ACCORDING to the Ministry of Health, four out of five Fijians are dying from non-communicable diseases including diabetes, cancer, lung and heart disease.
Many of these deaths may have been prevented if we better understood the cause and effect relationship between what we eat and NCDs. In this special food series, Chef Lance Seeto identifies the danger foods we should be eating less of and how to substitute them in your diet.
We only need to look around us to see that the message of healthy eating is not reaching enough people. We are surrounded by junk foods including sugary drinks or “juice”, lollies, fried foods, salty snacks and packet chips. They are everywhere. Every supermarket and shop is trying to make a buck by selling these addictive foods, which are affordable, tasty and very convenient, but deadly to our long-term health.
For many of us, we eat and drink bad foods every day, without thought or concern for tomorrow. The NCD-causing foods include those with added refined sugar and corn syrups, refined white salt, processed oils including canola, palm and vegetable oils, pesticide-sprayed wheat, modified grains including soybeans and dangerous food colouring and artificial flavouring.
It’s not that they’ll harm you straightaway, but their processed ingredients and chemicals wreak havoc on our bodies, disrupting and changing the way cells and our immune system are supposed to work naturally. Their effects may not be apparent for many years when disease begins to manifest. It is akin to putting the wrong fuel into your car or feeding your pet foods they are not supposed to eat. They will continue to work and live for a time, but then something breaks down that makes both your car and pet sick.
Processed foods are convenient and should be eaten occasionally and not every day. However, they have become staple foods for many families, instead of eating a regular diet rich in the ancestral foods of fresh proteins, fruits and vegetables. In this exclusive new series, we help readers understand and identify the foods we should be eating much less of, and how to substitute them in the daily diet.
Fatal change in diet
For thousands of years, Fiji’s ancestors enjoyed a natural diet of fresh fish, wild pigs, tropical fruits, sea life and vegetables. They hunted and foraged for foods and fuel every day trekking across mountains in search of sustenance.
Their healthy and wild diet was coupled with regular cardiovascular exercise, which got the heart pumping and distributing oxygenated blood around the body to fuel the cells.
Imagine a fishpond without a water pump to circulate fresh water and oxygen. The water becomes stagnant and mold develops as the lack of oxygenated water creates the conditions for bad things to happen. In the human body, the heart needs to pump fresh blood around the entire body to prevent similar degradation.
Our modern and more Westernised lifestyle is making us sick, and the more affluent we become, the chances of developing non-communicable disease increases unless we educate ourselves more. Back in the day, you were more likely to succumb to germs and bacteria, not NCDs.
Life was more active and their foods were all natural just as every other living species lives on this planet. It was not until the introduction of Westernised foods that we began to see non-communicable diseases. We now consume foods that come from a factory or have been sprayed with pesticides. Manufactured foods include additives to improve their taste and preservatives to prolong their shelf life. How do you think a packet of instant noodles stays the same after you open the packet for weeks or even months?
And technology including television and smartphones, as well as regular consumption of yaqona, has made us less active.
However, NCDs are not just isolated to Fiji. The entire Western world is afflicted with the same diseases of modernisation and affluence, caused in large part by the food they consume. The difference in Fiji is that we have the ability to reverse our generations of bad habits, because the fresh foods of Fiji’s ancestors are still available today. We just have to choose to eat more of them to rebalance the way we eat.
The chemical maze
Food chemicals are in nearly every food item that comes in a bag, bottle or packet. Take a look at the ingredient panel of packaged foods and you’ll be surprised at the list of chemical additives and artificial ingredients.
I understand why they are there. They prevent those foods from going mouldy or stale, and artificial flavours are added to entice us to eat more. We assume these additives are safe but many of them are bordering on lethal to our long-term health.
A friend I met years ago is Bill Statham, a homeopathy researcher from my hometown of Victoria in Australia. His 2001 book, Chemical Maze, revolutionised our understanding of food additives and their dangers by listing every known artificial chemical in our foods and cosmetics and their potential or known danger.
It is the ultimate shopping companion for families concerned with limiting foods that include artificial ingredients. Each is listed by their chemical name or three-digit code. A smiley face indicates a safe chemical; a sad face indicates potential or unknown danger. You’ll be surprised at how many products now on sale in Fiji attract the red, angry and sad icon.
