Miguel Ángel Lurueña, doctor in Food Science and Technology and author of the book 'They don't mess with food', in Gijón.Paco Paredes
Are gummies made of petroleum?
Responding to this myth of food, and to many others, led Miguel Ángel Lurueña (Béjar, Salamanca, 43 years old) to create Gominolasdepetroleo.com, a pioneering blog in scientific dissemination on food that has already completed a decade.
This doctor in Food Science and Technology who advises the public food industry
Don't mess with food
(Destination), where he tries to combat misinformation and ignorance in this area.
And no, as the expert explains, gummies are not made from petroleum, but from gelatin obtained from pork bones and skins.
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Question.
How do they bundle us with food?
Answer.
Of many ways.
Especially with advertising.
Other times we don't know how to interpret the labels.
For example, York ham does not exist, it is a colloquial name.
There are commercial categories: cooked ham, cold cuts of ham ... Some companies make up the packaging with picaresque to sell us lean meat as if it were cooked ham.
It happens with more products: one thing is cheese, made with milk and ferments, and another is melted cheese, made with cheese to which melting salts are added, which change the structure of the cheese.
There are also cheese substitutes, which are fat blends.
If we do not know those categories, we buy a product thinking that it is another.
Q.
Why is it so difficult to read the labels?
R.
They imply things that are not.
There is a cocoa powder that has a picture of a moon, a sleeping bear and says "Good night."
It does not say that it helps to sleep, but the message is that.
Then there is the lack of knowledge: we do not distinguish the voluntary information and the mandatory part, which is the official name of the product, the list of ingredients and the nutritional information.
Food is key because we do it every day and it influences our health and our economy.
We should know basic questions to eat healthy and not spend a lot.
Q.
Is the ingredient list or the nutritional information more important?
A.
We look at the labels, but not what we should look at.
You see if something has a lot of sugar, a lot of calories, and a lot of fat.
But the important thing is to look at where they come from.
It is not the same that a product has 20% sugars that come from a fruit, or 20% fats that come from nuts, or that it has the same proportion and comes from added sugars or palm oil fats.
The important thing is in the list of ingredients, which are displayed in order according to their quantity.
Q.
What ingredients set off alarms?
Q.
If sugars (fructose, sucrose ...), refined flours and poor quality fats (such as palm oil) appear first on the list, it is a good clue that it is an unhealthy food.
And also honey, which has a good reputation, is basically composed of more than 82% sugars and 17% water.
Q.
Is saccharin better than sugar?
A.
Artificial sweeteners are safe, but if we substitute sweetener for sugar in a donut, it's still insane.
Yes, they can help reduce the consumption of sugars in other ways: change a tablespoon of sugar in coffee for saccharin.
They also have drawbacks: there are hypotheses that sweeteners can affect intestinal microbiotics and increase the sweet tooth.
You see if something has a lot of sugar, a lot of calories, and a lot of fat.
But the important thing is to look at where they come from.
Q.
How much sugar should a balanced diet have?
A.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) says the less the better ["It is not possible to establish a tolerable daily intake of sugars on a scientific basis," says the agency].
It does not mean that by eating a donut we are going to get sick.
The sugar in fruit is better than that in pastries.
In addition, the effect of sugars depends on the rate of absorption, so if we eat an orange these sugars are metabolized slowly, that is, well;
On the other hand, if we drink an orange juice, we metabolize sugars quickly, and the body needs to remove this sugar by generating a lot of insulin, and in the long run you can develop diabetes and become overweight.
Besides, the fruit has fiber and other positive nutrients.
Q.
Do you have to pay close attention to nutrients?
A.
Food is much more than the sum of nutrients.
Many companies take advantage: they sell us some cookies with added vitamins and minerals and we can think that they are good.
But they are unhealthy products, with refined flours, poor quality fats and sugars.
And breakfast cereals also tend to have a lot of sugar (except for whole grains).
Q.
Are food additives safe?
A.
Those on the market are safe, and are continually re-evaluated to see if the doses in which they are consumed are safe.
If habits change and we eat more of an additive, they are reevaluated and if there is the slightest suspicion, it is considered to ban them, as has happened with titanium oxide.
