Can Good Foods Be Bad and Bad Foods Be Good? Gastronuts

OK, gastronuts. Let's find out what our task is this week.

Can good foods be bad and bad foods be good?

The gastronuts joining me on this week's show are...

I wish that Brussels sprouts and beetroot were unhealthy.

I like unhealthy foods because they've got more of a taste,

they have salt, sugar, sweet and sour so it's really nicer

than healthy foods, as they haven't got a taste to it.

I wish all unhealthy food was good for me.

I wish crisps were healthy, so I could have lots of them.

Coming up, on today's show,

the gastronuts find out just how flammable their favourite cereal is.

They discover what happens if you lunch too much on lard.

They race in a granny Grand Prix to get a gobble of a piece of gateau.

But first of all, we look at the murky world of which foods

can and can't be called healthy.

What is it in food that we are told is unhealthy?

-What do we eat too much of?

-Fat.

-Fat. Anything else?

-Sugar.

Sugar. You've got to watch out for how much sugar you eat.

So, which of the foods we enjoy have too much sugar and fat in them?

-Chocolate.

-Yeah, chips.

Burgers. Yeah.

Are these the foods that we really love?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, they're good stuff.

I want to try and work out why we love those foods so much. OK?

I want to see also if we can tell how much fat and sugar is in them.

-OK. Are you up for this?

-Yeah.

Having a proper breakfast is important. Many people think

of cereal as being a healthy choice, but some cereals contain surprising

amounts of sugar, which makes them less healthy than you first think.

Here we are in the magical world of cereal.

How much in this country

do you reckon we spend on cereal every year?

£2 million?

£3 million?

£6 million?

Come on, guys, get up higher, what's bigger than £6 million?

£11 million.

Shall I tell you how much? We spend £1 billion on cereal every year.

It's almost £1.5 billion.

That's enough cereal to fill up Buckingham Palace twice over.

Some people think that cereals have too much sugar inside of them.

What we're going to do is try to work it out.

See if there are some surprises lurking in these boxes.

We're going to sort the cereals into three types -

Low sugar, less than five grams per 100 grams.

Medium sugar, between 5 and 15 grams per 100 grams

and high sugar, which is over 15 grams of sugar

in every 100 grams of cereal.

So, we have everything laid out here. What is the

first thing you notice about the three different groups you have got?

The high sugars are aimed at kids, because they have lots of cartoons

or they might sell toys?

They're eye-catching.

There's less on the low sugar ones and not that much on medium,

-but a lot of high ones.

-Exactly.

There are masses of high sugar cereals and only how many low sugar?

-Three.

-Three! I would have thought it would have been more split.

Let's have a look at thee at the low sugar ones first of all.

Do you eat these kind of things?

-Some of you?

-Sometimes.

-You're not very keen.

What would you do once you put them in the bowl, you add some milk,

-would you add anything else to it?

-Sugar.

-Sugar.

-Fruit.

The thing about adding all those sugars to a cereal,

you know what you are adding.

Some of these other ones seem to have it hidden away.

Let's take a look at the medium sugar ones.

When we look at these on the table,

do you think that is a sugary snack?

Or do you think it's healthy?

I'm looking at Corn Flakes, what do you reckon,

-is that a healthy breakfast?

-Healthy.

It is pretty healthy, isn't it?

-Did you think there was added sugar in Corn Flakes?

-No.

-It is weird.

Where have they put the sugar in there?

They are flakes of corn, aren't they?

The amount of sugar in some of the cereals here

is equivalent to the amount of sugar

-in these...

-Wow!

Iced buns! Who likes an iced bun?

-Me!

-Does that surprise you?

Yeah. When you think of an iced bun, you think lots of sugar.

It's a naughty trick. That's something that you have

at the end of the day if you've been really good , it's a treat.

I think we ought to have a treat. You've been good.

-I shouldn't be having these.

-They feel quite naughty, don't they?

-Yeah.

-OK, gastronuts, we are here with the big fellas,

these are the high sugar cereals.

They've got 15 grams or more per 100 grams of sugar.

Who do you think all of these cereals are aimed at?

-Children.

-They are aimed at cool kids, aren't they?

