Marketing at its brightest: the LOLCats edition

If you ever watch any of the commercial channels, you might have noticed a new series of adverts for Iams cat food, with a number of our feline friends saying: ‘I am not a vegetarian’.

And of course, cats are most certainly not veggies. Dogs, like us, are omnivores, but cats are straightforward carnivores. They need animal protein. That’s what they have evolved to require.

So the Iams ad is rather heartening, as it stresses that Iams has much more protein than other products.

Now let’s start by pointing out that Iams is not a budget product. Quite the contrary. We’re talking £5.39 for a kilo at Ocado at present, which, as part of its ‘low price promise’, means that it’s no more expensive than the same product at tesco.com.

According to the packet, that size will do one cat for 15 days. Or three cats for five days, in a household such as ours.

Everything on the packet just reeks of expertise and quality.

It was “developed with vetinarians”, apparently. It’s “good for life”.

The packet in front of me talks of “proactive health” for adult cats, “with wild ocean fish and chicken”. That “wild” incidentally, is in smaller letters than the rest of that bit.

There’s plenty more, though.

“Chicken and fish for strong muscles”, it declares. “Prebiotics and beet pulp for healthy digestion” – oh, those lovely whatever-they-are-biotics! “Antioxidants to support a strong immune system” and “7 essential nutrients for a healthy heart”.

And that’s just on the front of a bag – there’s barely a space that doesn’t continue the same message.

So let’s look at what’s actually inside, remembering the maxim that pet food is subject to more rules etc than human food.

Sticking with that wild ocean fish and chicken, I decided that, rather than type out what was on the bag that I have in my possession, I’d do a cut and paste from Ocado’s site (where I purchased it). This is usually entirely reliable.

This is what came up:

“Chicken meal, maize, wheat, animal fat, ocean fish (>4%), dried beet pulp, chicken digest, dried whole egg, potassium chloride, brewer's dried yeast, calcium carbonate, fish oil, DL-methionine, sodium chloride.”

Something struck me as odd, so I looked again at the actual bag. This is what it said:

“Dried chicken and turkey (35%, a natural source of taurine), maize, wheat, animal fat, rice, ocean fish meal (4.4%), dried beet pulp (1.9%), hydrolysed animal proteins, fructooligosaccharides (0.69%), potassium chloride, brewer’s dried yeast, dried whole egg, calcium carbonate.”

So let’s stick with this.

“Fructooligosaccharides”? What on Earth is that? A little research reveals that it’s an artificial sweetener. Okay, it’s a small percentage, but cats do not need sweeteners – artificial or otherwise.

“Beet pulp” sounds fairly healthy though. Ah, well according to Felicity Lawrence, it’s a by-product of sugar production.

Now to be fair to Iams (a Proctor & Gamble company, just so you know), it does seem that that subsidiary’s products do contain more animal protein than others.

I vary my cats’ diet around. At present, they’re just finishing a bag of Purina One Natural Balance. Oh, you wouldn’t believe how healthy that bag looks. It’s “rich in ocean fish” – 18% – and has some “dried poultry protein” and, of course, maize and oats and brown rice and so forth. And blackcurrants, as an antioxidant.

This, to be clear, is a Nestlé product.

Why, oh why, do cats need sugar or artificial sweeteners or even the leftovers from sugar production?

Why do these animals, which Iams in its adverts stress, are most decidedly not vegetarians, need all sorts of grains and rice?

It couldn’t possibly be partly because, as Lawrence explains in Eat Your Heart Out, US agricultural subsidies mean that we have a surfeit of grains going cheap, could it?

As Dr John Briffa points out in Escape the Diet Trap, we tend to think grains are innately healthy, but don’t forget that that is precisely what geese and ducks are fed to fatten their livers up for foie gras, not something containing fat.

We shifted our cats to dried food precisely because the vet told us it was healthier.

Now, looking back, I remember how our locum vet at the time didn’t consider anything about Mack’s condition apart from getting me to buy his food – Iams or something similar – directly from the vet, and having a bit of dental work for him.

The fact that my boy was seriously ill with kidney disease – which I didn’t know at the time – was clearly not the main issue.

And that, as only a very slight aside, should tell us something about the nature and priorities of privatised healthcare.

