Episode 4 Food: Truth or Scare

Every day, we're bombarded with conflicting information

about our favourite foods.

One minute we're told something's good for us. The next, it's not.

And we're left feeling guilty about what we're eating.

So we've been wading through the confusion

to separate the scare stories from the truth

so that you can choose your food with confidence.

Hello, and welcome to the programme that's here to stop us

being hoodwinked by the headlines when it comes to our food.

"Headlines" is the word, because I read the papers every day

and I have to say, I am confused,

because if you swallow everything you read

about what is or isn't good for us -

well, there wouldn't be much left you'd feel confident about eating.

If your head's spinning trying to figure out which advice is correct

and what you should be eating,

we'll be bringing some much-needed clarity to the table

as we discover how much of what we thought we knew

turns out to be wrong.

Coming up on the programme today -

we have reassuring news about red meat,

after particularly scary reports

threatened to butcher businesses like this one.

It was all a bit devastating, really.

You know, as the papers got hold of it,

and then, of course, it was broadcast on the news everywhere.

And at first, you know, people are scared witless, really.

For decades we were told fat caused heart disease,

but as reports suggest, some old-fashioned fats

are back in favour.

You really get the flavour of the dripping.

It really goes a long way, doesn't it?

It's absolutely marvellous.

And which bread is best - white or brown?

Why an old favourite may not be so bad as we're often told.

Now, if you're a committed carnivore like me,

you'll have been horrified by the news late last year

that eating too much processed red meat

like sausages or bacon can cause cancer.

Bad news for me. I have to admit, I still love a good fry-up.

Not every day, though. I couldn't do that.

Look at some of these headlines - Killer In The Kitchen, Banger Out Of Order.

-They're certainly not sitting on the fence with this, are they?

-No.

-What about you? Do you still eat meat?

-I do indeed.

My wife's vegetarian, but I'm not going to lie -

it was going to take more than these headlines to separate me

from a bacon butty, or at least until I knew for sure

what the risk is. So I set off to find out.

We're a nation that loves our red meat -

so much, in fact, that on average those of us who eat it

get through the equivalent of three steaks every week.

But last October, there were some particularly worrying headlines

linking red meat and processed meat

like bacon, ham and sausages with cancer.

My husband says to me,

"See? I told you we shouldn't eat bacon every day."

And then you turn around and think, "Well, they're the experts."

The report that sparked the headlines

from the World Health Organization

said processed meat in particular is a serious risk to our health.

Each additional daily serving of processed red meat,

the equivalent of one hot dog or two rashers of bacon,

raises the chances of dying by a fifth.

In the two weeks after the news broke,

British supermarkets saw sales of sausages and bacon

plummet by £3 million.

And butchers like this one in Twickenham saw their sales

of red meat drop by 10% overnight.

-How are you?

-I'm very well, mate, yeah. Yourself?

Yeah, not too bad.

Those headlines couldn't have come at a worse time

for Lou and his team, as they were preparing for a special event

that was supposed to supersize sausage sales - not slaughter them.

It was Great British Sausage Week.

We were all geared up for a massive campaign

on sausages that weekend.

We'd got all sorts of brochures, posters.

We were going to do a big barbecue out the front of the shop.

So it was all a bit devastating, really.

You know, as the papers got hold of it, and then, of course,

it was broadcast on the news everywhere.

And at first, you know, people are scared witless, really.

We have our own pig farm as well,

-so we run about 150 to 200 pigs at a time.

-Right.

So if the supply chain here sort of dries up,

we've got a ruined business.

I visited the shop a few weeks after those first headlines,

and I wanted to see if, now the dust had settled,

Lou's loyal customers had been put off red meat for good.

So do you mind if I get stuck in and talk to a few of your customers

about the concerns they have about red and processed meat?

-No, no problem at all.

-Brilliant.

-Let's get you kitted up!

Fantastic. Put on the famous red-and-white apron, huh?

Sales of sausages and bacon nationally,

already slowly declining,

dropped rapidly in the months following the new report.

But there's little sign of that here.

There were recent health scares - the World Health Organization

said that processed meat was very bad for you,

increased risk of cancer - what do you think about that?

There's always a scare, isn't there, about something or other?

I would imagine that it's complete tosh.

THEY LAUGH

No. You only live here once.

Enjoy your meat while you're here, while you can still eat it

and while your teeth are still in your mouth.

So enjoy it. Forget all the other scares. Move on.

Where's my ham?

-So you're not worried?

-No, I'm not.

If you buy good quality from a reputable source,

then I think you're fine. You're absolutely fine.

In fact, all the customers I met had taken the news

with a hefty pinch of salt.

