The Fresh Network Blog

The truth about sun exposure, sunscreen and skin cancer

I was in the garden with a friend and her 6-month-old baby recently. The second the sun came out, anxiety clouded her face. She darted inside, reappeared with a bottle of sunscreen, and administered it liberally to the squirming infant, and then to herself. Not in the habit of offering unsolicited advice, I bit my tongue. But I was really biting it on this occasion because what I know about conventional sunscreens makes it very hard for me to sit and watch anyone putting such a toxic substance on themselves, let alone on a child.

My friend was just doing what any concerned mother naturally does given what we are told about the sun. She was following the advice of the world's leading doctors and dermatologists to protect her child from something we are told can cause deadly disease.

But when you stop and think about it, the idea that the sun is bad for us is completely nuts! Our species evolved in the tropics, under the sun, without houses, clothes, hats or sunscreen. Skin cancer rates are on the increase yet we get a tiny fraction of the sun exposure our ancestors did. Clearly there is something else at play here.

Did someone say ozone layer? Yes, there are parts of the world (for example, Australia) which have experienced both ozone depletion and an increased incidence of skin cancer, and there is evidence of a link there. But there are many other parts of the world where skin cancer rates are increasing despite the fact there has been no ozone depletion, so this isn’t the explanation we’re looking for. For example, skin cancer rates in Norway increased by 350% for men and 440% for women during the period 1955 to 1984. The ozone layer did not change during this period.

Skin cancer was very rare 100 years ago and is still very rare among many populations. For example, there is virtually no skin cancer in Africa, where people stay in the sun all day long without sunscreen. If you think that's down to the protective effect of darker skin pigmentation, think again: people with African heritage who live in America have very high rates of skin cancer.

So let's cut to the chase. What is causing the increase in skin cancer?

When will there be a tax on junk food?

Have you read the story about the 30-stone Mum of triplets who's been feeding them fish and chips and McDonald's meals since they were six months old? It's been causing outrage and rightly so. Read the story here. These infants are eight months old now and according to the recommendations of all credible health authorities, including the World Health Organization, should still be getting most of their nutrition from breast milk, nature's perfect food for babies. But sadly breast milk doesn't figure anywhere in the diets of these babies, and it's doubtful it ever did.

I have to get up on my soap box about this story, because it points to so much that is wrong in our society. The mother, Leanne Salt, was the fattest woman ever to bear triplets, weighing in at 40 stone at the time of the birth (which necessitated a medical team of 68 and a custom-built operating table, and cost the NHS a mega £200,000). But these days barely a week passes without the popular media parading some grotesquely oversized couch potato whose lifestyle of idleness and junk food is financed by the taxpayer, along with anything needed to take care of the consequences of it.

Few of us would suggest leaving such people to fend for themselves with no state safety net, especially if they have children to support and care for. And few of us would want to do away with our free health service and adopt a system like the US one where people who can't afford essential treatment can be cast out of hospital to die.

The government hands out money but can't control what people spend it on, including what foods they buy...or can it? In fact, it could be doing a great deal to stop all but the wealthiest in society from making junk foods the staple of their diet. How? Through taxation.

What's your "fat age"?

Today, several UK papers report research done by chemist chain Lloyds Pharmacy which shows that the average British woman has consumed 92 years worth of fat by the time she is 50. This is calculated based on a recommended daily amount of 70 grams of fat. Read about it here. Clearly, this is a worrying finding but then again we don't need a scientific study to tell us that we, as a nation, eat too much fat.

But that said the fat calculator doesn't differentiate between woman A who is eating 100 grams of junky cooked fats a day with a high trans-fat intake, woman B who is eating the same amount of fat but over half of it in the form of raw nuts, seeds, avocado and cold-pressed oil (i.e. the health-conscious woman whose diet is better than average but not ideal), or woman C who consumes the same amount of fat but all of it is raw. Although too much fat is too much fat whether it's raw or cooked, clearly if you are going to overdose on it, there is a world of difference between raw plant fats and cooked trans fats.

Also, these shocking fat-related figures only tell part of the story. Refined sugar may be as harmful to health and as likely to cause obesity as cooked fats. With the range of synthetic, sugar- and additive-filled, "low fat" and "no fat" products now on the market, it is possible for someone to have a fat intake that is well within the recommended amount but still to be eating a diet that is very dangerous to their health. And what about the amount of chemical additives the average person takes in per year (from foods, drinks, the air, car exhaust fumes, cosmetics, household cleaning products and so on) versus what would be a safe amount? For this calculation to be really meaningful it would need to also include our "sugar age", "chemical additive age", "alcohol age"... (many people who are moderate drinkers still consume well over the recommended amounts) ...the list goes on.

The top 10 substances that destroy health

Some people go from the standard diet to a very virtuous raw vegan one overnight. But most of us need a little longer to make this transition, and many decide not to take it to that level but to stay happily “high raw”. Although cooked food is never an optimal choice, all cooked foods are not created equal – some are much worse than others.

This list is a roll call of the common substances and lifestyle habits that are the most detrimental to health. Even if you’re all raw, and you consume nothing whatsoever that’s unnatural or “impure”, watch out for number four – it may well apply to you.