-Tell me about the packaging and what you can see here.

-The cartoons.

-Big, bold writing.

-They're quite attractive things, aren't they?

Do you think it's a bit naughty using those cartoons, free offers

and toys? Why is it naughty, do you think?

Because they want you to buy their things.

They want you to spend your money on their product.

Let's have a look at another food

that is as sugary as these ones here, these three cereals.

Amazingly, these are as sugary as...

-Wow!

-What is that?

-Shortbread biscuits.

-Shortbread biscuits, covered with sugar!

But is that the sort of thing you would normally have

-for breakfast on its own?

-No.

It's surprising, isn't it?

Incredibly, some cereals are even more sugary than shortbread.

Let's have a look at the big guys.

These are the highest sugar cereals in our bunch.

Some of these have as much sugar in as these...

Wow!

What have we got here?

Jammy Dodgers, Bourbon and chocolate digestives.

What would you think if you had a breakfast of these?

They wouldn't allow me to have that.

-Why not?

-Because they're too sugary.

So, what we need is a visual way of showing how much sugar is in

all of these different cereals. We've got the low sugar cereal.

The medium sugar cereal and the high sugar cereal.

Luckily, we have a scientist. Our chemist, Rosie.

She's got a brilliant way of showing in a very short amount of time,

how much energy is packed by these different cereals,

but we will need some of these.

OK.

Pop those on.

Rosie is going to burn our cereals

by adding a chemical to each of them, followed by a splash of milk.

Sugar contains a lot of energy which burns quickly.

So the more sugar in the cereal, the greater the flame given off.

The low sugar cereal will release its energy more slowly

and won't burn as intensely, that's the one we are starting with.

-Oh.

-It's burning.

-Anything exciting there?

Like a little puff of smoke.

I think that would show there is not very much energy.

Next up, the medium sugar cereal.

Ready, guys.

Oh! blimey!

-Oh, my God.

-Wow!

I think that would show it's quite high in sugar.

Finally, it's the high sugar cereal.

Just how brightly will this one burn?

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, milk it!

Oh, my days!

Wow!

That surprised me, you wouldn't think cereal had that amount of energy.

I was amazed at how much energy was

burnt out of a bowl of cereal, it was just shocking, really.

At breakfast time, it is easier to eat much, much

more sugar than you expected to.

Now, when it comes to lunch, it's easy to eat too much fat.

So, we're going to play a little game, to see if we can work out

which foods have the most fat in them.

Yes, it's time to play Fat or Low Fat!

Contestant number one is Natasha.

She likes playing football and hates raw onions.

Here, we have two very fine meals.

The hamburger and fries.

Over here, we have chicken and rocket sandwich.

So that is chicken in the middle there, a bit of mayonnaise,

you need to choose the less fatty of the meals.

Which one will Natasha choose? Can she spot the lowest-fat meal

and become a legend in her own lunch hour?

You reckon that one there, a nice, succulent sandwich. You would choose

that as probably the healthy option?

-Yep.

-Well, the one that you didn't choose, the hamburger

has quite a lot of fat in.

That is a big old lump of lard.

That is 19 grams of fat.

Now, then, the chicken and rocket sandwich.

It's got more fat in than the hamburger and fries.

What are the ingredients in there?

You have salad and what else, there?

-Some chicken.

-What is under the chicken?

-Mayonnaise.

-It's got mayonnaise in it.

Well done.

The chicken sandwich is higher in fat than the burger,

so Natasha has failed.

Contestant number two is OJ.

He's crazy about computers

and likes cracking his knuckles, but, will he be able to tell which

of the chicken Caesar salad or the Margarita pizza is fat or low-fat.

Probably this one.

The salad.

A decisive choice, but is it right?

Over to you, Stefan.

Well, the Margarita pizza has...

23 grams of fat.

You're eating that much fat when you have pizza.

Quite greasy, quite a lot of fat.

Your chicken Caesar salad

with the mayonnaise and croutons and everything...

30 grams of fat!

What are the ingredients in that salad?

Mayonnaise, chicken, salad.

So, you got mayonnaise there.

OK. Well done.

So, OJ also fails as the pizza actually has

less fat than the Caesar salad.

Contestant number three is Danielle.