It's good news for Lou -

in his shop, at least, sales are back to normal.

It certainly has recovered right back to where we were before,

so it's not killed it dead in the water. Definitely not.

After speaking to a few people this morning, it seems that

although they may have been a little bit concerned initially,

after a fairly short period of time,

they've got back into their old routines,

and what they are doing is putting their trust

in the great British butcher to provide them with good-quality meat.

So we might not have fallen out of love

with red or processed meat entirely,

but those headlines WERE pretty scary.

The World Health Organization said that 50g of processed meat

every day - that's about two rashers of bacon -

could increase the risk of some types of cancer by up to 18%.

And as someone who's particularly partial to a good sausage sandwich,

that had worried me.

So, to make sense of it all, I've come to King's College in London

to ask Prof David Phillips

whether I should bin the bangers for good.

So, David, what is it in red meat that's dangerous to us?

Well, first of all, we have to distinguish

between red meat and processed meat.

So red meat, over here,

is fresh meat - be it lamb, pork or beef.

And then you have processed meat, which is food of similar origin

-but which has been preserved in some way.

-OK.

So there's the sausages, bacon, ham, salami, pepperoni.

It's had preservatives added to it in order to prolong its life,

and that also altered its flavour,

and these are the things that we're familiar with.

OK, so we've got mince here.

Should mince be on the plate with the processed meats?

No, mince is still fresh meat.

It hasn't been preserved in any way.

It's been processed in the sense it's been mashed up,

but no preservatives have been added to it.

But the mince doesn't get off scot-free.

The World Health Organization's report said that processed meat

like bacon, packed ham and sausages carry the highest risk,

thanks to the carcinogens released when the meat is cured,

smoked or processed.

But the report also said that eating too much unprocessed red meat

carries a risk too.

But what is it about all of these meats that are dangerous to us?

Well, in the case of the red meat first,

this contains high amounts of a substance called haem.

Haem contains iron, and we need iron in our diets,

but also, haem can be broken down in the gut

to harmful chemicals, and we think it's possible

that some of these chemicals might be able to trigger cancer.

OK, and haem - that's blood, isn't it?

Haem is in blood. That's what makes blood red.

It carries the oxygen around our body.

Well, that sounds like a good thing.

So what is it about this that's dangerous for us?

Well, if we eat a lot of haem in our diet,

then that gets into the gut

and there it can get broken down into harmful chemicals

which could cause bowel cancer.

But the report also made clear that all processed meat,

whether it's red or white, carries an additional risk.

The chemicals that are generated

during the processing of the meat or in the cooking of the meat

can additionally cause damage to the cells in our bowels,

and that makes an additional risk of cancer.

As a result, the official NHS advice is not to eat more

than 70g of either processed or red meat a day.

That's about the same as two to three rashers of bacon

or two small slices of roast beef.

So should we be concerned about eating red and processed meat?

Not if we don't eat too much of it.

But it's fair to say that of the many cases of cancer

that occur in the UK, a small proportion of them

will be due to eating too much red meat.

A very small proportion, in fact.

In a group of 1,000 people

who ate a small amount of processed meat each week,

56 would develop bowel cancer.

But in a group of 1,000 people who ate a lot of processed meat,

only ten more, 66, would develop it.

So while statistically there IS a higher risk, it's not as high

as some of those headlines might have led you to believe.

In fact, it's thought that just 34,000 cases of bowel cancer

worldwide are caused by eating processed meat.

So no-one's saying that processed meat or red meat

will definitely give you cancer -

it's just that your risk of developing it is slightly higher

if you eat too much.

So should I feel worried or guilty

the next time I want to tuck into a bacon sandwich?

Absolutely not. I think you should think about

how many times you are tucking into a bacon sandwich,

rather than whether you tuck into one or not.

So despite those terrifying headlines,

there's no need to take red meat off the menu entirely,

not least because, in moderation, it can be really good for us.

And nutritionist Priya Tew can explain why.

So we've got lots of different cuts of red meat here,

which all look very appetising,

but apart from taste and flavour, do they offer us anything?

Absolutely. It's a brilliant source of protein,

it's leaner in fat than most people would think,

it contains B vitamins, some vitamin D and selenium

as well as iron and zinc.

And that iron in particular is an especially useful nutrient

for many of us.

We know that, worldwide,

population figures are that 30% of people are anaemic,

so they have low levels of iron.

When we look at the UK population, it's not necessarily that

everybody's going to have a problem with their iron,

but teenage girls, for example, pregnant women

are people who are more susceptible to having low iron levels,

so we definitely want to be encouraging them

to be eating red meat regularly.

