Have had many conversations over the last few years about the amount of diagnoses of various disorders with regards to children such as ausperges, ADD, ADHD, autism and so on.

Talking to several people of the same age as myself, we couldn't come up with any kids at our schools that would fit into these categories.

Why is that? Is it a case of not being aware of such issues? Were they there, but a diagnosis not been identified as yet? Or are there more around who have such diagnoses made nowadays? If so, why?

We also spoke about a potential link to diets. In our parents’ day, yes they eat what would be described nowadays as an unhealthy diet, with foods high in saturated fats (dripping on bread etc), but the veg they ate was less likely to contain chemicals from sprays and the bread was bought or made fresh and preservative free.

So why is there such an increase in these "illnesses" or "disorders" with regards to children?

Could anyone offer up their thoughts on the subjects?

Your first question is a pretty simple one for me personally to answer - I attended a Grammar School back in the days when there was such a thing, and as such, the kids that possibly had suffered from any of the conditions you mention would have been filtered out by the 11 plus - harsh but true.

If I think back to my Primary school then yes I can think immediately of two examples who were simply labelled as "slow" by the teaching authorities, or "thick" by us kids, also harsh but true, one of them was kept back a year at 11 in the hope that he might catch up but he didn't, the other with hindsight must have been a candidate for autism but he was simply bullied along by teachers until they could send him off to the Secondary Modern.

I'm not so sure about the foods either, its a nice rosy image to think that as kids we all ate fresh organic produce but the reality is that we didn't - we DID eat mainly home cooked food as the only take-aways on offer when I was a kid was fish and chips and the only ready-made meals in the supermarkets was a dried Vesta Chow Mein, its one of the reasons why supermarkets from my childhood would be called mini-markets now, simply because they didn't have the same amount of stock to carry.

There was less regulation though and so I'm not sure that the vegetables and the fruit (that we ate a lot more of) weren't treated with chemicals and/or preservatives and we certainly ate factory processed bread rather than fresh because we had no baker nearby.

Despite that I think there is a place to argue that diet is worse these days, despite awareness of diet being a thousand times more prevalent than it was in the 1960s when "diet" was something your mother did using Ryvita and cottage cheese.

When I was at school we did have a few "slow" kids who were possibly mildly autistic. Being a scientist myself, a profession that lends its self well to people with Asperger's, I currently work with a PhD Chemist who has the condition (as do a lot of his family who are engineers/scientists). I have worked with others over the years who have undoubtedly suffered from the condition (though undiagnosed) as I now realise did some of my class mates.

As for ADHD, yes I probably did have some classmates who had the condition. However, in my schooldays, they were classed as just being naughty and kept in line by application of a ruler, slipper or cane.

There was an interesting documentary on Australian TV last night, which I unfortunately only saw the last 5 mins of. It was called the Autism Enigma. www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/994811 I don't know if you'll be able to see it in UK. www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/ ... 574441.htm It's being called the Western Disease. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the fastest growing developmental condition in the western world. There is no typical case and there is no accepted cure for it. Fifty years ago it was considered rare, affecting one in 10,000 children. Now the number of children being diagnosed with ASD in the United States is one in 90. To add to this troubling picture, in North America and other parts of the world, there's evidence that ASD rates are much higher in some immigrant populations. So much so that ASD has become known as "the Western disease". But what is causing this dramatic rise, and why do some communities have higher rates of ASD? Some experts suggest it's because doctors are better able to diagnose the condition, and the criteria for autism diagnosis has been expanded. Others are asking if there's a possible environmental cause. Could the food we eat and commonly used drugs, intended to kill infection, play a part in the development of certain forms of autism? Scientists are looking at the changes in their diets and at the reality that it may be a "gut" issue and linked to foods and antibiotics. And suggesting that probiotics can help.