She loves dancing and hates her dad's cooking,

but can she tell which out of the pasta salad, our the jacket potato

-with butter and coleslaw is fat or low-fat?

-The salad?

The salad. Why have you chosen that?

Because it's got cheese in it.

-It's got cheese, what else?

-Mayonnaise.

The jacket potato has 25 grams of fat.

-Would you eat that, knowingly?

-No.

-It's a bit disgusting, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's crunch time for Danielle.

-Has she chosen correctly?

-Well, let's look at your healthy pasta salad,

the pasta salad has...

28 grams of fat in.

Are you surprised that the pasta salad has more fat in it

-than the baked potato?

-Yes, and kind of no,

because that's got more mayonnaise and cheese.

Good effort, you got it wrong, though, never mind.

Once again our contestant has failed,

as the jacket potato contains less fat than the cheese salad.

Our last contestant to try and outfox the fat is Jake.

Jake likes playing hockey and hates Brussels sprouts.

His choices are a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich and fish and chips.

Time for him to play Fat or Low Fat!

-Fish and chips.

-OK.

How is the fish cooked?

It's fried and dipped in batter.

At this point I will give you the option,

would you like to change your decision?

It's an agonising decision, the crowd are no help.

Yeah, the fish and chips have less fat.

Less fat, the fish and chips have less fat. So, why do you think

that the tuna and sweetcorn sandwich has more fat in it?

Well, because it is not just tuna and sweetcorn.

-What else goes into that to mix it together?

-Mayonnaise.

You said that the fish and chips had the lowest amount of fat.

Let's look at the tuna and sweetcorn sandwich.

The tuna and sweetcorn sandwich has 39 grams of fat in it.

The fish and chips has...

18 grams of fat.

So, you got it spot on. Well done my friend.

That is all from Fat or Low Fat.

See you next time!

So, many of the lunchtime favourites we think are the healthier options

are dripping in hidden fat.

It is all down to one very common ingredient...

-Mayonnaise.

-Mayonnaise.

-Mayonnaise.

-Mayonnaise.

-So, what's in mayonnaise?

-Eggs.

Eggs, then you add a little bit

of mustard, so, Danielle, pop a tea spoon of mustard in there.

Slop it in, lovely.

Spoon at the ready, OJ,

the other ingredient in mayonnaise is a little bit of fat.

This is olive oil going into this.

There are lots of different types of fat going into mayo,

but this one is olive oil.

Just keep going, nice and slowly.

Why do you reckon that there is so much of it in our food?

Maybe because it tastes better.

It tastes better, doesn't it? So, we have oil going in here,

and a little more oil. It's got more oil in it,

and it's got more oil in it. That's what goes into mayonnaise.

A very, very small amount of egg yolk

and a lot of fat!

But you're doing a really good job there, OJ. You crack on,

we'll go and do something more interesting, come on, guys.

Like with sugar, we only need to eat a small amount of fat.

If we eat too much, it's very easy to put on weight

and end up looking like this.

-How does it feel, guys?

-Good!

-Good?!

-Weird!

-Weird?

So, so, 24% of people in the UK are obese.

That means that they're really very overweight.

Now, if you ate the right amount of calories each day,

then had this extra amount,

which is two-and-a-half teaspoons of mayonnaise every day,

over a week, you would put on a quarter of a kilo.

If you kept eating at that rate, by my age,

you would all end up weighing 349 kilos!

Yeah. That's big, isn't it? It's also very inconvenient.

Being hugely overweight, can be very

awkward, especially when you want to...

tie your hair back,

walk upstairs

and get into a phone box...

But there is one thing being this enormous can make you good at,

the tug of war!

THEY CHEER

But there are ways to have lovely lunches without losing the taste.

We're hooking up with someone who uses a delicious alternative

to mayonnaise, which won't transform us into tubbies.

Gastronuts, Benny. Benny, gastronuts.

-Hello, Benny.

-Hello.

-Now, all of the great-tasting lunches

we tried had loads of mayonnaise in. Can you make something

that tastes great, but doesn't have anyway mayonnaise in?

I think we can. We do a chicken wrap.

Instead of using mayonnaise we use yoghurt instead.

