We’re way behind… Travelling round NZ recently made me realise how backward we are in Australia. We are so conservative in the way we trust the medical profession and the media and we are also unaware of the different views that other countries hold.
RAW MILK IN NZ AND FRANCE
A NZ current affair program was running an episode on whether NZ should legalise raw milk for sale in supermarkets. (Currently it’s only available at the farm gate.) They held out France as the most progressive nation (in France you can buy raw milk from vending machines), and Australia as the most backward country (in Australia it’s actually illegal to sell raw milk to drink!)
FLOURIDE IN DRINKING WATER IN NZ
In Australia there doesn’t seem to be any debate about fluoridation of water. It’s the done thing, except if you’re a hippie. In NZ it was in the newspapers almost every day. Councils are debating the issue. Some councils do it, some don’t. There are leading dentists on both sides of the debate. They were challenging many things most Australians just believe without thinking.
FAT IN SWEEDEN
Earlier this year Sweeden bought out new national guidelines for Saturated fat. This report turns the current concepts upside down and advocates a low-carbohydrate high-fat diet as the most effective weapon against obesity. They reviewed 16,000 scientific papers and revised their guidelines. “Butter, olive oil, heavy cream, and bacon are not harmful foods. Quite the opposite. Fat is the best thing for those who want to lose weight. And there are no connections between a high fat intake and cardiovascular disease.” In Australia our food standards are exactly the opposite and recently Pete Evans was criticised by the Australian Heart foundation for promoting a Paleo diet high in saturated fat!
COLOR 160B IN USA
In Australia it is almost impossible to buy margarine or ice-cream without color 160b. (It’s the color of egg yolk). Sometimes it’s listed as ‘color 160b’ other times it’s ‘natural color – annato extract’.
What surprised me when I went to the USA is that you can’t find 160B in anything.
In the USA and Europe they use 160A or 160C, which are the same colour, but non-toxic. So all the 160b gets dumped in Australia.
Fed Up website talks about this also.
And get this – the same ice-cream from the same manufacturer (magnum) has 160b in Australia but 160A overseas. So companies manufacture for where they sell, and they put 160B in for us Aussies because we don’t’ care about getting poison in our food.