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Every now and again you are faced with the predicament of having to eat fast food or something which isn’t of great nutritional value. Last night I visited a friend in hospital and decided to get a bite bite to eat afterwards from the local strip shopping district.

While there was a proliferation of the usual suspects of the established franchised brands, I managed to find a small Japanese restaurant that seem to be a healthier option given the limited choices available.

Usually Japanese is quite healthy with fish, rice and lightly stir fried vegetables. Well this particular Japanese restaurant must have been a hybrid as everything was deep fried with very limited choices if you wanted a healthier option. If this Japanese restaurant adopted the red light traffic light system of identifying the quality of food from good, to average and bad, well this restaurant would feature prominently in the amber to red categories.

Well I haven’t eaten anything deep fried for quite a long time, especially comprising of the majority of the meal so the consumption of deep fried chicken and rice washed down with tap water seemed to be okay. Then within 15 to 20 minutes I started getting stomach cramps and indigestion which wasn’t food poisoning but rather my stomach’s intolerance to eating fatty deep fried food.

It was an interesting experience as it highlighted the effects of eating fatty, salty food on the body after a diet consisting of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, lean meat, unprocessed foods, while striving to be chemical and preservative free.

So it really begs the question what are the long-term effects of eating a salty and fatty diet?

Unfortunately with our growing obesity rates the consumption of low nutritional value but high fatty type take away type foods seems to be on the increase which is the disturbing fact. The problem is a lot of these eating habits start from a young age with many schools selling deep-fried food, hamburgers, dim sims and other another highly processed foods to generate additional funds for the school.

Apart from the increase in cardiovascular disease, we’re heading towards a disturbing statistic where the current generation will be survived by their parents as the effects of years of binging on poor quality food.

Unfortunately fat, sugar and salt is a relatively cheap commodity in the production of take away type food as opposed to producing a product with lots of healthy ingredients which increases the retail price. If as a society we don’t appreciate nor comprehend the effects of eating take away food on a regular basis then the more healthier-based options will always be avoided in preference to cheap take away food which is more widely available.

It’s amazing what people are eating in the mornings, especially what they are feeding their children given the high levels of childhood obesity and increasing rates of Type II diabetes.

While I was in the Melbourne CBD, I was given this brochure and mini packet of Sultana Bran.

While kids are kids and getting them to eat a healthy breakfast is difficult enough, is giving them a sugary breakfast cereal the answer?
When I was a kid we had branded kids cereals which was ok given that we didn’t consume any more highly processed foods sugary foods during the day or evening. Fast forward a few years and the average kid is surrounded by a huge range of confectionery and other purported healthy muesli bars etc.

What is more disturbing is that the marketing is very cleverly pitched at parents by making the notion of connecting more with their teenage children amusing over a bowl of Sultana bran.

With an average serving based on 45grams, it contains 12.8grams of sugar or 28.4%, so with your average growing teenager need more than a teenee weenee pack, the amount of sugar consumed is quite high at 28% of the recommended daily intake if 90grams or 2 servings is consumed.

What is needed is a more coherent strategy with advertising standards and a simplified food labeling system. This will help to quickly identify those products that are high in salt, sugar and fats by removing any confusion and incorrect emphasis on fats and then neglecting the sugar or total energy content.