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by Robert MacKay, Tuesday, 10 February 2009 | Categories: Obesity

The Food Standards Agency, which acts as a watchdog over the eating habits of the UK, has today launched a campaign to alert us to the dangers of eating too much saturated fat, which surveys suggest at least 20% of us are doing. Research has led some scientists to estimate that over a lifetime, we are each consuming 1000 pints of saturated fat.

The agency has commissioned adverts depicting a grease-filled sink, clogged up with a month’s worth of fat with the slogan “If this is what it’s doing to this pipe, imagine what it’s doing to yours.” They believe that while we are aware that saturated fat is bad, we do not make the connection between what we are eating and the associated risk of heart disease. Even one cheese sandwich and two slices of buttered toast would take you over your daily limit. Saturated fat is known as “hard fat”, found mainly in products derived from animals such as full- fat cheese, red meat and butter, and raised the amount of the bad cholesterol LDL in our blood stream. LDL causes fatty plaques to build up in the arteries and can lead to heart disease and strokes.

The FSA hopes to focus on women aged between 25 -60, who are not only believed to be most likely to change their behaviour but are generally the main food shoppers in their household. The FSA’s chief executive has also offered ways for us to cut down the amount of saturated and trans-fats we eat, describing how he “ learned to cut down cheese by grating it or using a stronger flavour and ... cut down to 1 per cent milk rather than semi-skimmed". The campaign is also encouraging us to grill our food rather than fry it, switch from butter to polyunsaturated spreads and use more vegetable oil in cooking.

A good way to check how much fat you have consumed is to look at the fat ratio per 100g, which is the percent of fat contained, as you should not be exceeding 11% of fat per day. If you check out the fat content on some of the foods you regularly eat, you will probably be shocked; I certainly wasn’t aware of how much fat I was consuming!

As for the ad itself – will it work? All I can say is personally I found it fairly repulsive and I’m now feeling wildly guilty about the croissant I had for breakfast.

 You can look at it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7878680.stm





 
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