It is impossible to put this list into a hierarchy of “least unhealthy” to “most unhealthy” so it is presented in alphabetical order. Give up all of the items in one go or let go of them one at a time – the choice is yours. But whatever you do, make it your goal to cut these substances out completely, if you haven’t already.

If you’re still eating things that come in packets you’ll need to become a label sleuth to ensure that nothing on this list is sneaking into your diet uninvited. The best strategy, of course, is to prepare your meals yourself from fresh ingredients. It’s the only way you can be totally sure what you’re eating.

This is an excerpt from an article by Sarah Best in the Spring 2009 issue of Get Fresh! magazine.

What cooking does to food, by Dr Douglas Graham

Today we bring you an exclusive excerpt of one of the main features in the newly-released Spring 09 issue of Get Fresh! magazine – Dr Douglas Graham with an in-depth look at what cooking does to food. Here it is...

Is cooking as harmful as some raw food teachers lead you to believe? After all, how can it be so terrible to gently and lovingly cook your food? People are cooking their food at every meal, every day, all around the entire world. Heck, people have been cooking for thousands of years. You survived decades of eating cooked food yourself, didn’t you? And the vast majority of people who count themselves as raw fooders still include substantial portions of cooked foods in their diet – usually intentionally but also unknowingly. 

What actually happens when foods are heated, and is it really such a big deal? After all, don’t some foods become more digestible when cooked? The material in this article outlines the health facts associated with cooking food. It delineates the nutritional losses caused by cooking, and explains the various health compromises associated with eating food that you have heated. The claim that cooking certain foods enhances their nutritional value is also put under the bright light of scrutiny. Hopefully, once the facts are rooted from the fiction, clear decision-making will be much easier.

We’ll take a look at various classes of nutrients, and evaluate what happens to each of them when exposed to the heat of cooking. Then we can look at the bigger picture and realistically evaluate the nutritional and other health issues associated with cooking. After all, when friends and loved ones ask you, “What’s wrong with cooked food?” it is valuable to be able to give a convincing and caring answer. Who knows? Besides supporting your own efforts at eating raw, you might even be able to sway someone else to give up their (self-destructive) cooked-food habits.

Defending detox

Following on from our recent post on the subject of detoxing and the scientists who claim it's impossible, we bring you two great resources to check out.

If you haven't yet heard Shazzie's verbal fisticuffs in the BBC Radio Five studio with one of the scientists in question, head here to listen to the highlights. Hats off to Shazzie, who did a great job of debunking the crazy claims these scientists are making!

The Alliance for Natural Health reacted to the craziness with a lengthy feature entitled 'Debunking Sense About Science's Stand on Detox'. Penned by the ANH's medical director and its scientific director (in consultation with other scientists on the ANH's expert committee), it contains a wealth of clever-clogs information on the body's natural detoxification systems, why those systems may be struggling and why there is no doubt that there are natural steps we can take that make a huge difference.

Our bodies are supposed to be beautiful!

Eight years ago I was at a corporate event having lunch with a group of female friends when the topic of cellulite came up. It has stuck in my mind because it wasn’t long after this that I discovered, and started following, the raw diet and lifestyle. The conversation went something like this:

“Did you see those photos of [X celebrity] in the papers the other day? She has cellulite!”

“And she’s really thin and she’s always on a diet.”

“It just goes to show it’s true what they say – you can’t avoid it.

“No, every woman has it.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“No, nothing.”

And so we carried on downing our wines and our coffees as we digested the three-course wheat, meat and dairy-based meal we had just enjoyed. And we continued discussing how our thighs had one day been attacked by some mysterious and malign force over which we had no control.

What I’ve since discovered is that once you stop consuming the foods that cause cellulite, you stop having cellulite! But I'll save the rest of my cellulite story for another time...

Today a new book by Susie Orbach, author of the 1978 classic Fat is a Feminist Issue, was released. It’s called, simply, Bodies. Orbach has long been vocal in condemning the pain and suffering women put themselves through in order to conform to the culturally-defined dictates about how the female body should look.

In this new book she argues that this problem is now more all-pervasive than ever. The preoccupation we have with our bodies – which manifests in dieting and gym memberships and also in eating disorders and surgical procedures – is a very troubling collective neurosis, she points out. And one which now affects not only women but ever-increasing numbers of men, too.

Refined carbs as addictive as cigarettes, says study

From today's Daily Mail:

Could it really be that sweets and chocolate are as addictive as cigarettes?

That's the controversial conclusion from a study by New Zealand scientists who found that foods made largely from refined sugar and flour have the same addictive qualities as tobacco.

'Heavily processed carbohydrates such as cornflakes, sweets and croissants quickly raise the amount of sugar in your blood,' explains lead researcher Dr Simon Thornley, a registrar with the Auckland Regional Public Health Service.

'This rush of sugar stimulates the same areas of the brain that are involved with addiction to nicotine and other drugs.'

In other words, some of us may be piling on the pounds not just because we are greedy but because we are addicted. 