You're saying that actually these can offer

a lot of nutritional value and goodness as well?

Yes, I am. So if you were having 70g of red meat a day,

that's perfectly safe.

So that could be equivalent to you having your 4oz steak

a couple of times a week, for example,

making sure you are having some meat-free days as well.

So there is nothing wrong with having red meat

and even processed meat a few times a week

as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

That's music to my ears. And on that note,

I'm off to tuck into a juicy quarter-pounder, guilt free.

If the news about the link between processed red meat and cancer

has prompted you to cut back on the amount of red meat you eat,

visit bbc.co.uk/food for quick and easy recipes

that swap processed and red meat for healthier alternatives.

It was a huge relief to me to find

that I can still enjoy the odd bacon butty as long as it's not every day.

I have to admit, I took the report really seriously

because we've got cancer in our family,

though I have not cut back completely.

I still have a little bit of it, because I think in the end,

people go for moderation, don't they?

But it's not just the case that health messages can change

to make something that one day is supposedly good for you

turn out to be bad for you the next.

It happens, actually, the other way around.

Now, take saturated fats - found, of course, in things like

full-fat milk, butter and lard.

For years we were told that they raised our cholesterol levels

and were linked to heart disease.

The link now between saturated fat and heart disease is being debunked.

So have a look at this headline, for example -

Eating Fat Is Good For You.

After 40 years of warnings, the doctors say it's now healthy.

-That caught a lot of us by surprise, didn't it?

-Yeah.

Because for years we were thinking about the fat.

The question is, to know which fats are fine

to go back on the menu.

Once upon a time, Britain's dinner tables groaned under the weight

of meals that we'd now consider terrifyingly unhealthy.

But in the '80s and '90s, a healthy eating revolution

swept the nation, turning lots of us into calorie obsessives

fearful of one thing more than anything else - fat.

And a host of new products appeared

with the promise that they were better for us.

# No artificial ingredients

# Nothing artificial

# That's the best feeling from Blue Band Margarine

# It couldn't be better. #

St Ivel Gold.

Half the fat of any margarine.

And it tastes...

smashing.

We swapped butter for margarine, lard for vegetable oil,

full-cream milk for skimmed.

We'd all got the message that saturated fat,

found in animal fats like lard and butter,

was clogging our arteries and putting a strain on our hearts.

So instead, we turned to products that were low in saturated fats

that we were advised were much less likely to cause heart disease.

And that way of thinking stuck with us for decades

until a clutch of recent reports seemed to suggest

that we should forget all of that.

An international study has discovered little evidence

that polyunsaturated fats,

which are found in olive oil, nuts and fish,

offer better protection from heart disease than saturated fats.

Suddenly, it seemed the fats that for years we'd been told

were bad for our hearts might not be.

And the ones we'd replaced them with weren't necessarily

any better for us after all.

So, what to believe?

Some people have said that you can't eat butter,

that's got a lot of fat in it,

and then other people say you can eat butter.

I know that there are good fats and there are bad fats,

but I couldn't tell you the difference.

Your good fats are things like

-natural olive oils, that sort of thing.

-Omega.

-Yeah.

Your bad fats are the animal fats.

I must admit, I really do like butter,

so I'm actually going onto butter

away from so-called healthy margarines.

I have to admit that the idea that butter

needn't be one of my guilty pleasures is great.

But what has changed? I've come to meet Prof Bruce Griffin

at the University of Surrey

to try to get a clear answer on this once and for all.

Saturated fats, processed fats - we all get very confused,

so just explain the difference between them.

The main two categories of fats are saturated fat

and polyunsaturated fats.

Now, classically, saturated fats come from animal sources,

and polyunsaturates come from plant sources.

Classically, butter contains about 50% saturated fat,

and this spread would contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fats.

Saturated fats tends to be solid at room temperature,

like the fat we have here.

And polyunsaturated fats tend to be liquids at room temperature.

It's those solid saturated fats that had long been linked

to heart disease, which is why we were all encouraged

to reduce the amount of animal fats we ate, like butter and lard.

Meanwhile, polyunsaturated fats

were thought to actually protect the heart.

But the reports published in 2015

poured cold water on all of that.

They compared dozens of studies that took place over decades

and concluded there was simply no proof that saturated fat

caused heart disease, or indeed that polyunsaturated fats didn't.

There have been some very large studies called meta-analyses,

which have tried to demonstrate a relationship

between the intake of saturated fat and cardiovascular disease,

and they haven't been able to do it.

They've shown no relationship between the intake

of saturated fat and cardiovascular disease.

