Prof Regan's Supermarket Secrets (27 of 27)

Prof Regan's Supermarket Secrets

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As part of a balanced diet, foods knows as superfoods should be highly nutritious so they WILL go into Prof Regan's trolley.
But the idea that any one particular food provides a miraculous super health is not backed up by science yet.
So the label "superfood" must be discarded.
Professor Lesley Regan - scientist, doctor and consumer - has been shopping for her perfect scientifically backed supermarket products.
The two non-food products she's looked at - low-temperature washing powders and anti-bacterial cleaners - are both worth their place in her trolley.
It 's the food products that were a problem.

Well, I think what we've discovered is that we're all rather impressed by scientific terminology and I think the food manufacturers know that and not surprisingly they use that to impress us and encourage us to buy their product, whereas the scientists I think were a lot less certain about what the value of these foodstuffs were.
There is enough scientific evidence to include cholesterol-lowering products.
But Prof Regan is rejecting probiotics, organic food and the idea of "superfoods".
So I think one of the useful things we could advise people when they're trying to assess whether they're going to buy this product or that product or whether this is going to improve their health or be beneficial to them, is that when the manufacturer says this "can" or it "could" do something, it will be useful for them to ask the question as the buyer, "Why doesn't it tell me that it's been PROVEN to work?" In which case there would have to be a trail of science to support that claim.
So, "can" or "could", I think that's a bit too woolly.
For research into genetically modified foods, and to see if foods fortified with Omega-3 make it into the trolley, see Prof Regan on the Horizon website now.