Now I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would think that the attachment that I – and many others – have to their cats is bonkers.

And that’s fine. They’re absolutely entitled to think that.

But with feline diabetes figures rising, I’m frankly appalled to find that what I thought was sensible and healthy is not necessarily the case.

And who the bloody hell feeds sugar and/or artificial sweeteners to a cat, unless they’re trying to get that cat addicted to a certain foodstuff?

Shame on you, Iams – and you’re not even the worst.

Marketing at its brightest – the low-fat version

If you ever wanted a single reminder of why, with all its faults, the BBC is still a national treasure, it might well be adverts.

Since, like most other people, I do actually view things on commercial channels, I end up seeing adverts. And while some adverts may be amusing and others merely tedious, some are downright annoying or even nauseating.

Take Flora Cuisine, a relatively new product from Unilever, which is apparently perfect for “frying, sautéing & making sauces”, as well as baking and roasting and probably just about anything else.

It has “45% less saturated fat than olive oil”, proclaims the producer in advertising materials.

Well wow. Perhaps if saturated fat was actually a problem, that might be worth noting. But it isn’t.

And olive is actively good for you (like other natural fats). And, of course, it's actually natural.

It’s equally no coincidence that, on it’s own bragging brand page about Flora Cuisine, the manufacturer includes nutritional data – but not the details of what actually goes into the product.

The most is says is that: “Flora Cuisine is a healthy cooking liquid that’s made from a blend of linseed, rapeseed and sunflower oils.”

But that’s not all it contains, is it, Unilever? Let’s look what else is in that curvaceous plastic bottle, courtesy of ocado.com.

“Vegetable Oils (Sunflower Seed Oil, Rapeseed Oil, Linseed Oil), Water, Salt (0.9%), Emulsifiers (Soy Bean Lecithin, Polysorbate 60), Soy Protein, Stabilisers (Guar and Xanthan Gums), Colour (Beta-Carotene), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Citric Acid, Flavourings, Vitamins (A, D).”

Now, for the sake of being at least a little bit scrupulous in approach, let’s examine the ingredients in a bottle of olive oil.

“Olive oil.”

But,  claims Unilever of Flora Cuisine, “it really is the healthier approach to everyday cooking." Well, Unilever, some would disagree.

It’s at this point that I’m going to ask your forgiveness in advance. Because here is a link to an article from yesterday’s Daily Mail – but it is very much worth a read.

It quotes a doctor – Dr Aseem Malhotra, the lead cardiologist of the National Obesity Forum, no less – on the small matter of saturated fat and health, and artificial fat substitutes.

Most of what he’s saying has been acknowledged by some people for some time, but it’s good to finally see the message finally drifting through into more mainstream media.

People like Dr Aseem Malhotra, together with Dr John Briffa – and many others – would be among those disagreeing with Unilever’s health claims.

According to Dr Malhotra, “the whole saturated fat argument has been ridiculously overhyped.”

He quotes a 2010 review of studies, which “revealed no consistent evidence linking saturated fat and cardiovascular disease.”

Further, he told the Mail: “Really strong data is increasingly showing that the saturated fat from natural dairy products may even be beneficial in reducing heart attacks.”

And he continued: “Other research, by Dr Dariush Mozaffarian from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, found that people with higher levels of the trans-palmitoleic fatty acid (found mainly in dairy products) in their blood were about 60% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes over the next 20 years than those with the lowest levels.”

‘Dairy produce’, you say, doctor? Is that the ‘French Paradox’ we can see coming into view?

Because according to the great saturated fat con, the French should have the highest rates of heart disease in the world, because they’re the biggest consumers of dairy produce in the world and, in the south west of the country, they also produce (and consume) such glories as duck confit and foie gras, which are seriously high-fat foods.

But no, they’re not dying from heart disease more than people in the UK. In fact, the figures are lower.

Anyway, if you think that Flora Cuisine – its very name attempting to imbue it with some class – is bad, then let’s have a look at another of Unilever’s current portfolio; Stork Baking Liquid.

Now, I have grumped about the former since I first saw it advertised. I hadn’t seen the latter until the weekend. Never mind grumping about it, I wondered if I was going to vomit.