And this has led to people believing

that our recommendations are maybe incorrect

that we should be reducing our intake of saturated fat.

My immediate reaction on reading the latest headlines,

and maybe your thoughts as well,

was that if they were right, perhaps it was time to start

rethinking our relationship with fats.

Now, for years, I've used low-fat spreads and oils

in place of the butter I'd much rather be using,

all because I'd been worried about that link with heart disease.

And maybe the apparent change in the advice explains

why some long-forgotten fats are now coming back on the menu.

Shaun Searley is head chef at this restaurant in London,

where he serves my mum's good old favourite - dripping.

For years firmly out of fashion, it's now the latest fad.

James Martin, for example, says it's the secret to fruit cake,

and Heston Blumenthal to roast potatoes.

Shaun, thank you very much for letting me come into your kitchen.

Way, way back, my mum would have had dripping and also lard.

But maybe we could have the definition

of the difference between lard and dripping?

Yeah. I mean, it's simple, really - lard would be pork fat,

and dripping would come from beef.

But unlike my mum, Shaun's using his dripping very sparingly.

Its potent taste means that you don't need much at all.

And all it will do is add layer upon layer of flavour.

You talk about the flavour being everything

for this particular dish - do you find that

because it is so flavoursome that you actually use less?

Absolutely. I mean, the richness will go a lot further

than, say, a butter, which has quite a neutral flavour.

Especially something that you've bought, sort of a generic style.

This beef fat is going to be...

It's going to last you double, probably, the butter.

Beef dripping, into the pan, your toast goes in.

'The dripping's distinctive aroma

'really does take me back to my youth...'

Bit on the side.

'..but will it taste as good as I remember?'

Can't wait to try this.

Mmm.

You really get the flavour of the dripping.

It really goes a long way, doesn't it?

And I think when you've fried it with that sourdough,

you get these kind of sweet, nutty flavours from the beef fat.

It's absolutely marvellous.

When my mum was cooking with dripping or butter,

our national diet was very different.

In the late '50s we ate - wait for this -

129g of butter a day.

That's more than half a pack each.

But since then, encouraged by the message that saturated fats

were especially bad, we've reduced our butter habit

to just 40g a day.

And we also slashed the total amount of saturated fat we ate

from 111g a day each in 1975

to 81g a day each in 2012.

And that's no bad thing, because although we do need some fats

in our diet to help absorb vital vitamins, amongst other things,

back at the university, it turns out that what's really behind

all those headlines isn't quite as simple as it might have appeared.

The implication of some of these reports in the papers

is that you can have as much saturated fat as you want

-and it's not affecting your heart.

-No, that's not true.

These very large studies haven't necessarily come up with

the right answer, because the relationship between saturated fat

and cardiovascular disease is more complex

than we have understood in the past.

The truth is, putting together all the research

hasn't been able to prove a link

between saturated fats and heart disease.

It doesn't mean for sure that there isn't one,

or, indeed, that you can suddenly eat as much butter as you like.

Which is why the NHS advice on this hasn't changed.

But the new research does mean if you gave up these fats

purely because it seemed there was a definite, proven risk

with heart disease - well, I'm afraid that wasn't the case.

I'd love to take some advice about keeping your heart healthy.

What would your professional advice be there?

Well, overall, I think what we've got to do

is move away from focusing on single nutrients,

like certain types of fat, and look at whole diets.

Because it's whole diets and dietary patterns,

changing the dietary pattern, that we know has a benefit

of protecting us from cardiovascular disease.

The best evidence we have is the effects of the Mediterranean diet,

which is low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fats.

It's one diet that we know actually works

in preventing cardiovascular disease.

It's altering our overall dietary pattern that's important.

And while it's good news that saturated fats need no longer

be demonised as a particular cause of heart disease,

eating too much of any kind of fat can lead to obesity,

which does damage your heart.

So the message is still, put simply, don't eat too much.

For a man, the limit should be 30g of saturated fat a day,

and for a woman, it's 20g a day.

But at least you don't have to avoid it altogether.

Well, seeing as I'm partial to a bit of butter,

what should I actually be putting on my toast every day?

Should I feel guilty about having it?

I don't think so, as long as you're aware

that that's providing about a quarter

of the recommended level of intake of saturated fat in your diet,

and you impose some control

over the rest of the day and what you eat.

I think common sense and eating these foods in moderation

is very important. Not just for saturated fat intake,

but also for the energy intake to maintain your body weight,

-I think is critical.

-So moderation is your phrase?

Moderation, yeah.

So, much as I really enjoyed it,

I won't be putting dripping on the menu in my house too often.