There was an interesting documentary on Australian TV last night, which I unfortunately only saw the last 5 mins of. It was called the Autism Enigma. www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/994811 I don't know if you'll be able to see it in UK. www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/ ... 574441.htm It's being called the Western Disease. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the fastest growing developmental condition in the western world. There is no typical case and there is no accepted cure for it. Fifty years ago it was considered rare, affecting one in 10,000 children. Now the number of children being diagnosed with ASD in the United States is one in 90. To add to this troubling picture, in North America and other parts of the world, there's evidence that ASD rates are much higher in some immigrant populations. So much so that ASD has become known as "the Western disease". But what is causing this dramatic rise, and why do some communities have higher rates of ASD? Some experts suggest it's because doctors are better able to diagnose the condition, and the criteria for autism diagnosis has been expanded. Others are asking if there's a possible environmental cause. Could the food we eat and commonly used drugs, intended to kill infection, play a part in the development of certain forms of autism? Scientists are looking at the changes in their diets and at the reality that it may be a "gut" issue and linked to foods and antibiotics. And suggesting that probiotics can help.

I'm not claiming that this is connected to autism (of which I know little and understand even less), but to take up your general point about food: it's increasingly believed that a substantial reason for the rise in conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome is the way we make vast amounts of bread in the UK – ie the Chorleywood method, which uses much more yeast in order to speed the process.

Similarly, I think it's also widely believed that there are links between some foods with large amounts of artificial additives, and behavioural problems, such as ADD and so on. Some of this seems to have links to sugar.

Only the other week, [iWhich?[/i magazine reported that cereal bars, which are presented as healthy and largely seen that way (partly because cereals are viewed as healthy) often contain vast amounts of sugar.

I have wondered, more than once, whether, if there is a link between such foods and hyper behaviour in children, there is a similar link between junk/fast food and chemical-laden lager in adults that is a contributory factor in the sort of behaviour that is often reported in town centres at weekends. One of the reasons that the hop fields in the UK have declined hugely (if not quite died off altogether) is that we don't use hops as a natural preservative in lots of beers/lagers now, substituting chemical alternatives.

A couple of related posts, if you're interested:

[url=http://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.fr/2012/07/stop-taking-pizza.html'Healthy pizzas' and school dinners.[/url

[url=http://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.fr/2012/08/its-all-in-process.htmlThe nature of 'processed food' and what is meant by it.[/url

Nice.

There could be something in our previous discussion then about the amount of these conditions/disorders etc. As for the processed food article and think of all those E numbers etc.

Who knows what combinations are going into children and what effect it's having. Maybe what we're seeing is the cumulative effect of a generation or two now of people being brought up on poor processed food. As I said I know that the oldies would have had dripping on bread to eat and that it was bad from a sat fat point of view, But the animal it was fed on probably wasn't fed crap like they are these days. And creutzfeldt-jakob disease shows what happens when you mess with the food chain. I think the interesting thing is that the immigrants in Canada on that programme had a far higher number of autisitic children NOW they are in Canada. But not before. The main difference? Their diet.

As for Jamie Oliver. Never trust someone that makes a risotto in venice saying it's venetian and then pours olive oil over it. Why does he do that to every bloody italian meal he cooks?

Could well be.



But, as I've mentioned before, the saturated fats that we 'used' to eat were natural – dripping, lard and butter.

The French eat more diary produce than anyone else on earth, yet have a lower rate of heart disease than they 'should'. In the south west of the country, they also produce and consume such fatty joys as foie gras and duck confit. And the same result (or lack of it) occurs. Hence, 'the French Paradox'.

We've been sold a lie in terms of the link between saturated fat, high ('bad') cholesterol and heart disease.

It was only ever 'proved' by one person, Ancel Keyes, and he lied. In essence, he produced something called the Seven Countries Study, which claimed to prove this link. But the trouble is, he'd actually researched 22 countries – and abandoned the majority of his results because they didn't prove what he wanted them to prove. Those countries included not just France and Italy, but northern European countries such as the Netherlands too.

Unfortunately, the US and UK in particular have essentially made Keyes's findings crucial to their public health policies. And this is wonderful for big pharm.

Dr Phil Hammond (the GP/comic who writes for [iPrivate Eye[/i) talks of the medicalisation of the population: when you're 50, they'll have you on three or four pills a day, by the time you're 80, it'll be 20. He says that big pharm has to, in effect, create new medical problems in order to produce the profitable 'cures'. The illustration he uses is a female Viagra – first you have to create a demand, so you have to create a problem.

So when, in [iCholesterol and the French Paradox[/i by Frank Cooper, you read the question: 'when did cholesterol become a disease?' you can put it into that context too. Cholesterol drugs are one of the most profitable products produced by major pharmaceutical companies.

