You’d have to be living under a rock if you haven’t heard the term “clean eating” being bandied around by diet advocates and eager adopters. But what does it mean? There is no official definition. Depending on your personal beliefs… Read More ›
Food Trends 
Advice to the Government
Earlier this week I was asked to speak at the Heart Foundation’s Biannual Forum on three things the Government could do to stop heart disease. While there is a lot of great material in their call for action document Stop the Heartbreak… Read More ›
Lessons from the sacred cow
Some cows are so sacred that they can get away with almost anything. One of these is raw milk. As someone who’s consulted to various branches of the food industry for around 30 years, you could imagine my surprise to… Read More ›
Where has all the common sense gone?
Fad diets. They’ve always been a bugbear to dietitians and nutritionists. Generally they’re written by people with no formal nutrition expertise or understanding of scientific evidence, but rather astute business people who know that silver bullet promises can earn them… Read More ›
Let’s not get over excited about ‘made from local and imported ingredients’
Campbell Live built its recent story on locally made versus imported food products on the premise that New Zealand is “a huge food-producing nation”. It’s true that our dairy, meat and horticulture sectors are significant exporters, but when it comes… Read More ›
Who’s to blame? Time to try something different
We all know about the world’s obesity epidemic and the serious health consequences ahead of us. But we seem to be stuck in a blame game, rather than really committing to effective, collaborative solutions. Week after week books are published… Read More ›
Food Addiction
Are we using the term “addiction” too freely these days? Headlines portray a range of human weaknesses from social media “addiction” to shoe shopping “addiction”. We’ve long known about the serious nature of alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addictions, and the… Read More ›
Canned foods get a thumbs-up for sound nutrition and affordability
Image thanks to FreeDigitalPhotos.net The universal call to increase the consumption of fruits, vegetables, higher fibre foods and seafood, coupled with tightening family budgets, means that a study published recently in the Journal for Nutrition and Food Sciences is highly… Read More ›
Sugar – since when did the facts get in the way of a good story?
Last night’s Sunday programme on sugary soft drinks (TVNZ 10 June, 7pm) promised yet another “expose” of the type our current affairs love to hype up to get our eyeballs and ears on their screens at the right time. Previous… Read More ›
Blind men and an elephant
There’s an old Indian tale about giving a group of blind men an elephant to describe through feel. As each of them is feeling different parts of the elephant, they end up squabbling as none can agree on how to… Read More ›