Still to come - how the original superfood

was banished from our plates for 20 years

thanks to science that simply doesn't stand up.

In the '80s, we had all sorts of scares -

cholesterol in eggs was bad for you. Then Edwina did her bit,

and we saw the bottom of the market then, I guess.

The food we eat has amazing powers

and can help our bodies conquer all sorts of common conditions.

Every day, GP Dr Rangan Chatterjee sees patients

whose problems could be helped or even solved by changing their diet.

So we asked him to share some of his secrets.

Today, it's the digestive system - the group of organs

that convert food into energy that fuels the entire body.

When it comes to problems with the digestive system,

there's nothing more important than what you eat.

One in three of us suffers some kind of digestive discomfort,

with the biggest complaint simply the pains we call indigestion.

Typically, when people get indigestion,

they get pain in their upper abdomen or behind their breastbone.

Often a result of eating too fast or too much,

indigestion is caused by acids that break down the food inside us,

irritating the lining of our stomach.

The foods that typically can cause us symptoms

are fried, fatty foods -

sometimes sausages, sometimes bacon -

fatty foods such as cream.

If you cut these out,

often people find an improvement in their symptoms.

Other common triggers for indigestion can be curries,

cucumbers, citrus fruits and carbonated drinks.

Now, you may know that if you put a penny in a glass

and you pour cola in, it will clean it overnight,

and that's because of the kind of acid that's in the cola.

It's corrosive, and it's called phosphoric acid.

And that could precipitate acid reflux

and more indigestion symptoms.

That's why, if you do have indigestion, I'd certainly say

you should cut down on fizzy drinks or even eliminate them if you can.

Instead of the fizz, reach for a tea -

but not one made with mint.

We may have used mint to aid digestion for generations,

but in some cases it's been found to actually make heartburn worse.

So you'd be better choosing one made with ginger to settle your stomach.

Or you could reach for the so-called friendly bacteria

found in probiotic tablets, which might help balance the stomach.

Probiotics might also be beneficial for sufferers of another

common digestive condition - irritable bowel syndrome.

IBS is estimated to affect up to one in five of us

at some point in our lives.

Irritable bowel syndrome is the name we give to a collection of symptoms

that include tummy ache, diarrhoea, constipation as well as bloating.

The abdominal swelling we call bloating can be extremely painful,

so if you're prone, steer clear of such wind-inducing foods

as not just the notorious baked bean

but cabbage, cauliflower and even some fruits.

Now, the fruits that can cause this are things like apples and plums.

And instead of apples and plums, you might want to have

fruits such as bananas and oranges.

Those same uncomfortable symptoms can occur

if you have an intolerance to dairy.

Milk contains a sugar called lactose.

Lactose can be very difficult to break down

for a lot of IBS sufferers.

Stopping having lactose and actually having milks without lactose,

such as lactose-free milk or soya milk,

can often help with your symptoms.

As we'll see later, another everyday food

that is often much maligned can also worsen wind and abdominal cramps

if you've got a sensitivity to gluten.

Bread which contains wheat

can often be difficult for the gut to break down,

so instead of these,

you may want to go for some wheat-free substitutes instead.

IBS sufferers who are sensitive to wheat

can get that vital fibre instead from nuts,

leafy green veg like kale and spinach,

and best of all, ground flaxseed, easy to sprinkle on top of a yogurt.

And the good doctor has another tip we can all take on board,

whether we have digestive problems or not.

It's not just changing what you eat, but when you eat.

Try not to eat anything three hours before you go to bed.

Going to bed with a full stomach is going to increase the risk that

you push stomach acid out of your stomach and into your oesophagus.

Add to that the advice your mother used to say -

don't wolf your dinner down - and you should be able to enjoy

eating good food without the bad effects.

Next, our daily bread!

So, Chris, what would it be for you? Would it be ordinary white bread

or would it be big, fat, chunky wholemeal?

Do you know what? I don't mind either, actually, but for some things it has to be white bread.

So if I was having a bacon sandwich, it would have to be

-on a sliced white.

-Nothing else would do?

-I don't think it would taste the same.

The nation, apparently, is falling out of love with bread,

because a lot of the headlines say that it makes you fat.

And I have to admit, I have cut back as much as I can on bread -

and she pulls her stomach in! HE LAUGHS

So, should we be avoiding it?

Or do you think there's more to the humble loaf than meets the eye?

Well, there's definitely more to some loaves than meets the eye.

And there's one type in particular that you may well

change your mind about after watching this.

We used to love these conveniently packaged loaves so much

that we judged everything else against them,

describing the most impressive new ideas

as "the best thing since sliced bread".

But things have changed.