The reality is that our bodies 'know' how to deal with natural fats – and they're not the unhealthy things that they have been portrayed for three or four decades. The manufactured fats, on the other hand – margarine is disgusting, for instance: even the so-called 'healthy' (and always quite expensive) spreads containing olive oil make you ask questions, starting with: 'how do they make a liquid (olive oil) unnaturally solid?'



Very much agree.



I really couldn't comment, having not seen the programme. What was their socio-economic situation? Did that impact on diet? There is certainly discussion around that obesity, for instance, is becoming a 'disease' of the poor, where historically it was something rich people were more likely to suffer from.

But perhaps it ties in with the sort of thing that Raymond Blanc (and others) say about the US and UK in particular – that they have both (in general) lost their natural food heritage.

There was an interesting article [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19298155here[/url the other day, about how Italians are turning back to 'granny foods' because of austerity: they're cheaper – and healthier, as it happens.







His training was very much with River Café – and that's primarily southern Italian.

Quote ="Mintball"But, as I've mentioned before, the saturated fats that we 'used' to eat were natural – dripping, lard and butter. The French eat more diary produce than anyone else on earth, yet have a lower rate of heart disease than they 'should'. In the south west of the country, they also produce and consume such fatty joys as foie gras and duck confit. And the same result (or lack of it) occurs. Hence, 'the French Paradox'. We've been sold a lie in terms of the link between saturated fat, high ('bad') cholesterol and heart disease. It was only ever 'proved' by one person, Ancel Keyes, and he lied. In essence, he produced something called the Seven Countries Study, which claimed to prove this link. But the trouble is, he'd actually researched 22 countries – and abandoned the majority of his results because they didn't prove what he wanted them to prove. Those countries included not just France and Italy, but northern European countries such as the Netherlands too. Unfortunately, the US and UK in particular have essentially made Keyes's findings crucial to their public health policies. And this is wonderful for big pharm.'" Yeah, I'm aware of what I thought was the Gascogne paradox. Still I'm all in favour of self-medicating with natural life-saving, heart protecting substances like red wine. Unfortunately I ave high cholesterol, but for no real rhyme nor reason. However I found out my dad has high cholesterol, so it could well be a hereditary ailment as so many things are. Heart disease, cancers, etc. But not autism. Not ADHD. Not Tourettes. Won't people stand up and say hold on an effing minute here. Quote ="Mintball"I really couldn't comment, having not seen the programme. What was their socio-economic situation? Did that impact on diet? There is certainly discussion around that obesity, for instance, is becoming a 'disease' of the poor, where historically it was something rich people were more likely to suffer from.'" Do try and have a look at the link above when you have a spare hour if it works over there. Basically. Somalians. No history of it, Get to Canada. Then have a over the top number of kids with autism. Foods are different from their very basic, yet completely natural foods they ate before. You get the gist. Quote ="Mintball"His training was very much with River Café – and that's primarily southern Italian.'" tipici terrone. Tell him, they don't even cook with olive oil in parts of the far north of italy, they use butter, as you should in a proper northern risotto, nevermind drizzling it over the finished item. Also no-one seems to cook it "all'Onda" properly either. To give a foodie like yourself an idea. Look at a traditional Veneto dish like risi e bisi. Check out how wet rice dishes are and moreso seafood ristottos are in the north. lacucinadisusana.blogspot.com.au ... cetta.html

