Chocolate and Beyond

Not in my cuppa - why we need to keep mega dairies out of the UK

We like our great British countryside don't we? Rolling hills of green, privet hedges and cows grazing the pasture. But imagine the cows and fields were replaced with massive, corrugated sheds instead? Doesn't quite sum up what a day in the country is all about.

But we need to act if we don't want our beautiful landscapes to change in that way, and if we don't want to drink milk from 'battery cows'. That is, cows kept in conditions not dissimilar to the millions of poor hens who suffer terribly in barren battery cages. I definitely don't want that to happen, and it was great to hear of the recent WSPA campaign success when Nocton Dairies had their application turned down (yet again) to install a US-style intensive dairy farm in Lincolnshire.

The threat isn't over though. While Nocton Dairies were unsuccessful on this occasion, they will no doubt try again, and other dairy businesses continue to push towards building intensive dairy farms, such as the proposed Leighton Farm expansion in Wales.

'Mega-dairies' impose terrible suffering upon cows. They are kept not in fields but inside stalls with little room to move, and have no opportunity for natural grazing. They are milked to the extreme, three times a day, and the burden this places on them makes their lives even shorter than dairy cows' lives already are. It isn't just the cows that suffer though, the environmental impact is also significant, with waste polluting local water supplies and causing massive problems.

Dairy cows in the US are already subjected to dreadful suffering through intensive 'mega dairies' - PETA are investigating one currently. We must prevent this from ever being the case in the UK. It must not be that we have to keep campaigning against mega-dairy applications, but that there must be no opportunity for dairies to make the application in the first place, with a forwards-ban on this style of farming in the UK.

I have become part of the WSPA's 'Not in my cuppa' campaign, and part of a small team of people looking to spread the word on this issue, to make sure intensive dairy farms never become part of the UK landscape. We want our cows in fields, not in factory farms (can you imagine looking at huge ugly sheds while driving in the countryside, rather than seeing cows grazing in fields?). I hope after reading this, you'll think the same.

Join the 'Not in my cuppa' campaign and make sure the milk in your tea or coffee never comes from a battery cow.

Slimsticks - yet another 'revolutionary new weight loss aid'

How often have we heard the words revolutionary new weight loss aid'? The phrase has become deaf to my ears, not just because none of the so-called 'aids' ever actually live up to their promise, but because the term is so grossly over-used for the minimal to zero assistance in weight loss that these products offer.

I've received a press release for Slimsticks - you guessed it, another revolutionary new weight loss aid! Apparently, Slimsticks is clinically proven' to reduce food intake by up to 30%, with the claim that two to three sachets of this product a day can help an average woman (who is eating 2000 calories a day) to eat up to 600 calories less.

Anyone who has read Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science (if you haven't, it's a wonderful eye-opener) will know that such clinically proven' claims tend to be very loose indeed. Anyone selling for profit will tend to make results sit in their favour, funnily enough, and studies are usually considerably flawed.

Without testing this 'wonder aid' of course, I can't dispute that it may have some effectiveness (it apparently works as an appetite suppressant). But the fact is, that at £29.99 for a pack of 30 sachets, which individually need to be taken two or three times a day, you're likely to be paying around £30-£60 a month to use them.

And will they teach you how to tackle your emotional issues around food that cause you to overeat in the first place? Will they help you get used to eating normally and intuitively to address long-term weight management rather than a short-term goal? No.

And the chances are that after spending all that money, and having your appetite artificially suppressed (if they work), you'll put the weight back on anyhow.

Ginnifer Goodwin: not on a 'diet', just on Weight Watchers

It's very bizarre. According to an article in today's New York Daily News, actress Ginnifer Goodwin claims that because of Weight Watchers, she's "never had to diet."

Er, hello? Now if I'm not sorely mistaken, Weight Watchers IS a diet. How is that no one ever mentioned this very well-publicised fact to Ms Goodwin? She told PEOPLE "I've never had to go on a diet and that's because of Weight Watchers." Which, apparently, she's been doing since she was nine years old.

So, because she's been on a diet for 23 years, she's never had to diet. That doesn't make sense.

I appreciate that Goodwin has avoided the very unhealthy pattern of yo-yo dieting by maintaining her weight through an eating programme, and I imagine that since she started so young (which is controversial in itself), this maybe has allowed her to set up a lifetime habit of control that she is able to stick with. But it doesn't change the fact that she is following a diet.

So please Ginnifer, don't tell people otherwise. You may be in a perpetual 'maintainance phase', but you are on a diet.

New Beyond Chocolate workshops coming up in April

For the readers of my blog who are interested in taking the principles of Beyond Chocolate further into their lives, you might be interested to know that the two sisters behind Beyond Chocolate have launched 2 new workshops, one running April 4th and one running April 5th.

I just thought I'd provide the details of them here, if you fancied joining up for one of them (and more details can be found on the  Beyond Chocolate website):

BBC podcast on LighterLife programme

If you would like to hear the podcast from the BBC from the Inside Out programme which contained the news report on LighterLife, you can download it HERE.

I believe it should was on the East Anglia TV screening, and should be available to watch on the website, but I can't find it. If anyone else can uncover the link, please let me know!

See related posts here:

The LighterLife debate continued

LighterLife 'misled' its clients say the BBC

A Lighter Life but for how long?

LighterLife 'misled' its clients says the BBC

I'm really grateful to Sarah for providing the link to this article on the BBC news pages about Lighter Life, of which the content pretty much supports what I was saying in my previous blabberings, a Lighter Life but for how long?

I will be watching the television documentary made by Inside Out which is on very shortly, but am gobsmacked about how much momentum this diet programme has been allowed to gain before anyone started shouting about it!

A juicy encounter in the Big Apple

I've been in New York for a week (hence the long absence from writing!) but it was a rather wonderful visit, not least because I got to meet up with 'Juicy Woman' Andrea Amador. We have been planning to do some work together, so although I was in the Big Apple on holiday with my teenage son, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to see if Andrea could get together with me to 'talk shop'.

We had breakfast at a little cafe in Greenwich Village, and I was totally inspired learning more about Andrea's own journey and battles with her relationship with food.