So, we've got flat bread.

The first thing we do is take the aioli, which is mayonnaise without

the oil, which is made from yoghurt, garlic, there's some egg in there.

Each gastronut gets their own piece of flat bread

and some of Benny's mayo substitute.

Next, they tear up fresh lettuce and add lemon juice.

Squeeze it really hard. I will put my hands there

so it doesn't get in any pips.

They won't be very nice to eat. That's it, squeeze.

The salad gets a good shaking.

Get in there, right to the bottom!

-You want a small handful.

-Next, the chicken.

Marinated and char-grilled rather than fried,

which lets more of the fat drip away.

This is where we put the mint on.

It's fresh mint I have picked and washed.

Don't you think mint and chicken doesn't go together?

That's what I thought when I was first thinking about

what are we going to put in this wrap.

But when you taste it, it gives it a fresh explosion.

After the mint they add chopped tomatoes,

and then it's time to get wrapping.

-How do they look?

-Very nice.

-Very tasty.

Well, the proof is in the pudding.

-Give it a go.

-Tuck in.

You can really taste the mint in it.

What do you think about the yoghurt, though, is it good enough?

Yeah, I think that is better than mayonnaise.

-It tastes lot better and it's healthier for you.

-So, that's food,

made with only a little bit of fat, but it still tastes great.

Thanks, Benny.

-Thanks, Benny.

-It's been a pleasure.

We're trying to find out if good foods can be bad and if bad foods

can be good. So far, the gastronuts have burnt their breakfast

and played a game where they guess how much lard is in their lunch.

Later on, they compete in the world's slowest race, but first...

Can we move food without actually touching it?

Let me show you.

We're going to take a little bit of cereal and put it into our milk.

Something we do every morning at breakfast.

Now, watch. The cereal moves.

Is this magic?

Well, no, actually.

All it is is magnetism.

What we have here is a good example of magnetic food.

There is a little bit of iron that's

added to our cereal to make it a little more nutritious.

As a result, the cereals actually attract,

but we can also repel food with a magnet.

Have a look at these strawberries.

I'm going to bring the magnet up very close and watch.

Almost magically, the strawberry starts to run away.

Why do these effects happen?

It's all down to electrons.

Electrons are inside all of the foods that we eat.

If they are arranged one way, as in iron, our cereal is attracted.

If, on the other hand,

they are arranged in a different way, as in strawberries, it's repelled.

Magnetic food, who would have thought?

OK, gastronuts. I would like you it meet Stephanie.

Hi, gastronuts.

Now, Stephanie is a brilliant nutritionist. She knows all about

why we love food so much and what it does to our body.

So do our bodies actually need fat and sugar, or are they just a treat?

We definitely need fat and sugar,

that's why our bodies love it so much,

they are asking for it every day. We need it for energy and to be healthy.

This goes back to the days when our ancestors were living in caves,

many, many thousands of years ago,

they were naturally programmed to go out and find sweet foods

and fatty foods as they needed them to be able to have the energy to hunt

their food, stay warm in the winter and to be healthy.

What did our ancestors eat?

Two kinds of things.

Firstly the meat that they would hunt and kill.

They would eat all of the meat and all the fat.

To supplement the diet they would find things like this plate here.

We can see natural fruits.

Wild fruits and berries.

Nuts and seeds growing wild in the undergrowth.

They would have been fishing if they lived near to the sea

and digging in the ground, looking for roots

and tubors which were sweet vegetables,

giving them the energy that they needed to hunt every day.

Combined that was a healthy diet.

So, our ancestors did lots of hunting.

What did they catch, what was the food they were after?

Probably any wild animal.

The animals that the cavemen were eating had actually a low fat content

compared to the meat we see in our supermarkets today.

Domesticated animals farmed today don't get to run around in the wild

like those animals did, they are fed much more concentrated foods,

so they build up body fats more than the wild animals would have.

So, what is the big difference between the two pieces of meat?

-You can see the fat more.

-You can see the fat there.

This is venison, a wild meat.

It's not kept in a small space.

This is from pork, a much less active animal.

It grows a big,

big layer of fat on the side of it, but that is almost pure meat.

Have a feel of that.

