that will probably find their way into some of my blogs. But above all this book will be a welcome addition to your recipe shelf. Just the tips on preserving make it worth its weight in slightly overripe produce!
https://leftoverpie.co.uk/buy-the-book/
I have not received any payment for my inclusion in this book - save for a review copy of the book itself.
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I’ve enjoyed writing the rooftopvegplot blog, but I think it’s about to morph into something else and I’d now like your help to tell me what it should turn into. I’ve shared everything I’ve learned in these pages. Sifting through the website, it feels to me that ‘rooftopvegplot’ has now matured as a source of information. Perhaps it doesn’t need my blogs to continue to be useful? There aren’t too many things that throw me anymore – though this year all male cucumbers have presented a new dilemma.
The blog must change because my life is changing. I’ve been accepted on a full time MSc course at University College Hospital Medical School. I start in September. To readers who know me simply as a gardener, the fact that I haven’t yet retired may come as a shock. But, as the retirement age for women like me, who were born in the 50’s, goes back and back – my retirement horizon seems to drift further into the future too. Anyway, like many other men and women of my age, I’m still very much occupied. I am a consultant to developers and local authorities. My specialism is large scale sustainable settlements. I don’t design them myself anymore – frankly it’s a struggle to get developers to include any sustainable elements these days. I’m not prepared to sell my soul.
Building the rooftopvegplot was my way of showing how practical and beautiful urban growing space can be. As I’ve grown more of our own food, I’ve become more and more interested in food and nutrition as a wider subject. I now make my own live raw yogurt every week, and I do quite a bit of baking. I don’t bake too many cakes. My cooking errs on the side of side of wholesome. Think wholemeal bread, hand rolled rye crispbread and brown rice pudding. The rooftop garden is a lesson in urban sustainability, but it is also a lesson in nutrition. Owning the plot has helped me to answer the question, ‘How much contribution can a few square yards of raised beds make to a healthy diet.’ My conclusion is that a small amount of fresh produce can make an enormous contribution, by adding fragile vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and flavonoids to a modern urban diet that is often deficient in trace elements, even if you shop at the farmer’s market.
Having done my own research in order to get our family diet back on track, I’ve now become a bit of a proselytiser. I want to segue writing about GYO into writing about nutrition. And I want to do this from a position of authority, not as an interested observer. My MSc is to be part taught and part research. I’ll be studying nutrition, but also studying the eating disorders that plague us today.
I think that many people succumb to fad diets because they are confused by the information out there. For example there aren’t really as many gluten, or lactose intolerant people in the world compared to the shelfloads of gluten and lactose free produce that gets sold every day in the UK. Food fads are big business. There seems to me to be a gathering fear of perfectly normal and healthy foods. This food confusion can escalate into serious eating disorders. The number of people suffering from anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders has risen alarmingly in recent years. The NHS reported in 2007 that 6.4% of adults have been diagnosed as suffering from an eating disorder. This is a recognised underrepresentation of the problem. In fact recently the NHS had re-defined what an eating disorder is. This re-definition narrows the boundaries, leaving a lot of people who were suffering from a non-specific disorder outside the reach of intervention.
Despite the hype, it is a more deadly condition than many people might think. Of those who contract the syndrome 20% will remain debilitated by the disease for their entire lives, and 70% of all sufferers will die prematurely as a result of the disorder.[i]
It is a myth that eating disorders are limited to adolescence. We now recognise that many of those sufferers are elderly, some are in old people’s homes or other institutions where nutrition is not well understood. The availability of good food and even basic hydration can be lacking. A recent study found 25% of elderly people staying in care homes in Italy were suffering from anorexia nervosa, and a follow up study ten months later found that 17% of them had since died, suggesting that death rates in elderly sufferers are much higher than in adolescents. The sad fact is that eating disorders in the elderly often go un-diagnosed and un-treated. [ii]
There are so many diet myths out there that it is difficult to know where to start. The research tends to be funded by big food companies or big pharmaceutical companies. No wonder that cranky diet foods and diet pills are on the increase. Yet time and again wise medical advice shows that a healthy lifestyle isn’t such a difficult thing to find. But, we are bombarded with advertising and misinformation. We are seduced by unhealthy convenience foods, which are factory produced and calorie laden substitutes for the real dishes they pretend to mirror.
