Spoon-Fed: Why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong

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Common table salt is mainly composed of two minerals, sodium (40%) and chloride (60%) which both have important functions in the body for muscles, nerves and fluid balance There are many other grating examples that could have been eliminated if the manuscript had been through the hands of an experienced and science-appropriate editor. I stopped noting them down because it was annoying me so much!

Many GPs are still concerned about patients eating high-cholesterol foods such as eggs even though that myth was dispelled years ago

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Tim Spector v cca 200 stranách zhrnul svoj komplexný pohľad na stravovanie. Páčilo sa mi, že ako sľuboval, neponúka čitateľom žiadne univerzálne zázračné riešenia. Any form of restrictive diet will put you or your child at high risk of developing nutrient deficiencies or malnutrition

He is highly dismissive of one-size-fits-all diets, and the notion that weight loss is all about calories in v calories out: “It is complete nonsense,” he says. “You and I can eat two identical muffins with the same calories in them, and you might have a mild sugar spike and no sugar dip, whereas I will have a big sugar spike and a sugar dip, and I will overeat by 200 calories in that day, and you won’t. That simple experiment, which we’ve now done on thousands of people, just blows out of the water the idea that it’s all about calories.” Eating higher amounts of fibre is associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, colorectal and breast cancer, with the greatest benefits at intakes of 25-29 grams per day, double the recommended levels in the UK and US. Eating more plants also means you consume more antioxidants which improve gut health and protect against certain conditions and diseases Because I am somewhat obsessed with the subject of nutrition, much of the material in this book was not a huge surprise to me - although still interesting to read about in detail and from the point of view of a scientist and medical researcher. The contents may be an absolute revelation to readers who are not so devoted to reading up on this subject. I have long resisted what I think of the ‘faddy’ belief systems and it turns out that if you eat moderately of a wide variety of minimally processed whole foods you are probably going to be okay. All of our modern research basically confirms that traditional eating habits were fine all along. Butter, lard, pasta, cow’s milk, coffee: all of them fine in moderation. And another thing, I haven’t heard a midwife advise a pregnant woman to “eat for two” for twenty years- if then. I can’t say no midwife says it, but that is definitely not standard advice nor would it be on any of the written information provided. But he references this saying that his friend was advised this by a midwife. That one-off anecdote does not evidence make.

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Tim Spector’s kitchen fridge is swarming with life: kefir grains, sourdough mother, homemade kimchi and kombucha. Then there’s the vegetables: as varied and colourful as possible. There are a number of recurring themes in the book, the most salient being that, because we all have different genes and, more importantly, differing biomes, we differ in our responses to diet - total calorie-intake, composition of our diet, even the timing of our meals - and also in our response to exercise. Hence, dietary advice based on what is best for the average individual is of only limited value for any of us (which however begs the question of why it is worth bothering with the scientific literature, which inevitably reaches conclusions about average individuals!). For years, Spector believed that genetics would explain much of why people are the way they are. And to some extent it does. For instance, Spector’s group was among the first to demonstrate that people’s weight distribution is largely influenced by their genes. Trying to understand why one twin is sometimes overweight and the other skinny, one gets diabetes or cancer and the other doesn’t, has been a major theme for the past 20 years I had high hopes for this book - after all, Tim Spector is well known and works for some prestigious organisations. However, I ended up desperately disappointed.

Thirst is an extremely well-balanced and effective signaling system that we should listen to - no evidence to suggest forcing ourselves to drink more water is beneficial Many of the health benefits of veganism is probably due to eating a greater volume and variety of plants, especially fibre. A company named Monsanto developed it [Glyphosate] as a cleaner for pipes..." Wrong! Glyphosate was developed 1950 by a Swiss scientist for the company Cilag

Up to that point, we didn’t really have enough belief that you could personalise nutrition, or that you could link the uniqueness of the microbiome to the uniqueness in the food response – but suddenly, you had those two elements together,” says Spector. “We’re all very different in how we respond to the same meal, and a lot of this is explained by the huge differences in our microbiomes.”