Which 2 ingredients do UK people eat the most of?

I have been analysing the National Food Survey stats (DEFRA)  for some months. Sadly this stops at the year 2000 – the FSA took over responsibility after this and we haven’t had a survey since. This is a tragic loss of continuous data.

However, I have just compared some of the yr 2000 DEFRA figs last night with some 2002 stats on the two ingredients we consume the most of – that’s flour and sugar in case you were wondering:

1) The flour advisory bureau confirms that our flour consumption was 73.3kg per person per year in 2002.

2) Our sugar consumption was 38kg per person per year in the same year – 2002. (World Health Organisation statistics).

That means we were eating 730 flour calories and 416 sugar calories per person per day in 2002 (and I bet it hasn’t gone down). That’s 1150 calories per person per day with whatever nutrients are added to flour by law (fortified) and no nutrients in sugar whatsoever.

Another way of looking at this is that we eat 1.4 kilos of flour per person per week, 731 grams of sugar per person per week and just 39 grams of butter per person per week and 1.75 eggs per person per week. Does anyone really believe that the eggs and the butter are a) making us fat or b) giving us heart disease?! Or could it be this enormous quantity of refined carbohydrates that we consume, which we have had no chance to evolve to adapt to?

p.s. is it also any wonder that wheat intolerance is getting so common? This is an extraordinary amount of one ingredient being added to everything from Pizza to bread to sausages to biscuits to cakes to pies to pastries to sauces to cereals and much more.

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