In 2015, we spent almost £100 million less on sliced bread

than we did just a year earlier.

And while many of us do still love our daily bread,

the decline in popularity of some of our best-known varieties

reflects growing concerns that bread is just not good for us.

-I love bread. I absolutely do.

-SHE LAUGHS

Unfortunately for my waistline, yeah, I like bread.

I'd eat it every day if I could.

Bread's one of those things everybody eats.

And if you want to grab something quick, it's a sandwich,

it's generally a bread type of product.

I think, like, I try and be healthier

by choosing brown over white,

but really, is that any healthier?

Well, now, there's a question.

Because while we're buying less bread across the board,

we still buy twice as much sliced white bread than brown,

even though white bread is considered less healthy.

But is white really the nutritional poor relation we often think it is?

Well, I've set up my own bread stall in a Cambridge market,

and I'm asking passing shoppers which type

is most likely to end up in their basket.

So, out of this, which bread would you buy?

So I have four different sliced loaves -

a value sliced white,

a medium-priced white toastie,

a mid-priced loaf of sliced wholemeal,

and a premium seeded loaf.

Which bread do you buy, out of this table?

I have to buy two, cos my children don't like wholemeal,

so I have white and wholemeal.

And what do you think is the difference between the two?

I mean, apart from the fact that one's brown and one's white!

Well, this has more taste, obviously.

This is healthier for you, really.

Out of all these slices of bread, which one would you buy?

-Ooh. This one.

-This one?

-Yeah, I would go for that one as well.

-You both would buy the white.

-Yeah.

-Why's that?

I like white bread a lot more, personally.

I'd probably be buying the wholemeal of these, most likely.

And do you ever buy white?

-Yes, I do occasionally buy white.

-Why's that?

I think white tastes better.

Do you think there's much difference, really,

between the brown and the white?

I know there's more fibre in the brown.

But generally, bread is bread.

It's carbohydrates - it's not necessary good for us

in large quantities, whatever we choose.

It's interesting - while most chose the wholemeal loaf,

because they thought it would be better for them,

they said they actually preferred the taste of the white.

And it's true that wholemeal and seeded loaves

are the healthier choice,

but white is not exactly a nutritional no-go.

It does contain more salt and sugar than other loaves,

but it has less fat and calories than the brown.

Well, this one actually is higher in calories than the white.

-Really?

-Yes.

-Wow!

-Does that surprise you?

Yes, I would've thought, if anything, they were very similar.

-This one has a few more calories in it than the white.

-My word!

So you really don't know what you're eating nowadays, do you?

I'm so took back with that. That's mad.

Those higher calories come from good fats and fibre, thanks to the seeds

and wholemeal flour, something that the white simply can't compete on.

But it puts up a better fight on other fronts.

Looking back, white bread has been made to be good for us

ever since the Second World War,

when the Government started fortifying the typical loaf

with added vitamins and minerals.

Even today, white bread is fortified with calcium, iron and B vitamins,

and in some cases can contain more calcium than its wholemeal cousins.

That's just one of the reasons Linia Patel, who's a nutritionist,

believes that bread of whatever colour can be good for us.

So, very commonly, people come to me and they say

they're not eating bread because bread is fattening.

I think it's just a myth.

I think we associate bread being a carbohydrate

and we associate carbohydrates being fattening for us.

Actually, that's not the case.

Bread can definitely be healthy and it's got key ingredients,

so it's a good source of fibre.

Also, if you're going for a higher-fibre bread,

you're going to get B vitamins, minerals like iron and magnesium.

While white bread does contain fibre, whole-wheat can contain three

or four times as much, something we don't eat enough of in the UK.

That may be why, in an attempt to tackle declining sales,

M&S recently announced it would be adding fibre to all its white bread

and rolls to make them more nutritious.

The store says it's "bread with benefits" is being introduced

because the days of the traditional white loaf are numbered.

But while it's true that we're now spoilt for alternatives,

there's no escaping white bread is still the UK's favourite.

And because we no longer buy it every day,

we expect it to last longer than it used to.

Morris Bakers in Chorley turns out tens of thousands of rolls

and loaves every single week.

That kind of mass production relies on speed, so this bread is made

very differently to the traditional methods.

The demand for a soft white loaf

or the soft sandwich rolls, et cetera,

is still massive, so to fulfil that demand

we need to make it in a manner that puts out the big-time elements.

Traditionally, bread dough needs to be left for anything up to

three hours to let the yeast ferment and the bread to rise.

But modern baking methods

have cut that fermentation process right down,

thanks to the use of additives

that do the job in a fraction of the time.