If Dr Thornley's claim is supported, that would open up new ways of dealing with the obesity crisis, including a food version of the nicotine patch used to help smokers quit.

'Drug addicts have to keep taking larger amounts of their chemical of choice. They find it difficult to stop, they keep doing it despite negative consequences and they feel depressed if they do stop,' says Thornley, whose paper was published in the journal Medical Hypotheses. 'People do all those things around refined carbohydrates.'

Just how big a contribution this could be making to the obesity crisis isn't yet clear. 'We need more research,' says Thornley, 'but the evidence for refined carbs being potentially addictive is growing fast. There's a good case for treating highly refined foods as we do cigarettes - banning TV ads, taxing them and even insisting on pack health warnings.'

Read the rest of the article here.

Would you like fries with that?

I spent most of today editing articles for the next issue of Get Fresh! magazine, and in the course of fact-checking one of them, I found myself on the website of a well-known fast food chain, clicking on their nutrition tab and scrolling through lists of ingredients. And I mean scrolling. Here as an example, dear reader (as I am so shocked by this I couldn't not share it), is the natural goodness that goes into said fast food chain's bacon sandwich:

INGREDIENTS: Egg Patty [Whole Eggs, Whey, Pasteurized Process Monterey Jack Cheese (Monterey Jack Cheese (Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes), Water, Milkfat, Sodium Phosphate, Salt, Sodium Hexametaphosphate), Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Skim Milk, Potatoes (Potatoes, Dextrose, Disodium Dihydrogen Pyrophosphate (Added To Maintain Color), Potassium Sorbate (Added To Maintain Freshness), Swiss And Mushroom Round (Swiss Cheese And Pasteurized Swiss Cheese Product (Swiss Cheese (Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes), Water, Milkfat, Sodium Phosphate, Lactic Acid, Salt, Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Natural Flavors, Sodium Citrate, Xanthan Gum), Roasted Mushrooms (Mushrooms, Canola Oil, Salt , Pepper)), Butter Flavored Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Soybean Lecithin, Artificial Flavors, Butter Oil, Vitamin A Palmitate Beta Carotene Added For Color), Dried Cream Cheese Product (Cream Cheese (Pasteurized Milk And Cream Cheese Culture, Salt, Carob Bean Gum), Non Fat Dry Milk And Sodium Phosphate), Soybean Oil, Onions, Modified Food Starch, Salt, Xanthan Gum, Liquid Pepper Extract And Citric Acid], Croissant (Enriched Unbleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Enzyme, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Palm Oil, Sugar, Canola and/or Soybean Oil, Contain less than 2% of the following: Margarine (Vegetable Oils [Palm, Canola], Water, Mono and Diglycerides, Potassium Sorbate [to Preserve Freshness], Citric Acid, Artificial Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D3), Yeast, Wheat Gluten, Salt, Artificial Flavor, Datem, Dextrose, Corn Syrup Solids, Fructose, Sodium Caseinate (a Milk Derivative), Monoglycerides, Soy Lecithin, Locust Bean Gum, Colored with [Tumeric and Annatto Extracts], Ascorbic Acid, Sodium Steroyl Lactylate, Leavening [Baking Soda], Azodicarbonamide, Pepper Bacon (Bacon Cured with Water, Salt, Sugar, Smoke Flavoring, Sodium Phosphate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite, Bellies Coated with a Mixture of Ground Black Pepper), Colby Jack Cheese (Colby Cheese [Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes and Annatto (vegetable color)], Monterey Jack Cheese [Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes]).

Companies make and sell stuff like this? And it's legal? To package this stuff as food that men, women and children then eat?

But of course nowadays fast food chains cater for healthy eaters too, so there are several salads on the menu. You can't go far wrong with a salad, right? Well, we'll skip the Chicken and the Caesar but let's take a look at the ingredient list of their Mediterranean Salad......... Just lettuce, tomatoes and...

Why I'm getting things done (plus random ramblings about Christmases past and present!)

I just love this time of year and always have. I enjoy the celebration, the get-togethers with loved ones, the excitement, the anticipation and (since Christmas 2002) the sheer magic of experiencing it all with a small child. And almost as much as all of the fun stuff, I enjoy the natural urge to take stock of the year that’s closing and to plan for the one about to begin.

But for me, until a few Christmases ago, my enjoyment of all of the above was curtailed by the fact I invariably spent this season in a junk food-induced fog. I’d exist on a diet based around canapés, mince pies, chocolates, cake, cheese, wine, champagne and more chocolates.

I’ve been ‘health conscious’ since the tender age of 14, but until my 'rawakening' I’d invariably assume a different personality over the festive season...one that wanted to consume its weight in marzipan and Milk Tray! Over the last six years that has all changed, and during that time I’ve been lucky enough to make many friends who have walked just the same path as I have, with the same happy results.

Like all of us, I also have a few people in my life who remain genuinely perplexed as to why I eat the way I do. I wish I could make them understand I’ve had hands down the best Christmases ever since I banished junk food from my life! The fog I used to be in for the whole of December and into the new year? I still remember exactly what it felt like... Yes, I had fun, but once you really experience that you can have all that fun and more without the negative side effects…well, why wouldn’t you?!!