The Fast Diet by Dr Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer

I recently happened to watch dietitian Matt O’Neill comment on the new Fast Diet (aka the 5:2 Diet) on morning TV. It caught my attention not only for Matt’s usual easy-to-grasp explanation but also for the book’s simplicity and lack of a set ‘diet formula’. So when I received a copy in the post, I thought it was time for a review. 

Last week I was invited to a fabulous lunch put on by McCormick (makers of herbs and spices among other things) to hear how they've looked into their foodie crystal ball and are brave enough to predict five key global food trends for 2013. Known as the McCormick Flavour Forecast®, they've pulled together the best hunches from their chefs, sensory scientists, dietitians and culinary trend trackers to have a stab at forecasting what will be in fashion for the year head.

Almonds have been heavily featured in food and nutrition blogs during November 2012 following the revelation of chef Pete Evans' health food diet which consisted of things like emu meatballs, cultured vegetables, apple cider vinegar, maca, spirulina, cocoa nibs, stevia, coconut chips, sprouted millet bread, coconut kefir and, what caught the Twitter trendline, lots of activated almonds!

I puzzled over exactly how almonds were transformed from common or garden almonds to the rarefied status of activated almonds. Having never carried out the activation process myself, I followed the steps outlined very elegantly by Easy Peasy Organics in her blog then I gave them the Foodwatch Product Review once over.

Gluten-free is the trendy food darling of the moment. I’ve never seen a wider choice of gluten-free pasta, bread, muffins, shortbread and muesli bars. Even gluten-free pizza and cookies. But if you don’t have to avoid gluten for medical reasons, I don’t believe these speciality foods will help you lose weight or digest your food better.

I started my career in nutrition way back in the 1970s. Over the last 40 years I’ve seen hundreds of fads come and go and then, like a tired old rock star, make a come back. When I began my career the current fads were:

• The Atkins No-carb Diet. Dietitians were horrified. Now it’s back, this time better received though it’s still not a long term weight loss solution.
• Grapefruit for breakfast was supposed to melt away stubborn fat and make you slim (it didn’t but it’s still a super-healthy fruit to eat).
• Many women, popped little white tablets of saccharin into their coffee, as sugar was considered THE source of weight gain.
• Apricot chicken made with a packet of French onion soup mix was the ‘in’ 70s dinner party recipe.

Stevia is a new sweetener that extracted from a plant yet has no kilojoules/calories, does not increase blood glucose levels and does not cause tooth decay. It is 250 to 300 times sweeter than cane sugar but tastes similar - certainly better than the older sweeteners like saccharin or cyclamate with their bitter metallic after-taste.

People often ask me why we nutritionists keep changing out minds! One year, carbohydrate is wonderful, the next year it's not. One year, fat is a no-no, the next year, it's only saturated fat that we should worry about, the other fats are ‘good' fats that are OK to eat and enjoy. Protein was ‘forgotten' for some years, now it's back and considered important for satiety and weight loss.

Every winter or so, the soup diet reappears. One winter, it was part of the infamous "Kickstart Diet" made famous by a television current affairs program. Another winter a few years ago, it was big as the "Cabbage Soup Diet" - the only difference being that the soup contained lots of shredded cabbage.