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While in country Victoria I came across a farmer selling unpasteurized milk.

There is a growing movement unpasteurized milk and more traditional farming techniques to stop the use of growth hormones and any antibiotics.

This comes at a time when food standards Australia New Zealand is investigating the code in relation to distribution of unpasteurised milk products. Currently there are some exemptions for cheese products.

There is much discussion over the pasteurisation and homogenization of milk removing any health benefits from a calcium, phosphate and other vitamins, minerals and digestive enzymes contained in the milk.

If there were to be some concessions for unpasteurized milk then there may be additional costs for microbiological testing and increased hygiene compliance.

Many vitamins are in milk including Thiamin’s or vitamin B1, riboflavin or vitamin B2, niacin or vitamin B 3, vitamin C and folate.

Milk also contains vitamins A, D, E and K and other minerals including magnesium and phosphates.

Smaller amounts of copper manganese, iron, sodium and copper also present.

There are some arguments that the calcium phosphates contained within milk are affected by extreme temperatures during the pasteurisation process.

Also that the digestive enzymes that break down the lactose fat and calcium are also destroyed which begs the question if this has some effect on peoples lactose intolerance.

Well I managed to survive without contracting any infection and must say the taste is a quite different from the more processed variety.

However there are more many milk choices available for the conventional pasteurised versions.

In a worrying development, the super foods term is being considered by Food Standards Australia for health claims.

Currently the code by Foods Standards Australia and New Zealand only allows for the Health claims of folate that the consumption of folate before and during pregnancy can help reduce the prevalence of spina bifida in babies.

While there is very clear evidence of the link between the consumption of folate and neural tube defects such as spina bifida, opening the flood gates to generic terminology which is not scientifically based is misleading consumers.

The idea behind the current food code is of providing an educational basis and to increase awareness.

Super Foods is a marketing term coined to increase the attractiveness of certain foods to drive sales.

I would be surprised in scientific circles if they use the term “Super” to describe reaction or result of the introduction of a chemicals, treatments or minerals to reduce or treat cancer.

Take the Heart Foundations Healthy Tick endorsement, which is really just another marketing tool in the arsenal of big corporations in the commoditising of our food supply.

I ask the question whether it is appropriate that McDonalds can have a Heart Foundation tick along side productions that have high levels of salt and fat.

Take dark chocolate for example which has high levels of anti-oxidants, if this a Superfood?, should we go out and eat a kilo of chocolate everyday as anti-oxidants have health benefits for your heart.

You only have to look at how food companies are currently misleading the consumer to see that introducing generic nondescript terminology will lead to the consumer being ill informed and mislead.

There will be a barrage of products with claims saying by eating product X that contains a known super food, you will reduce your risk of Diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

A more responsible approach is to educate the public about healthy eating rather than marketing food to solve the problems of a person having a poor diet.

It’s like telling someone to solve there clothes feeling too tight by adding another notch in their belt.

While the concept of training your taste buds may seem like a strange concept, from our adolescent days through to adulthood our taste buds can become anaesthetised and addicted to certain types of food.

If we hark back to our original diet going back tens of thousands of years ago, there were no processed foods that contain high levels of sugar, salt, additives and chemicals.

Today our diet consists not only of processed foods but grains, meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy products that are genetically altered from their original state.

Hopefully as a child, your parents gave you a broad variety of fruit and vegetables that helps develop an appreciation overtime a liking for food closer to its raw state.

Nowadays we eat a diet consisting of highly processed foods and our taste buds have adapted accordingly with the need to have high levels of salt and sugar in our foods. How often have you found that we have a coffee or tea for instance in it have numerous teaspoons sugar to make it taste satisfactorily enough to drink or adding copious amounts of salt to our food.

Unfortunately the average person falls very short of the recommended 3 to 5 servings of fruit and vegetables. As we are not consuming food in its raw state, their is a growing recently reliance on introducing more sugar and salt to have a more palatable eating experience.

We need to reacquaint ourselves with introducing more of the raw food types into our diets, try starting with breakfast with a muesli without all the added sugar and processed grains. Many of these cereals have high levels of salt that can also quickly increase your daily energy intake.

An easy way to reduce your energy intake/calorie consumption is to reduce the size of your plate.