We need to add emulsifiers, fats and sugars and ascorbic acid,

which help the dough to mature in a short period of time.

The modern process not only cuts down the time it takes to produce

one loaf from anything up to five hours to less than three,

but it also means that bread has a longer shelf life.

The major benefit of making bread this way is that the consumer

gets a loaf, as long as they keep it wrapped up,

they can keep it for a number of days

and they are having little waste.

Many of the natural nutrients are lost

when flour is milled for white bread, but because it's the law that

our white loaves must have all that extra calcium, iron and B vitamins,

on balance, experts say there's no significant difference between

the nutritional content of a traditional loaf and a modern one.

But whether it's white, wholemeal, gluten free or rye,

the bread Linia crowns best of all is the kind you make yourself.

Go home and try bake your own bread

or if you can't do that, just go to your local baker,

because what you're going to get is you're going to get bread

that just has five basic ingredients.

Your flour, your yeast, your oil, your salt and your water.

And if that's not practical,

one reason why sales of mass-produced sliced bread

have been declining is

because more people have switched to buying bread from a part of

the supermarket where you'll find a simpler, fresher loaf.

If you go to the supermarket's bakery

and get one of the loaves that's freshly baked,

that's going to be better for you than actually buying a loaf of bread

that are going to be pre-packed in the supermarket.

Of course that goes for all loaves, not just white,

and whilst it seems that the white-sliced loaf isn't quite

the nutritional no-go area it's often thought to be,

Linia's own choice would always be something

that's little bit more wholesome.

Go for something wholegrain and seeded

because what we get in the wholegrain and seeded is fibre.

Now, fibre is a really important nutrient

that helps our guts work better,

but it also helps balance our blood sugar levels

and control our appetite, which is essential

if we're managing our weight or if you just want to be healthier.

Now, earlier I found out how 30 years of health advice

telling us not to eat certain fats

because they'd cause heart disease has now been disproven, meaning

we shouldn't worry about putting some good old-fashioned fats

back on the menu.

The same thing happened with eggs and the health message this time,

though again has been disproven, has been a very tough one to shake.

When I was growing up, eggs were the original superfood,

before the term had even been coined.

Eggs is cheap, full of proteins,

and what's more, they helps you to face up to the day.

And to face up to her, I need 'em.

Ah, yes, there's a lot more goodness in eggs than people realise.

Marvellous. In the 1960s, we ate up to five eggs a week each.

But less that 20 years later, the mighty egg fell from grace.

In 1988, the then Health Secretary Edwina Currie announced that most of

the egg production in the country at the time

was affected with salmonella.

The advice is not to eat raw eggs

or uncooked food containing raw eggs.

To be absolutely safe, they should be hard boiled...

despite consumer resistance.

Egg sales fell 60% overnight and didn't recover

because shortly after came more bad news.

We were told that eggs were packed with cholesterol,

which caused heart disease, so we should limit how many we ate.

And as recently as 2012,

one headline even declared eggs

that were as bad for you as smoking.

The yolk is what they're saying

is bad for you, in terms of eggs now, from what I've been reading.

The white is what everyone is going crazy about.

Well, I think we've reached a point that you're actually frightened

to know what you can eat any more, cos of all the headlines,

you think, "Oh, my God, today I can't eat bacon,

-"tomorrow I can't eat gluten."

-Eggs or dairy.

So I think everybody is really quite confused about what to eat.

It's a similar scare story to the one we heard about earlier,

which turned us away from saturated fats.

But in this case it was worse

because while eating too many saturated fats,

or indeed any fats, still isn't a good idea,

when it comes to eggs, it now seems that all

the time they were as healthy as we'd been told in the first place.

So to find out if one of my favourite foods

is all it's cracked up to be, I've come back to see

Prof Bruce Griffin at the University of Surrey.

Professor, for many years now we've heard the controversy,

too many eggs are not good.

Where do you stand on the mechanics of all that?

Well, for many years, there was this popular misunderstanding that

the cholesterol in eggs,

which is actually contained in the egg yolk,

is the same as cholesterol that gets into our arteries

and causes heart disease, and they're really not the same thing.

When scientists began to study the link between cholesterol

and heart disease in the '70s,

any foods high in cholesterol became suspect.

And with one egg containing two-thirds of your recommended

daily amount, it's no surprise that they very quickly found themselves

off the breakfast table.

But the science simply wasn't sound.

There was no evidence to suggest that the cholesterol in eggs

was leading to increased coronary disease and coronary heart disease.

We've now found out that the amount of saturated fat

has a much greater effect on your blood cholesterol than

the relatively small amounts of cholesterol in food like eggs.