And new ones are approved, like stevia.
Q.
The WHO said that processed meat is carcinogenic.
Why do we consume it?
R.
We are surrounded by carcinogenic substances.
When we fry potatoes, acrylamide is produced, which can cause cancer.
We cannot ban meat or potatoes, coffee or cookies, which can have potentially carcinogenic substances.
Recommendations are given such as frying the potatoes at a lower temperature and removing them before the brown color comes out.
Processed meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer, but it is not known which substances increase this risk.
Q.
Eating well is eating everything?
R.
30 years ago there was only a corridor of insane things;
Today it is the other way around, it is difficult to find what is healthy.
If today we say eat everything, you may think that you have to eat chocolate, cookies, soft drinks ... Spanish children and adolescents consume 50 grams of added sugars a day, through soft drinks, pastries ... The recommendation would be: eat a variety but among a healthy offer : vegetables, greens, legumes ...
Energy drinks in a supermarket refrigerator.
Matthew horwood
Q.
What is the most unhealthy product in supermarkets?
A.
Energy drinks, which have up to 72 grams of sugar per container, and a lot of caffeine, the equivalent of three coffees.
In addition, they are taken by those who should eat better: adolescents.
Some take several cans in a row.
Consumption has asked the industry to make packaging smaller and lower caffeine.
In some countries they are not sold to children under 16 years of age and it should be done in Spain.
Q.
Is organic food healthier?
A.
It doesn't have to. We have a perception of those foods that are not reality. We associate the term "ecological" as more sustainable, healthy, but what it means is that it complies with a European regulation, which restricts the use of certain pesticides, but does not take into account the consumption of water, the carbon footprint or the plastics that uses. We can bring coconuts from the Ivory Coast packed in plastic and put the ecological seal on them. The regulation is based on the naturalistic fallacy: thinking that the natural is good just because it is. Snake venom or poisonous mushrooms are natural and toxic. What the regulation does do is give more space to livestock. The sanitary rules are the same for all products, whether they are organic or not. As for healthy, the composition is basically the same.
Q.
There are articles that say that drinking wine or beer is healthy ...
R.
It is outrageous.
Many times they are financed by the industry.
Alcohol is toxic and there is no safe dose.
If we drink, we should do so thinking that it is harmful.
Recently, several companies threatened to report whoever used that term.
Ultra-processing is a form of processing.
Q.
Tuna is not recommended for children.
And for the others?
A.
Bluefin tuna, emperor, swordfish and shark accumulate mercury from the fish they eat.
The recommendation is that pregnant women or young children do not consume it.
In adults, the risk is lower, due to having a higher body weight, so the effect of the toxic compound is milder.
That is why it is recommended to eat in moderation.
Q.
Why doesn't the law define what is ultra-processed?
A.
I suppose there are pressures from the industry.
Recently, several companies threatened to report whoever used that term.
Ultra-processing is a form of processing.
I prefer to talk about unhealthy products.
It is true that many are insane: cookies, pastries ... But there are also little processed, such as beer or honey.
Q.
Are there superfoods?
A.
I don't like that term.
It is said of foods with a high proportion of beneficial nutrients, but it is associated with exotic products: goji berries, chia seeds ... They are usually very expensive and come from far away.
Most are healthy products, but it seems that to eat well you have to do something special and spend a lot of money.
It's a mistake.
We have superfoods very close and we pay little attention to them, such as chickpeas, other legumes or nuts.
Q.
Is eating healthy expensive?
P.
Eating well is not expensive, the problem is that eating poorly is very cheap.
A kilo of apples is affordable, but a box of cookies is worth the same and can last 15 days.
Some countries put taxes on sugary drinks, because they are the products on which there is more evidence that their intake produces adverse health effects: tooth decay, obesity, type 2 diabetes ... This is what Spain did this year.
That discourages consumption.
Q.
Will future NutriScore front-end labeling, which scores foods from A to E, help me make healthier food choices?
A.
No. The way you calculate the score can be tricky. There are breakfast cereals with a lot of sugar that would receive a bad mark (D or E), but companies add fiber, which scores positive, and the mark is compensated, leaving an A or a B. But they are still products insane.