Let’s have a look at the ingredients here (again taken from ocado.com).

“Seed Oils (Sunflower Oil, Rapeseed Oil), Water, Salt (0.9%), Emulsifiers (Soya Bean Lecithin, Polysorbate 60), Soy Protein, Stabilisers (Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum), Colour (Beta-Carotene), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Citric Acid, Flavourings, Vitamins (A&D).”

So, did you spot it too?

The only difference between this product and the Flora Cuisine is in the type of oils used – seed oils as opposed to vegetable oils. Everything else is identical. Mind, the size of the bottle and even the shape of the bottles are too. So perhaps there’s little to be surprised about.

Not that the price is the same.

According to ocado.com, the Flora Cuisine is usually £1.98 for a 500ml bottle or 20p per 100ml. It’s currently on offer at 99p for a bottle.

That compares with £1.59 for a 500ml bottle of the Stork Baking Liquid (32p per 100ml).

So when not being sold under a special offer, the Flora Cuisine will be the more expensive of the two products – now why would that be?

Is that because it’s being marketed as a more 'sophisticated' product?

After all, the marketing is based on health, uses a word like ‘cuisine’ and, in making the claims about saturated fat the way that it does, links itself to olive oil and presumably is intended to appeal to those who would at least consider using olive oil.

Further, via the Flora brand website, we can see that “Michelin starred chef Jean Christophe Novelli has created some tasty recipes for you to try.”

Actually, when you click a link or two, it’s clear they’re not actually his creations, but simply ones that he’s picked that were sent in by members of the public and are now in a cookbook.

The marketing approach to the Stork Baking Liquid is different. On the Stork website, there’s a sense of the retro; much more of home baking – all of which ties in neatly with the current trend for at least claiming that ‘baking is back’, plus retro design.

But since we’re being very even-handed about this, let’s check the ingredients in the best possible fat for baking – butter.

“Butter”.

Come on now: hands up who really wants to eat a cake that’s been baked using a liquid fat?

One simply finds oneself wondering whether, like that icon of artificial US fats, Crisco, these two also double as an effective lubricant for anal sex.

Traffic light chaos as everyone ducks the issues

In the last week, there has been a flurry of discussion over a new system of food labelling.

Many shoppers are, apparently, confused by packets and want advice on what’s healthy and what’s not.

And so we have the new ‘traffic light’ system, which an increasing number of supermarkets have agreed to use.

A number of writers have already explained how it works – or more to the point, why it’s dismal. There’s an excellent and detailed explanation here from Zöe Harcombe  and another here from Joanna Blythman.

To précis, the system intends to use traffic light-style graphics to warn people whether a food is ‘healthy’ in terms of how much fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt it contains, based on certain guidelines.

So, because every one of those for, say, diet Coke, Shredded Wheat and white flour comes in low, those foods get green ‘lights’ across the board.

Yet using this same method of labelling, olives would be in the orange on two counts, in the red once (salt) and in the green only once (sugar).

A rump steak sees two green (salt and sugar), one orange (fat) and one red (saturated fat).

A whole mackerel gets an orange for both fat in total and saturated fat, but green for salt and sugar.

And pasta is green on all counts.

So in other words, if this system is correct, you can eat pretty much unlimited amounts of cereals and pasta (with artificially-sweetened drinks on the side), but need to be more careful about consumption of oily fish and even more careful about meat and olives.

I suspect that most readers here already know that that is, frankly, errant nonsense.

For starters, it falls into the trap of providing information on fat that is surely out of date – and even the standard mantra of recent years understands that some fats, such as those you get in oily fish, are essential to continued good health.

So along comes a scheme that is saying all the wrong things – the only wonder is that the supermarkets have taken so long to agree to implement it. Because it is going to lend a false health badge to at least some processed foods.

On assorted forums, people have been commenting that this illustrates the problem of government interfering in a matter such as health.

But while it would be nice to see a world in which no state intervention was required in food (or many other things), the reality needs something different.

In discussions of market economies, the relationship between the large company and the individual customer is treated as though it takes place on a level playing field.

It does not. This is David v Goliath.