Quote ="Mintball"But, as I've mentioned before, the saturated fats that we 'used' to eat were natural – dripping, lard and butter. The French eat more diary produce than anyone else on earth, yet have a lower rate of heart disease than they 'should'. In the south west of the country, they also produce and consume such fatty joys as foie gras and duck confit. And the same result (or lack of it) occurs. Hence, 'the French Paradox'. We've been sold a lie in terms of the link between saturated fat, high ('bad') cholesterol and heart disease. It was only ever 'proved' by one person, Ancel Keyes, and he lied. In essence, he produced something called the Seven Countries Study, which claimed to prove this link. But the trouble is, he'd actually researched 22 countries – and abandoned the majority of his results because they didn't prove what he wanted them to prove. Those countries included not just France and Italy, but northern European countries such as the Netherlands too. Unfortunately, the US and UK in particular have essentially made Keyes's findings crucial to their public health policies. And this is wonderful for big pharm.'" Yeah, I'm aware of what I thought was the Gascogne paradox. Still I'm all in favour of self-medicating with natural life-saving, heart protecting substances like red wine. Unfortunately I ave high cholesterol, but for no real rhyme nor reason. However I found out my dad has high cholesterol, so it could well be a hereditary ailment as so many things are. Heart disease, cancers, etc. But not autism. Not ADHD. Not Tourettes. Won't people stand up and say hold on an effing minute here. Quote ="Mintball"I really couldn't comment, having not seen the programme. What was their socio-economic situation? Did that impact on diet? There is certainly discussion around that obesity, for instance, is becoming a 'disease' of the poor, where historically it was something rich people were more likely to suffer from.'" Do try and have a look at the link above when you have a spare hour if it works over there. Basically. Somalians. No history of it, Get to Canada. Then have a over the top number of kids with autism. Foods are different from their very basic, yet completely natural foods they ate before. You get the gist. Quote ="Mintball"His training was very much with River Café – and that's primarily southern Italian.'" tipici terrone. Tell him, they don't even cook with olive oil in parts of the far north of italy, they use butter, as you should in a proper northern risotto, nevermind drizzling it over the finished item. Also no-one seems to cook it "all'Onda" properly either. To give a foodie like yourself an idea. Look at a traditional Veneto dish like risi e bisi. Check out how wet rice dishes are and moreso seafood ristottos are in the north. lacucinadisusana.blogspot.com.au ... cetta.html

There seems to be some thinking that that helps, certainly. I've seen more than a few pieces of research around suggesting that the healthiest diet in general is the Mediterranean diet.

And nothing beats it for taste when you have, as I did yesterday, a shed load of sardines, only caught the night before, and then grilled out in the open, with just a touch of olive oil and some dried thyme.



Interestingly, it seems that the French don't have much different cholesterol levels than we do in the UK – which also suggests some factor other than a diet high in saturated fat being the problem.



It wouldn't surprise me at all. And people have tried to stand up and ask the questions – and campaign against, say, additives. But you're facing massive vested interests, with huge clout (political and financial) behind them.



I'll try to have a look next week when I'm back in the UK.



And lard – or lardo, as it's known. Wonderful stuff.





And there's an argument that, since rice is a northern Italian product, it's not a southern dish. Similarly, fresh pasta is only really a northern thing – in the south of the country, they mostly use dried.



Nowt wrong wi' rice 'n' peas.



And thanks for the link.

We don't want to fall into the trap of assuming that the French eat the same things in restaurants as they do at home.
By that token, if you were a foreigner in Britain you'd think we lived on fatty curries and highly calorific pizza.

Ah ... hang on ...

As I explained [url=http://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.fr/2012/08/keeping-it-local-seasonal-and-simple.htmlhere[/url, there are some telling things you can find out from a French market.

I beg to differ. Fish caught that afternoon in the crystal clear waters of the Okovango Delta, with a few drops of lemon juice added and lightly cooked in the harsh African sun (no artificial heat / fire) beats any fish I've ever had or am likely to have again.

Collioure.
Lovely.

Monsieur McField and I, plus assorted others (one significant), spent a few very laid-back hours there.
They know about fish there.
Twas a shame to have to leave.

'twas indeed a beautiful, if rather chilly afternoon topped off with a seafood meal in one of the smallest restaurants I've ever been in



Its on my "To go back to" list.

Pah!

Try pulling your own fish out of the sea and cooking it either on the boat or the beach. Or even better, take a mackerel that's still wriggling, dispatch it then take a fillet from each side, wash it in the sea, slice and serve with soy and wasabi. One of the best fish dishes I ever ate abroad was in Greece: fresh anchovies caught and tossed straight into flour and then into hot oil, whitebait stylee

Fish of the mackerel and herring families should be eaten as fresh as possible. All others benefit from either freezing (rays & shark) or at least given some time to firm up (bass, bream, cod, flatfish).

I've been meaning to ask you something...

In June when I was in Portugal I was dined out by someone in a beachfront restaurant on a sea bass between three of us - it was huge and laying on ice on the counter when we arrived, that mornings catch apparently - so big that we couldn't eat it all.