And that's what's behind the change in advice.

It had previously been assumed that eggs and saturated fats

both had a similar effect on the level of cholesterol in your blood.

But that's not the case.

And it's now accepted that saturated fats have a much bigger impact.

So eggs, which result in far less cholesterol remaining in your blood,

are off the hook.

And yet, in the '80s and '90s, we were giving up eggs in our droves

because we were told that more than three or four eggs a week

would be bad for us.

That had a devastating impact on egg farmers like David Brass.

In the mid to late '80s, we had all sorts of scares -

cholesterol in eggs was bad for you, eggs are bad for you,

because there's fats in them, and Edwina did her bit

and we saw the bottom of the market then, I guess. Then the market was

very stable. It didn't grow much at all for years and years and years.

It took until 2009

for business to improve,

after headlines like these

proclaimed not only that

eggs could now go back on the menu,

but even that it was safe to eat them every day.

And ever since, the good news has kept coming.

It was a massive change in advice, and it seems extraordinary now

that we'd been so put off of food that does us so much good.

Eggs are designed to support life, so they contain a very

broad profile of micronutrients

and a very high grade of protein as well.

If there was to be a superfood,

an egg has to be the superfood because of its nutrient composition.

So I could have as many eggs as I want per week, give or take?

Well, it's perfectly safe to have up to seven eggs a week

or an egg a day, as we used to say.

"Go to work on an egg" used to be a famous slogan

and that certainly isn't going to cause us any harm,

but we don't want to eat anything in excess.

I have to say, that old slogan "go to work on an egg", actually,

I genuinely find that I work well on eggs. How good are they for you?

Well, they are an excellent source of dietary protein,

and we've just completed some studies to show that

the dietary protein can actually suppress your appetite throughout

the day and increase that feeling of fullness, so you tend to snack less.

And what's it better than?

Well, the protein in an egg, for example,

is more bio available to us than

the protein you get from fillet steak, for example.

Better than a fillet steak?

Better than a fillet steak, with respect to protein.

Well, well. I've long been a fan of eggs,

but that comparison with steak I'd never heard before.

And I must say, I've been sharing it with people ever since I heard it.

But off the back of that much more positive health message,

sales of eggs have been rising, and as a nation we now bake,

boil, scramble and poach almost a billion of them every month.

That's great news for producers such as David.

The market has grown almost exponentially in the

last couple of years, it's a wonderful place to be.

The last 12 months has been almost like a perfect storm,

more and more good news about eggs, so we sell more because of that.

You just can't get the eggs.

The stores are empty all the time,

double-digit growth month after month after month.

The egg industry is booming again.

But of course when advice on an issue like this

changes in such a dramatic way, it can cause real confusion.

I'm old enough to have been through, "It was good for you,

"now it's bad for you, now it's good for you,"

so I just don't take any notice, I just don't listen to them.

Thing is, they do a big issue on, like,

"Don't eat eggs. Don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other."

So everybody doesn't do it,

but 12 months down the line, when you've given up something

that you quite like, then they say,

-"We're sorry, we got it wrong."

-"Eggs are all right."

"Eggs are all right to eat."

I think, in another study a few years ago, it said,

"Too many eggs will cause you cholesterol,"

but now it's, "Eggs are fine."

Again, it's just that flip-flop media sensationalism.

The reality is that science just doesn't stand still.

And when new information is discovered or released,

the coverage it gets can sometimes end up muddying the real message.

Do you find it as frustrating as the general public,

the way the studies sort of change their mind all the time?

It's not really new information.

It's just looking at old studies and re-examining old data

and finding that when you remove the effects of saturated fat

and you look at dietary cholesterol in isolation,

it has a relatively small effect.

Eggs is full of proteins, very economical and...

Full of nourishment and wonderful value for money.

'We may not yet be eating quite as many eggs as we did in

'Tony Hancock's day,

'but maybe it's time to wheel out those old ads once again.'

Look, six eggs and only five soldiers.

It can be extremely frustrating not to mention confusing

when new reports pop up out of the blue saying the complete opposite

of things we've long believed to be true.

Now, the tricky thing of course can be knowing

which new advice to follow and which to take with a dose of salt.

And while hopefully we've helped you a little bit with that today,

if in doubt, take a common-sense approach before

-cutting something out of your diet entirely.

-Absolutely.

If you only eat the food that's suddenly bad every now and then,

well, that's usually going to be fine to carry on doing so.

But just remember, you'll find more on some of the topics

we're discussing throughout this series at bbc.co.uk/food

But I'm afraid that's all from us now.

-Until the next time, goodbye.

-Thank you for your company, bye-bye.