Big businesses have huge resources to invest in all manner of methods for promoting their product. They have entire departments dedicated to working out what works as advertising and PR – and even the psychology of the customer, so that they can best exploit what they find (see here for a little more detail)

We know that big businesses such as supermarkets use all sorts of methods to confuse the customer. For instance, they’re supposed to provide the information to allow you to compare the relative prices of different products.

The most obvious way to do this is by giving a price per a set measurement – so for instance, if you’re selling carrots loose, bagged and prepared, you label each with the cost per 100g or per kilo, making the comparison quick and easy.

But there are sneaky ways to make this less clear.

Take this little example.

Online at Ocado the other week, two different jars of celery salt were available. They were different sizes – one was 80g and one 100g. The larger one was organic. The prices were listed – with the cost per 20g listed for one and the cost per 100g for the other.

Now the calculation is hardly difficult, but why not simply use the same for both?

And we’ve all read about how offers in supermarkets turn out to be nothing of the sort – the price having been whacked up for a period before it’s then put on ‘offer’, for example.

As a small businessman – and a Conservative councillor – told me a few weeks ago, regulation protects both businesses and the customer.

There are plenty of theories around about why the UK has seen such a massive rise in obesity (and related illnesses) in the last three decades. What is pretty much undisputed are the health ramifications and the costs that come with this, both in human and financial terms.

So there are serious reasons for any government – which is, after all, supposed to be a government of the people – to be concerned.

‘Get rid of regulation’, some say. ‘That’ll sort it all out.’

‘People should take responsibility for themselves,’ chime other voices.

Well, yes. But why is big business never expected to behave with any more responsibility than that for its shareholders?

Increasingly over the last 30 years, we’ve seen the onus for responsible behaviour in any transaction shifted to the customer alone. And with it, the onus for the customer to be more educated about a product than the seller.

We all have to be experts in finance now, so that we don’t get (miss) sold the wrong pension or mortgage, because companies are no longer in the business of taking pride in caring for their customers, but simply of maximising their profits.

If you’re as old as me, you may even remember the day when banks were trusted institutions.

Today, though, it’s assumed that you’ll research anything you’re considering buying – there’s a reason that Which? Has become so important.

Whatever happened to decent service, eh? How much of our time (outside work) are we now expected to invest in educating ourselves for life in this consumer paradise – because big retailers and big finance cannot, in essence, be trusted? And why should they – it’s our responsibility.

But those questions don’t just apply to financial products – they apply to food too. And there are many things that hinder people being able to cut through the sneakiness to make good choices:

• it’s a simple fact that meaningful choice itself has been reduced. In the last 30 years, the major supermarkets have gone from having 20% of the UK grocery retail trade to having 80% of it. There is a reason that such words and phrases as ‘Tescopoly’ and ‘Tesco Town’ have entered the lexicon;

• at the same time, skills have declined. Not only do we have far fewer proper fishmongers and butchers, but domestic cookery skills have declined too. Vast amounts of knowledge are being lost. Concomitantly, the amount of ready meals sold and eaten in the UK has risen. In 2005, the UK consumed more ready meals than the rest of Europe combined.

Only the other day, this blog highlighted adverts from fast food firms pushing the line that cooking is too difficult and you’d be better having a takeaway.

The point is that we do need regulation – but we need it to be sensible, to be meaningful and to be properly enforced.

The traffic light farce is indicative of how successive governments, for whatever reason, have failed to tackle the key problems, which in essence are the over-dominance of our food culture by processed food and the big supermarkets.

Planning rules need to be tightened or adjusted to help to protect small businesses from voracious, big competitors that simply have so much financial clout that they can bully their way to getting anything they want.

They could also be adjusted to make it more difficult to change the use of premises – so you can’t just buy out a bookshop, for instance, and turn it into yet another franchise of a fast food outlet or a coffee chain.

The state of local high streets in general is a cause for concern – councils have not helped by cutting parking, while supermarkets are able to offer free parking. Such things need addressing, because the situation at present is unbalanced and favours big businesses over small ones.

Talk of a ‘fat tax’ (discussed recently by the Fabian Society as a possible approach to the problems by a future Labour government) is as flawed as the traffic light system and for similar reasons – it would be sending a simplistic and nutritionally unsound statement that all fat is bad. This is wrong, and the problem is not simply fat (and/or sugar) but processed food in general.

