High Fat and Ecessive Salt in Children's Hosptial meals

Children's hospital meals 'too salty and fatty'

A recent Survey by the Food Standards Authority revealed that half of meals served by NHS hospitals contravene standards for healthy diets for school meals.

A high proportion of children's hospital meals tested poorly for saturated fat and or unecessarily high salt content.

Almost half of meals served in hospital to children have too much fat and contain excessive amounts of salt.

A report by the Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) and campaign group aworrying number of child hospital meals to be too unhealthy and unlikely to be served in schools because they exceeded salt and fat limits introduced in 2008.

A third of all 451 meals tested would be classified as “red” for saturated fat or salt, according to the Food Standards Agency’s traffic light labelling scheme, meaning they should be eaten in smaller amounts or infrequently.

Cash wants the government to create nutritional guidelines for hospital food. The Department of Health said it was concerned by the group’s report, which found a chicken tikka masala and rice served in a hospital contained 14 times more salt (2.2g) and 8.5 times more saturated fat (6g) than a chicken and vegetable balti with rice in a school dinner.

Professor Graham McGregor the chairman of Cash, said: “With everything we know about the risk of children developing high blood pressure and diet-related diseases such as obesity, it is vital to keep their consumption of salt and saturated fat as low as possible, while still being appetising.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We recognise the importance of good quality food for patients of all ages, both in terms of improving their health and in relation to their overall experience of services.

“Tools are available to support caterers in assessing the nutritional content of meals.”

Is it better to eat standing up?

On the positive side you may burn more calories but you could also end up snacking your way through more food

The boss has decided not to sit down at work. His desk has been raised so that he can type standing up and he also likes to eat while standing. Now he is encouraging us to do the same, arguing that sitting down is not good for the digestion. Is this true?
 

This is an “interesting one”. From a political point of view, you clearly can’t go bowling in to tell your boss that you think he’s nuts. Saying that, there may be some health advantages that are worth considering.
The main one is that standing up all day — versus sitting down — means that you burn more calories. If a 9st 7lb woman sits for eight hours she will burn around 510 calories. If she were to stand for the same amount of time, she would burn something like 1,085. There is also evidence that sitting down for long periods may increase your risk, if already prone, of developing deep vein thrombosis.


I can’t find any convincing evidence that standing up is better for your digestion, although Jeya Henry, Professor of Nutrition at Oxford Brookes University, says that diet-induced thermogenesis may increase if a person stands while eating. In simple terms, this means that the natural phenomenon, whereby more calories are burnt after you eat, rises farther.

But there are disadvantages, too. One is that it encourages people to eat more, for example, if they are cooking and absentmindedly picking at ingredients or hoovering up leftovers while clearing the table. Even worse, we are less likely to remember eating these extra titbits. Of course, given that lots of people graze all day at their desks from charity snack machines to fully loaded christmas gift hampers, this argument probably doesn’t hold much water in a work environment.

Another concern about standing and eating while working is that it implies you will be spending all day at your desk. Again, I know a lot of people do this while seated, but it is better for your general well-being to take a break away from the office at lunchtime — whether standing or sitting — and to eat in a different environment. Doing this could produce more digestive juices, making you less prone to indigestion. It also encourages you to eat more slowly, which in turn can help you to eat less.

Taking this farther, it is a good rule not to allow any food at your desk. If you want a snack, leave your work station — you are more likely to remember it and account for it in your mental calorie count for the day.
Ultimately, perhaps the solution lies in doing a bit of both. In the World Health Organisation’s offices in Copenhagen, staff apparently have adjustable desks that have a lever at the side and can be raised to allow you to stand and work, and lowered again to sit when you need a break.

Given that most offices in the UK probably won’t invest in this kind of office furniture because more staff are keen to have more home like furniture, perhaps the best way forward is to improvise.

Here’s one: stand while making phone calls. That should burn a few calories.

Salt in Restaurant Food

Hypertension - all the medical data has for years, pointed to salt, being overweight and stress contributing to high blood pressure.

The doctors lay this on you, usually during a high stress office visit, in a medical environment, while the GP has a white coat on. It is astounding to discover the amount of people who are on drugs for hypertension, prescribed during the office visit, or worse yet, during a physical. A good suggestions is track the blood pressure readings over time, and see if you can help to control it. Salt and sugar are everywhere, and almost impossible to measure, unless you pour either, yourself.

Restaurants thrive on salt so people enjoy the food. No-one has any idea what or how much salt is added.

Salt is a major issue and a defininte problem for everyone. Everyone today could stand with a significant reduction in both their salt and their sugar content.

The restaurants today are amongst the biggest offenders.