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bring the levels down. The result is that blood sugar levels swing
wildly from high to low.
In the short term, this can cause dizziness, anxiety, head-
aches, thirst, confusion and tiredness. In the long term, a diet
with excess sugars can slow down the activity of the brain as it
adjusts to these continuous floods of blood sugar. Feed the body
92 " 101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD
continually with a high-sugar diet and it adjusts by becoming
less sensitive to insulin. Low insulin sensitivity means that body
cells, especially brain cells, begin to starve themselves of sugar.
Toronto Professor Carol Greenwood showed that people with
insulin resistance, who were already slower learners, got much
worse after a sugary snack.
Studies by California neurosurgeon Fernando Gomez-Pinilla
of mice fed on what are effectively junk food diets, known by
neuroscientists as HFS (high-fat, high-sugar diets), show a
marked decline in the ability to perform tasks of mental agility,
and in the ability to recover from mild head injuries. Gomez-
Pinilla showed that mice on the HFS diet also had reduced levels
of a chemical protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor
(BDNF). BDNF is thought to be important in encouraging neurons
to grow and make new connections.
Gomez-Pinilla also believes that the high calorie levels in an
HFS diet help to generate free radicals. Free radicals play a key
role in the ageing process by damaging cell membranes, proteins
and DNA, the cell s master chemicals. Neurons are thought to be
especially susceptible to free radical damage. It seems that the
more high-octane fuel you feed your brain, the faster it burns
out and the worse it performs.
101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD " 93
50. It takes 2 3kg of fishmeal protein to produce
each kilogram of farmed fish protein
n the last twenty years, the amount of fish produced on farms
Ihas soared, doubling between 1985 and 2000 and now pro-
viding well over a quarter of all the world s fish. Over 220
different species of fish are now grown in cages, tanks, ponds
and lagoons around the world.
People sometimes think of fish farming as being good for the
environment because it takes some of the huge pressure on the
world s wild fish. This is certainly true of some farmed fish. Carp
raised in flooded paddy fields in China, for instance, feed on
plant debris, and so add to the world s fish stocks and reduce
demand for wild fish. It s not true, however, of the more than
700 million tonnes of Atlantic salmon farmed annually. Salmon
are carnivores, so they cannot be fed on plant matter. Instead,
they are fed on fishmeal prepared from ocean-caught fish such
as mackerel. It takes 2 3kg of fishmeal protein to produce each
kilogram of farmed fish protein. So salmon fish farms actually
increase the pressure on wild fish stocks.
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51. A strawberry milk-shake in a fast-food outlet
contains at least 59 ingredients; making one
at home takes four
n his book Chew on This, a children s follow-up to his famous
Iexposé of the fast-food industry, Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
compares the number of ingredients in a strawberry milk-shake
from a fast-food outlet with one made at home. The idea is to
highlight just what elaborate chemical concoctions processed
foods have become concoctions that bear scant resemblance
to the natural originals.
A home-made strawberry milk-shake, Schlosser points out,
can be made from just four simple ingredients milk, straw-
berries, sugar and just a touch of vanilla. In fast-food strawberry
milk-shake, however, you might find: milk-fat and non-fat milk,
sugar, sweet whey, high-fructose corn syrup, guar gum, mono-
glycerides and diglycerides, cellulose gum, sodium phosphate,
carrageenan, citric acid, E129 and artificial strawberry flavour.
That phrase artificial strawberry flavour , Schlosser emphasises,
involves a long list of chemicals mixed to give the appropriate
taste: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl
formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinna-
myl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl,
dipropyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptano-
ate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate,
ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxy-
phrenyl-2-butanone (10% solution in alcohol), ionone, isobutyl
anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol,
101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD " 95
4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate,
methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl
ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil,
nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose,
rum ether, undecalactone, vanillin and solvent.
Of course, the comparison is somewhat pejorative, as critics
of Schlosser point out, since any flavour, natural or otherwise, is
a combination of the aromas of scores, if not hundreds, of dif-
ferent chemicals. Schlosser s point, though, is firstly just how
divorced from natural flavours fast food has become, and
secondly how the process is playing on children s tendency to
avoid bitter tastes. Natural fruits combine sweetness and bitter-
ness to give their distinctive taste. When flavourists create
artificial strawberry for children, they get rid of the bitterness to
create a sweet bubblegum kind of flavour. Children therefore
may become used to sweet tastes and sweet food, and steer
clear of anything with a trace of bitterness. No wonder, then,
that children and the adults they grow into are drawn to
consume an excess of sugary foods.
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52. Instant coffee, typically costing $25 or more
per kilo, may be bought from growers at just
14 cents per kilo, a mark-up of 7,000%
offee is a huge industry worth hundreds of billions of
Cpounds. Around the world, there are some 25 million farm-
ers involved in growing it, and countless more depend upon it for
their livelihood. Indeed, it s hard to overestimate its importance
in the economic fortunes of many Third World countries. In
Africa, Ethiopia earns over half its export revenue from coffee,
Burundi earns almost 80% from coffee and in Uganda a third
of the population rely on coffee for their income. Central Amer-
ican countries such as Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua are
almost as dependent.
But there s a problem. Despite the massive demand for coffee
in the West, the world grows too much of it, and has been since
the year 2000. That was the year that Vietnam, after a massive
investment in coffee-growing encouraged by the World Bank
and the IMF, came from almost nowhere to become the world s
second-largest coffee producer after Brazil (see Fact 8). It sig-
nalled the beginning of a glut of coffee on the world market
that has led to a dramatic slump in price. In 1994, Uganda s
coffee crop earned it $433 million. In 2001, it earned just $110
million, even though it was growing more coffee.
This crisis in world coffee prices is something the average
coffee-drinker in the West is usually unaware of, sipping their
expensive lattes and mochachinos in yet another new chain
coffee outlet. The reason is added value. For the food industry,
101 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FOOD " 97
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