Government needs to remember its role and take on big business for the protection of the individual – and the community that is made up of those individuals.

We need to start educating children and young people – not with GCSE lessons telling them how a factory makes processed food, but about how they can learn to cook and bake something that’s then worth eating.

School dinners are currently being reviewed after the sheer debacle produced by the privatisation of the service in the 1980s led to the abomination of the ‘turkey twizzler’. Things were improved by the previous government after much campaigning by Jamie Oliver and organisations such as trade union UNISON – but there is some way to go.

Ban any vending machines from schools. There is absolutely no need for them. Snacking is another problem – and, of course, another big money spinner for very large businesses.

Let’s have a discussion about just how much ‘choice’ children should have at meal times in schools.

We don’t expect young children to choose what subjects they’re going to study in the classroom – why should there be an almost gushing belief that they must have choice when they sit down to lunch?

The lack of a choice in schools elsewhere around the world is not seen as some dismal assault on children’s rights. Yet exploiting children’s lack of knowledge, experience and susceptibility to potentially addictive sugary and salty tastes in the drive for increased profits is an assault on their rights.

And don’t forget that, even when catering companies boast about the healthy options that make available, they’re clever about how they market the least healthy/cheapest options to children.

Nothing that I’ve fleetingly touched on here is particularly radical or even original – and much of it works rather well in other countries, including but not limited to France.

If it does seem radical, that’s simply rather a sad indicator of how far we have gone along the path of believing that profit for big business is the most important factor in a great many decisions.

It seems odd to remember that Conservatives used to be conservative, championing small business as well as big, and stressing the importance of concepts such as heritage and tradition.

Now, in the case of the Parliamentary Conservative party at least, together with it’s mouthpieces in the media (traditional and social), these things seem to have been foresworn in favour of a belief that only profit matters and big is beautiful – so that, if a small business cannot compete with a transnational behemoth, then it’s its own fault and it deserves to go under.

Nothing else matters – and in the kind of attitude exemplified by the US Tea Party idiots, we're seeing increasing pretence that any regulation is pretty much communism.

Indeed, the shattering of our culinary heritage is just one of the root causes/problems of the present situation.

In the meantime, Labour has offered little by way of contrast, with the governments of 1997-2010 continuing the path of deregulation that had been started in the 1980s, and which helped lead to 2008 and the financial crisis.

It also accepted money from big business – thus inevitably limiting its ability to regulate the worst excesses of those businesses. And now it seems to be perpetually running around, like headless (GM, factory-farmed) chicken, without much of a clue what to do.

So whether from ideology or fear or a belief that there’s no alternative – or a mix of all three – governments are allowing the drive for ever-increasing profits to come before the health of the nation as a whole.

The traffic light system is a bad joke – but it shouldn’t be taken as a red light for regulation. It should be a green light for creating regulation that actually works.

• For further reading on a range of issues touched on here:

Shopped: The shocking power of Britain’s supermarkets and Bad Food Britain by Joanna Blythman are essential reading for anyone concerned about the issues.

The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman adds to an understanding of the impact of the biggest supermarket chains on communities and jobs in the drive for ever cheaper prices.

A Taste of My Life by Raymond Blanc is part autobiography, part food science and part food philosophy – with recipes. It’s very good on the impact of the destruction of our food heritage – and what food heritage means in real terms. It’s also a delightful read.

Escape the Diet Trap by Dr John Briffa explains, scientifically but in an understandable way, why ‘all fat is bad’ is cobblers and why it’s utterly counterproductive in terms of weight issues.

Fat: An appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient with recipes by Jennifer McLagan does some of the same as Briffa, but from a chef’s perspective and with recipes.

You can also get involved with the latest review of school meals here.

Keeping well fed

Eggs taking centre stage.

Knowing what a good-hearted bunch you all are, it occurs to me that some of you may be worried that I’m currently eating poorly – or at least less enjoyably – than previously.

Well, you need have no fear on that score.

Eggs – good eggs – are a delight, and for breakfast, they have to be better than some ‘bread’ product and whatever filling is available, or even a bit of Chorleywood toast and some spread.

Likewise, lunch is often now centred on fish or cheese. And you know me – I love both.