Most of the trusted sources of information are losing credibility. Many people tell me they don’t trust the NHS website anymore (though I think it is quite balanced). Government has been tainted by the notorious BSE[iii] and salmonella scandals. GP’s aren’t trained in nutrition and those people who say they are nutritionists or dieticians may not be. The profession is not regulated in the way that architects, engineers and lawyers are. There are a load of quacks out there. Labelling laws are lax, and might just get worse if we lose the protection of EU legislation.
But who speaks the truth? In 2015 the BMJ exposed the scandal of nutritional research being funded by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, Weight Watchers International, NutriLicious (a public relations firm specialising in conveying “nutrition and health messages” for the food industry), Sainsbury’s, W K Kellogg Institute, and GlaxoSmithKline.[iv] The sheer quantity of research available, much of it spurious at best and at worst simply biased, leads to confusion. At worst the research is presented to the public by unqualified journalists repeating poor statistics and unhelpful information. I bought a copy of the magazine ‘Feel Good You’ this month. I wanted to try and understand how this misinformation gets into the public domain. Of course a lot of it comes via social media, but most of us know that Facebook or Twitter is packed with rubbish information. However a bone-fide magazine published by Woman and Homes might be expected to give more balanced advice. But, magazines are too involved with advertising. The information they pedal is poor. In the space of just a few pages I realised that I was reading thinly veiled advertising, promotional articles or information aimed at seducing next month’s adverts. In just one article regarding gut health I found that every paragraph contained an advert for something. Probiotics? Just buy the capsules, don’t bother to eat a wide variety of natural foodstuffs, (says the article) Go gluten free? Why not, when there is an excellent gluten free cookbook that you can buy, (says the article, while failing to point out that gluten is a really important source of protein for most of us and a very rare irritant.)
Perhaps I can help to bust myths and change minds. Perhaps I can be part of a new revolution of people who don’t want to be bamboozled by advertorial and pharmaceutical hype. I’m sure there are people out there who like me believe that our diet has become as bankrupt as our currency. But IM not yet sure how I shall fit in.
Do I start another blog, but I don’t want to lose my readers and friends? Do I simply change the emphasis of this blog? Or are the days of blogs over anyway. Should I concentrate from now on podcasts, video diaries or another form of media?
Please tell me what you think, by replying to this post or tweeting me @rooftopevegplot.
Thanks for all your comments. You can see some of them below, but I also received quite a few online via social media.
Callie Dawes wrote:
Dear WendyYour plans sound brilliant and very needed in this confusing media dpi aged world. I have loved your blog and this looks a very natural progression. I would love to hear more as your studies progress - maybe another blog? Good non biased advice is so valuable. I am a bit of a fan of James Wong for this too. I wish you tons of luck in your new ventureRegards Callie DawesChristine Page - @smilingtreefarme said;Looking forward to your nutrition blogs bus not sure an MSc = 'authority'. More likely will teach existing, wrong health guideline dogma.
@rosie_canning said
Judging by the answers to your question, it seems, your blog creates a lot of interest. Sounds like another exciting episode in your life!
@nickykylegarden said
Rarely get time to read others as busy growing our own
#organicfood but the most authentic ones are done from the heart. Do what YOU want! I've studied continuously 40 yrs. T he great thing about life & gardening is you never stop learning - if you have an open mind. I never want to stop learning about#Nature!
Beryl @mudandgluts said:
I think blogging's alive & well but you need to pick carefully from the offer. Would love to read your new direction. Plus I have to add, I infinitely prefer to read rather than watch or listen to a post.
meg_e_r said
I think there is merit in blogging while studying whether on topic or not. It's a useful reminder that we need to be able to communicate our subject and make in-depth information accessible in a way that reaches beyond the choir but doesn't dumb down. I think there is a place for blogging and I like the writing to organise ideas. Maybe a mix of blogging and podcasts.
@vegtalkpod said
fwiw, I think you're going to struggle to study and blog. I think the problem is that there are too many blogs and specific/interesting blogs get little traffic.
To which I replied: True, I don't get millions - but I value my readers and value their contributions. Blogging isn't a one way street.
To which @vegtalkpod said, nope, I think that's important. it's a conversation not a broadcast
jackiemania said:
I still read blogs :) I also think writing helps you understand what you're learning. It might be helpful to write in a non-academic way when in school. I think you can use the blog you have and just widen the scope. I think it's worth keeping on - if you get overwhelmed & need to scale back or stop you'll know :)
@jwpillar said
Great blog, I wouldn't disagree with a word of it. Look forward to seeing how it develops with your studies!
[i] (PwC, 2015)
[ii] (Landi et al., 2012)
[iii] BSE Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
[iv] (Gornall, 2015)
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