Over the past 20 years, the average Australian plate size has grown from 23 cm in diameter to a whopping 28 cm. While a lot of the increasing plate size can be attributed to creating visually appealing dishes which only occupy a small part of the plate surface area and are more aesthetically pleasing.

While the principal of having elegantly presented meals in a restaurant is very appealing, it has led to the gradual increase in the size of the plate. Now when you go out to a restaurant the large plates can be up to 31 cm, which in turn leads to a greater surface area for the food to be distributed on.

Most fine dining restaurants will still have a massive area of white being visualable when presenting their dishes but the humble pub meal has been supersized. When you get your typical pub meal served on a larger plate, I have found that any white plate surface is filled with chips and salad.

Back to the consumer, this has led to the purchasing of these lovely plain white plates as used in the hospitality industry, however unlike the restaurants, we tend to feel entire available space with food.

Like many children, me included, we were taught to eat everything on our plate which is great as a little kid unfortunately this behavior transfers over into adult hood. So when we go out and buy these 28 to 31 cm plates, will tend to fill the entire surface area with the contents of whatever we’re cooking. In turn will lead the entire contents of the plate being filled which leads to the increase in consumption.

It’s interesting the change of oiur eating habits over the centuries. Harking back to the Roman period, people in the banquet situation would choose from dishes and place a small portion on their serving plate.

Even in the Victorian Area, the plates size was a more modest size, maybe guestamating at under 23cm when comparing the saucer size of the APC Flinders range compared to the Victorian era..

As you can see from the images the plate size was quite small when compared to the current Godzilla size of plates.

One Australian Company, AFC-Flinders has an assortment of plates. Their standard dinner plates from 16.5 cm through 31.2 cm.

While the range of plates are primarily catering to the hospitality market, the larger plate ranges are available to the general public.

An easy way to reducing calorie intake is to reduce your plate size, maybe try 23 cm which is more than adequate to provide the necessary food for healthy adult.

I was speaking about health and fitness with a supplier as I often do and we got talking about nutrition and especially the eating habits of her children.

As her daughter had a great interest in reducing the sugar in her diet and the chemicals she was ingesting, I emailed to a few blogs about the sugar content of so-called healthy food bars.

Well I was absolutely delighted when I received this e-mail from her daughter going to great detail about her thoughts regarding healthy eating and nutrition. The following has not been edited or modified by myself nor Madeline’s mother.

While it’s easy to feel hopelessness regarding the current trend of obesity amongst her children, there is hope that there is some consciousness and awareness amongst children with regards to their dietary intake.

I believe that many teenagers have an unbalanced diet; many are overeating, indulging in processed foods and the others, starving themselves and suffering from malnutrition, crash diets do not work. There are few teenagers out there who are healthy. Why? Some just aren’t concerned, others may not know. I include healthy, natural food in my diet. Most teenagers believe it is impossible to lose weight by being nutritious at the same time, this is because if a teenager wants to lose weight, they want fast results, thus producing eating disorders and undernourishment. We need to show teenagers that it is possible to lose weight without starving themselves. We need to modify their mindset towards health and well-being; we can show them that being healthy is vitally important to their life.

Processed foods or ‘treated food’ have taken our nation by storm; we have processed foods so packaged foods will last longer and even taste better. It can be hard to completely abandon these foods, try to look for foods that have five ingredients or fewer, and be as natural as possible. For example; you may think that reaching for the strawberry yoghurt muesli bar is ‘healthy’ for you, have you read the sugar content, or the ingredients? Chances are that the muesli bar has many unknown ingredients put into it, you’re better off with an apple, or better, organic. Sugar can be very harmful to your health, but don’t worry! You are allowed to eat confectionery food in moderation. Moderation is the key to healthy eating.

Nutrition takes an important part in health, especially in teens. You really can never eat enough vegetables, but try to limit your fruit to 4 servings a day, as there is a lot of sugar in fruit, keep in mind this is natural sugar, fruit is vital for your health, it provides you with many vitamins and minerals. You need at least half of your serving plate to contain vegetables or fruit, the other half, protein and carbohydrates. Such as a grilled salmon steak served with 5 almonds, spinach salad, and even a small amount of brown rice.

Madeline Meli
Age 14
Haileybury Castlefield Brighton

So next time when we plead ignorance to what we should be eating or seeking a Google answer to what is healthy eating, spare a thought for a 14-year-old who has a better understanding of nutrition than many adults.