The reason it's so much darker is the muscle is denser.

It has to use the muscles much more.

So, if we're eating much more fat like this now,

does that mean that our bodies are different

from that of our old ancestors?

We're carrying more body fat as a human race now.

Our ancestors were very, very active. They were burning off the fat

that they were eating. Whereas today we are not going out hunting,

are we, we are just popping down to the supermarket, so we don't need to

use up as much energy as they did.

-Stefan, just lift off that lid for me.

-OK.

Now, that is pure, solid fat.

That's about how much extra fat is on a human male these days compared to

how much would have been on our forefathers, the cavemen.

We're carrying that much more fat?

-Yep.

-Can you hold that?

It's a bit of a tricky one, isn't it? Are you OK there?

Can you feel how heavy that is?

-Really heavy.

-That's really heavy, isn't it?

That's an extra five kilos of fat you've just strapped to yourself.

You have to remember that the cavemen

would have eaten the meat and fat when they had it,

but there could have been days, weeks or months

when they had no real food to eat.

So what was stored in the fat cells

would keep them going for a long time.

Nowadays we can get hold of a pizza or bar of chocolate whenever we want.

So we don't have to store all that energy in case the food runs out.

Our bodies don't realise that, though. So our bodies are still

storing fat whenever it can in case our food runs out.

As long as you are active and burning up the food you are eating,

you can eat fat no problem at all.

Your body needs it to be healthy, but it's about getting the balance right.

Let's take a look at how long it takes to burn off the fat

from our favourite food. Guys, follow me.

-Do you like... cake?

-Yeah!

-Yeah, we all love cake.

-Who wants a piece of cake?

-Me!

Not so fast.

Before you are allowed your fatty, sugary treat,

you'll have to work off all of the energy in your favourite foods, OK?

Jake, you are going to have to work off the energy inside...

a steak!

Steak and vegetables! Natasha, the energy that you have to work off

is contained in a tagliatelle carbonara.

Danielle, chicken burger and fries.

OJ, you've got the big fella,

the pizza!

What we are going to do is a have race,

you need to burn off the calories in your meal

before you are allowed the fatty, sugary treat, OK?

Wait here, I'm going to get your mighty steed for the race.

Hold on.

OK.

MUSIC: Theme from "Steptoe and Son"

-THEY LAUGH

-Yes!

This super duper four-wheeler scooter has an electric engine

and can reach a maximum speed of four miles an hour.

It's used by my neighbour,

Mrs Miggins, to get to the front of the queue in the Post Office.

Yes, gastronuts, your motors.

Remember, the more energy in the meal you've got,

the further you have to go to burn it off.

Then it's cake time.

This isn't going to be the fairest race in the world.

The more fat and sugar in the meal, the longer it takes to burn off.

Ready, set, go!

MUSIC: "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac

MUSIC: Theme from "Steptoe and Son"

Looking pretty good. Keep going, you've got a long way to go.

Yeah! Park yourself up!

Jake finishes first, as his stone age style meal of steak and veg

contains very little fat and sugar and only 514 calories.

The other gastronuts have a long way to go.

Can I come in yet?

No way, you've got a whole pizza to work off yet.

Well done, Natasha.

Natasha's finished after burning off

946 calories in her tagliatelle carbonara.

Still out on the track are Danielle and OJ.

Danielle, you have finished.

Danielle's finally finished after burning off

the whopping 1,456 calories in her chicken burger and chips.

-Can I come in yet?

-No!

There are a gut-busting 2,112 calories in OJ's pizza,

about a day's worth.

It may take him that long to burn them off!

Working out which foods are good for us and which foods are bad

can be tricky, but if we keep our wits about us,

we can eat healthy food that is still really tasty.

We can even enjoy some of our favourites treats now and then.

That has got to be something worth celebrating.

I enjoyed running around in the scooters.

I found out how much fat you need to burn off and what you have to eat.

I would not think mayonnaise was bad for you.

No-one told me it was bad, but I've learned you shouldn't really eat it.

I'll maybe ask my mum if I can look on the side of the packets

and check how many calories it has got in that packet.

I never knew that cereal could burn that much energy and that you could

make a simple, easy dish healthy.

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