Dr John Briffa's blog, A Good Look at Good Health — writing on food, cholesterol, weight, energy and the science behind everyday health, from the drbriffa.com archive. Filter by topic, browse by category, or search the library.
Healthy Eating
Apparently, it’s 30 years ago that Marks and Spencer (a UK-based food, clothing and home goods retailer) started selling pre-prepared sandwiches. Other retail outlets followed suit, and the end result is that sandwiches now are the prime lunch fodder for workers up and down the land. But do they represent prime fuel for those with […]
Unhealthy Eating!
When it comes to weight (specifically fat) loss, I’m not into counting or consciously restricting them. I’ll come onto why in a moment. But before I do, I want to share the results of a recent study in which women ate in one or four ways [1]: 1. where individuals ate a diet which restricted […]
Children's Health
My post last Friday concerned my ‘love-hate’ relationship with dairy products – I generally like the way they taste, but am also acutely aware that they can quite-often trigger health issues in myself and others. I first leaned this when the elimination of cow’s milk products 20-odd years ago eliminated my eczema too. Other symptoms […]
Healthy Eating
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with dairy products. I love, generally speaking, how they taste. I also like the fact that dairy products (e.g. cream, cheese) are relatively rich in protein and fat, and (importantly) not so rich in carbohydrate. Their nutritional profile is, therefore, kinda in line with ‘primal’ foods such […]
Healthy Eating
If you want to cut your risk of heart disease, reduce intake of saturated fat and eat more carbohydrate. That’s what most doctors, dieticians and Governments would have us believe. So it must be true, right? It’s a message we’ve heard a thousand times, so surely is based on sound science? So what does happen […]
Exercise and Activity
Some time ago one of my blogs focused on the thoughts of Dr Andrew Wadge – Chief Scientist at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK. The blog specifically focused on his broadside at ‘detox’ regimes. I can understand that someone may be a bit sceptical of such regimes. However, if Dr Wadge wishes […]
Unhealthy Eating!
Variously on this site I’ve discussed the notion that ‘a calorie is a calorie’. Simply put, this concept, widely populated by doctors, dieticians and other health professionals, is that when it comes to their effects of weight, all forms of calorie are the same. In terms of its impact on body weight, a kilogram of […]
Children's Health
The natural food for human babies is breastmilk. However, at some point, children need to be weaned onto ‘solid food’. In the long term there is good reason, I think, for aiming for a childhood diet that is essentially ‘primal’ in nature. That means a diet based on foods like meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, […]
Healthy Eating
Over the weekend the radio was on and I caught an item about the apparent hazards of popcorn. The Food Standards Agency in the UK has, it seems, launched a bit of a blitz against the snack foods and drink available in cinema foyers (see here for a report regarding this) and popcorn is firmly […]
Food and Medical Politics
On Tuesday I was giving a presentation, and part of my advice was for individuals to avoid eating much in the way of processed food, including those emblazoned with health-related claims. Terms such as ‘low fat’, ‘low cholesterol’, and ‘high in fibre’ are misleading, to begin with, because these qualities have dubious health benefits (if […]