Last Saturday I was in Morrisons, yes I already know your answer, and they were advertising sea bass and I thought I'd have a fillet, but underneath the Sea Bass sign were three pathetic little fish no bigger than a freshwater trout, in fact there were also some trout on the ice and they were the same size.

Some mistake surely ?

Maybe in Portugal you had the E Crabtree of the bass world and in Morrisons the R Burrows?

Saw someone catch a nice (bigger than supermarket, but not huge) bass yesterday on Cromer pier.

Oh, Collioure sera toujours Collioure.

An absolutely wonderful place.

Just coming to the end of our fifth successive annual summer holiday here. I suspect we already know where we'll be holidaying next summer. Somehow, the stays are getting longer and longer.

No mistake at all, the bass and bream that you see on supermarket counters are farmed in the Easter Med (Greece & Turkey usually). The minimum landing size for UK bass (THERE IS NO SUCH FOOKING THING AS SEA BASS) is 36cm, I wouldn't retain a bass of less than 45cm simply because at 36cm it hasn't reached breeding age yet. The Supermarket fish are around 25cm but they are farmed, not wild-caught and that is not only reflected in the price - line caught would be at least £15 per kilo - but also the quality. Bass are predators, they hunt hard and are not beyond eating their own, so they need to be fit. Farmed bass don't need to hunt, some bloke drops pellets (usually made from halibut) into their pens a couple of times a day. The difference is obvious when you eat them, farmed bass have fatty, flabby flesh, wild bass are all muscle.

I love it when I tell people that I batter & deep fry bass and turbot and even better when I make fishcakes from them. The look on their face is priceless.

The Bass (ok, I won't call it Sea Bass anymore, even though the Portuguese did) that I had in Portugal was at least 45 to 50cm and seemed to be cooked very simply, probably in the charcoal ovens that they had at the back of the counter, it was filleted and served at the table, huge chunks of very creamy white meat and a light accompaniment of spring potato and onion, very little else other than a sprinkling of oil, with a starter of fresh clams it was bloody gorgeous.

I didn't go for what Morrisons called "Sea Bass", instead I picked up a couple of their Thai style prawn "fishcakes" which were actually very palatable although christ knows what was inside them.

Red Mullet. Strong flavoured fish. Anyone else a fan?
Or baccala and it's various other spellings and ethnicities?

But then again, eating a brown trout in a country pub in Kent of the same name was a bit special. Caught in the river next to the pub.

Whenever buying fish remember "the eyes have it". Eyes should be bright and not sunken & dull and the gill rakes should be red or at least a deep pink. Obviously difficult with large fish they requires steaking but then use your nose: if it smells of fish, don't eat it, it should smell of the sea.

One trick used by supermarket fishmongers (especially Morrisons), is to leave whole fish on the ice until they start looking past their best. They then either simply take of the fishes' heads or fillet them, put them in a polystryrene tray with a sprig of parsley & slice of lemon and label them as "freshly prepared". Don't touch them!

You can blame Keith Floyd for making bass popular and also for the "sea" in the name. Prior to him, British housewives wouldn't even consider bass as an alternative to cod or haddock because they are scaly and bony. The only commercial market for bass was as pot bait for crab & lobster. In the US "sea bass" is actually the [url=http://archive.greenpeace.org/oceans/piratefishing/toothfish.htmlPatagonian toothfish[/url

[url=http://theitaliandishblog.com/imported-20090913150324/2009/12/5/baked-whole-fish-in-a-salt-crust-and-a-review-of-seafood-all.htmlOne of my favourite bass recipes[/url that also works with most whole fish

Not a big fan of red mullet and I would only eat salt cod that I'd caught and salted myself. I would NEVER eat that cardboard stuff you see in West Indian shops, I remember the salting process when Hull still had an inustry.

I'm also not a huge fan of trout, although wild-caught brownies are preferrable to any farmed crap

Mullet, not bad. Hadn't had it often.

I enjoy salt cod – usually salt my own at home. Keeps for an absolute age. I like to cook it as the Spanish do, in an absolute pool of olive oil, with sliced peppers and masses of garlic. Works well with boudin noir too (or black pudding, obviously, although this isn't as moist as a boudin).

Trout's lovely when it's not the farmed stuff.