Tinned sardines (olive oil only) are not to be sniffed at, while proper smoked mackerel is something I love. Now, it’s as though I actually have more opportunities to eat such things.

And oh, I have discovered that Ocado supply tins of duck confit from the south west of France: the only ingredients are duck, duck fat and salt – exactly as it should be.

We had some on Monday night, with a few baby new potatoes (a tin) drained and rinsed and dried, then finished in a little of the duck fat (the rest gets stored in a tub in the fridge).

The duck goes in the oven at 160˚C (fan) for around half an hour – for half of that, it was joined by a tin of rinsed and drained cannellini beans.

If you think that beans and duck sounds a bit bonkers, then think of a cassoulet, where they come together with other ingredients to create a perfect dish.

But on Monday, we also had some red cabbage, done as per Joël Robuchon: slice thinly and blanch in boiling, salted water for two minutes. Drain and plunge under cold water. Then cook in more boiling, salted water for 15 minutes.

You can then drain and cool again, finishing in a sauté pan with butter when you’re almost ready to serve, but I served (with butter) straight after the second boil.

Robuchon says that the blanching improves digestibility. Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know that this method produces a super result – cabbage that is tender but still retaining texture.

I had just a very few of the potatoes.

On Tuesday, it was lamb chops, grilled, and served with carrots and peas. For The Other Half, I did a few potatoes, but I decided to forgo them myself and see how I felt.

Now I love potatoes, but the result was undeniable. What I have, in the past, thought was ‘fullness’ could well have been bloatedness. Because on Tuesday night, without any starchy carbs in my main meal, I felt sated but utterly unbloated.

Now that I’ve recognised this, the difference is really quite dramatic.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying I’m not going to eat potatoes or pasta or rice again, but it seems sensible to think of limiting them.

But two more things have struck me.

Shopping earlier on Tuesday, I was hanging around in a shop while they refilled by washing up liquid bottles, and I spotted some Suma organic tinned sweetcorn.

I was instantly tempted – I love sweetcorn – but suddenly I remembered something. Corn – that’s a bit like wheat, isn’t it? And I cannot digest sweetcorn. I know this because, to put it as politely as possible, it exits my body in pretty much the same condition as it enters it.

The second moment of revelation came yesterday at lunch time. The Other Half and I usually have a couple of lattes at a local café. I have no sugar or sweetener.

But for various reasons, this afternoon was the first milk I’ve had, at all, since last Thursday.

Now I’ve noted before that those two glasses of milky coffee would leave me feeling ‘full’, but today I realised that it’s the same bloatedness. Perhaps the very fact that it’s been almost a week since I last had milk accentuated the impact, but it was certainly there.

And when considered in light of that Mars attack, it makes more sense.

Am I becoming a faddy eater almost overnight?

I don’t think so.

I have heard – although I have nothing to back this up – that whole milk is the form of cow’s milk that human’s can most easily digest. In his most recent book, Dr John Briffa says that it’s more digestible if it’s raw (unpasturised) or if it’s sheep or goat milk.

It’s increasingly easy to believe this.

The evening’s dinner was just as easy: minced beef, onion, a tin of (organic) tomatoes; a dash of HP sauce, a dash of that Daylesford organic ketchup again; voila!

It’s becoming clear from conversations with a number of people that I’m far from the only person to have noticed such responses to certain foods.

It does, however, beg the question of just how many people experience similar things, but don’t realise that fullness and bloatedness are not one and the same thing and have simply become used to the latter.

A counterintuitive way to eat

Ladies and gentlemen, today, I’d like to introduce you to David T Breaker.

Mr Breaker is a self-described “Conservative Home blogger. Liberty defender. Jeffersonian. Goldwater Reagan type. Winner Britain's Most Boring 2012.”

He doesn’t explain what “most boring” aspect of his existence this year has been accorded such an honour, but then it’s not easy to do such things within the limits of Twitter.

However, in the midst of an online exchange the other day about the NHS (he hates it, unsurprisingly) he objected to the idea of obesity as ‘a disease’, even though at least some medical practitioners describe it as exactly that.

“You can't catch obesity!” He tweeted, shrilly. “You cause it yourself. It’s self harm.”