Of particular concern are some of the Asian-sourced snacks and lollies that contain artificial flavours or colours that would not even make it on to the shelves in Australia. Now available as an app or a handy book that fits in your pocket, Bill’s decades of research is not only aimed at improving food education, but is helping to ensure that our young children’s health is not corrupted by these additives.
He says that the marketing of foods with disruptive chemicals is tantamount to criminal negligence, especially when given to children within the first seven years of their life. It is this foundation and early growing years that a child’s immune system, cells, muscles and brain develops. Bill’s premise is simple: let a child develop with fresh wholesome foods filled with nutrition, vitamins, minerals and the building blocks of life. And less of the NCD foods; which brings me to an unlikely culprit affecting our health today — sugar.
Are you addicted
to sugar?
Your co-worker brought in pineapple upside down cake, your daughter made cookies for a party, a bottle of “juice” is being passed around and chocolate is arriving by the box from relatives returning from overseas.
Sugar is everywhere. It is celebration, it is festivity, it is love. It’s also dangerous.
In a recent study, sugar, perhaps more than salt, contributes to the development of cardiovascular disease. Evidence is growing, too, that eating too much sugar can lead to fatty liver disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and kidney disease.
Yet people can’t resist it. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Sugar is addictive. And I don’t mean addictive in that way that people talk about delicious foods. I mean addictive, literally, in the same way as drugs; our brains crave sweetness once it’s hooked. And the food industry is doing everything it can to keep us hooked.
Today added sugar is everywhere, used in about 75 per cent of packaged foods purchased in the US.
A 2012 report on sugar consumption revealed Aussies eat on average 27 teaspoons of total sugar a day. The recommended daily limit of sugar for men is just nine teaspoons and six teaspoons for women. To put this in perspective, one can of regular Coke or Sprite contains just over nine teaspoons of sugar!
Now add all the sugary things you might eat in one day including sugar in your morning tea or coffee, bun, cake, bread roll, milkshake, naturally occurring sugar in fresh fruits and chocolate – and every can or bottle of so-called “juice”.
Up until just a few hundred years ago, concentrated sugars, except for small quantities of wild honey, were essentially absent from the human diet. Sugar would have been a rare source of energy in the environment, and strong cravings for it would have benefited human survival. Sugar cravings would have prompted searches for sweet foods, the kind that help us layer on fat and store energy for times of scarcity and famine. But for most of us living in urban areas, food is in abundance yet we continue to eat more than we need.
Why is added sugar
now on the danger list?
As a sugar-producing nation, it is ironic that the natural sweet ingredient that we produce from sugarcane has come under the spotlight in relation to non-communicable diseases. Scientists began to uncover a link between sugar and heart disease about 60 years ago, and now, the general consensus among experts is that sugar intake is associated with heart disease risk as well as diabetes. But why did it take so long for researchers to inspect this link?
A new historical analysis published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine earlier this year and republished on CNN, claims the American sugar industry sponsored research that cast doubt about sugar’s health risks and promoted fat “as the dietary culprit” in heart disease, directing attention away from sugar.
Over the past year, sugar’s effect on our health has been well documented in a constant stream of damning research. The sweet stuff is now food enemy number one and is being blamed for far more than hyperactive children, tooth decay and diabetes.
Many countries are now contemplating or have already implemented a sugar tax to battle NCDs and educate the consumer on healthier eating. Maybe the Pacific Island nations should consider a NCD tax and food labelling on any foods containing high levels of refined sugar and salt, bad oils and artificial ingredients.
A bottle of Fiji-sourced water and fresh produce should be cheaper than sugary “juice” and processed foods. The food companies may not like it, but at least our children and grandchildren will know that we put their health ahead of corporate profit.
The sweet craving that once offered humankind a survival advantage, now works against us. How much sugar are you eating each day?
Prevention and early detection of non-communicable disease may save your life or of a loved one. See your doctor regularly for a full medical assessment and dietary advice.
* Lance Seeto is a celebrity chef and culinary ambassador for Fiji Airways and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.
