Nutrition deal wanted by food expert

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 6

Nutrition deal wanted by food expert

PA Hamilton Food industry groups should agree to a sensible policy for human nutrition and promote their products according to that balance, says a nutrition foundation director, Dr John Birkbeck.

Speaking at a seminar at Ruakura recently,- Dr Birkbeck outlined several instances of research findings being promoted to the public which • were now being doubted. “Red meat, pork, chicken and fish (industries) ought to agree to a sensible policy for human nutrition and base their advertising on that balance,” he said.

He indicated there had been errors in picking out only the three factors of smoking, blood cholestrol levels, and high blood pressure as being significant causes of heart disease. “There are other factors which combined have greater effect than those three factors, genetics for one,” he said. He said New Zealand’s death rate from coronary

heart disease had been falling since 1980. “It is possibly more to do with less men smoking than diet,” he said. Dr Birkbeck said he also wondered if nutritionists were right in promoting the polyunsaturated margarines. “Our requirements for fatty acids are quite small. We may have been quite wrong in pushing polyunsaturated margarines. We may have been flooding people’s systems with omega 6 (polyunsaturated fatty acid type.)” - Dr Birkbeck said he anticipated that advertising promoting omega 3 fatty acids by the fishing industry would be the next nutrition factor pushed. He described such a push as an “overreaction.”

While fish oils were rich in omega 3, lean meat and plants contained significant amounts as well, he said.

A meat industry research institute spokesman, Mr Richard Bentley, said Australian studies

had shown that lean beef and lamb contained amounts of omega 3 equal to those in snapper and gurnard fish. Commonly eaten fish were in a category of low amounts of omega 3 (to which beef and lamb are equal.) The only commonly eaten fish in a high category was tuna. But Mr Bentley said tuna was usually tinned and its natural oils removed and replaced with vegetable oil. 3 and omega 6 are two families of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids.

They affect different systems in the body. Omega 6 is found in vegetable oils and margarines while omega 3 is found in meat, fish and dairy products. Omega 3 acts as a blood thinner and anticlotting mechanism which lowers blood cholesterol, reduces blood pressure, the likelihood of clotting and maintains the flexibility of blood vessels. Dr Birkbeck used the example of eskimoes’ diet to back his claim for

balance in the diet Eskimoes who eat a lot of fish had a high omega 3 intake and little incidence of heart disease.

Instead they were more likely to have strokes because if they had a haemorrhage in the brain their thin blood would not clot easily.