Not, quite apart from the fact that you can’t “catch” cancer either, the rest of his comment is utter, simplistic nonsense.

Not, I hasten to add, that he is the only one to believe such rubbish.

Quite coincidentally, I have just finished reading Escape the Diet Trap by Dr John Briffa.

In it, the author (a British doctor) starts by detailing what, for many people, has been their experience of trying to lose weight.

In effect, it has meant going on a calorie-controlled diet, with exercise. Seeing some weight loss – then putting it back on. With interest.

The popular view – presumably believed by the likes of Breaker – is that the eventual outcome is doubtless down to a lack of self-discipline, laziness, greed and probably a few other similar failings.

It is quite something to read a doctor saying that this is not necessarily the case.

Briffa highlights the way that diet advice has centred on a mantra of combining calorie reduction with cutting fat and increasing complex carbs (bread, rice, pasta, potatoes etc).

Yet as he shows, this is counterproductive to weight loss.

What the book does is not lay out a ‘diet’ (“this is not a diet book’, says the subtitle), but explains in some detail, and with recourse to countless studies, what happens when we eat different foods and the effect of those foods on us.

So he explains, for instance, about insulin and what this and other hormones do.

He doesn’t limit this weight alone, but also tackles the major health concerns like diabetes and heart disease (which is something else you don’t “catch”).

In essence, Briffa explains that, over some years, he has seen considerable benefits for patients moving to a different way of eating.

He stresses low carbohydrate, high protein – for all sorts of scientific reasons, but also because it sates hunger better than starchy carbs – and higher fat than is usually recommended.

On the latter, he points out that the ‘link’ between a diet rich in saturated fat and heart disease is overstated.

Indeed, in a blog post only last week, he showed some recent statistics to illustrate that the ‘French Paradox’ is really no paradox at all.

For those who aren’t familiar with that idea, the French experience appears to contradict the conventional ‘wisdom’ that a diet high in saturated fat leads to ‘high cholesterol’ leads to heart disease.

Not only do the French consume more dairy produce than anyone else on Earth, they’re hardly reluctant to eat meat – and that’s before we mention the south west, where they create wonderful things such as foie gras and duck confit. And still don’t have the heart disease we and the US do.

Briffa does, incidentally use foie gras to reinforce one of his key arguments: to fatten the duck or goose liver, the bird is not fed fat – but grain.

He also notes the benefits of cutting bread and other starchy carbs from your diet in terms of feeling less bloated.

Now, as I mentioned here, for a few weeks now I’ve been experimenting with lowering carbs – and cutting out bread. It started, as it happened, before I’d read Briffa.

The strangest thing – because however much you read, the opposite has been drummed into our minds – is that I feel lighter.

If I were to attempt to analyse it more closely, I would also add that I frequently feel as though my belly is flatter. I’m not hungry, so I can only assume this is a lack of bloatedness.

Have I really been feeling bloated, on at least a minimal level, for some years?

So, if nothing else comes of this, I currently feel that bit ‘better’.

Back to Breaker: Briffa’s experience with his own patients illustrates just how wrong he is.

But he patently forgets or brushes over other issues that are contributors to the wider issue that the UK as a whole faces today.

Briffa has no time for processed food, and slates cereals as readily as bread.

But just look at cereals: portrayed as a generally healthy breakfast staple, even many of the so-called really healthy ones are laden with sugar and salt.

Advertising is then combined with that conventional wisdom to say that complex carbohydrates are so good you need more of them – and people eat them who are trying to lead a healthy life and eat healthily and maintain their desired weight.

The medical profession and government public health bodies do not have brilliant form in this area: as in the US, the advice has hugely been influenced by the lies of Ancel Keyes about saturated fat and heart disease (he hid more than half the results of his survey because they didn’t tally with what he wanted to ‘prove’).

But it perhaps says something that, for his stance, Briffa received what he described as “an abusive and invective-laden email from the head of communications of the trade organisation the Flour Advisory Bureau”.

Such bodies have a vested interest in people continuing to believe that starchy carbs are the foundation of a healthy diet.

Perhaps Breaker would like to consider that sort of abuse for a change.

And in the meantime, Briffa’s book is well worth a read.