Food Investigators

World War II Diet
Last week we sent a family of six back in time to see if the rationed diet of the Second World War could help a modern family deal with the tough times of the modern recession. How do you feed the family on limited fruit and veggies plus 900 grams of red meat…. 225 grams of butter….90 grams of tea…and 450 grams of sugar? Not easy as the Heptinstall family found out, but there are some unexpected results as the kids pitch in family togetherness gets a whole new lease of life.

Re-engineered Milk
Milk, unless you’re lactose intolerant, you’ll probably drink around a hundred litres of cow’s milk each year. But what is it you’re actually drinking? Why doesn't milk taste like it used to when you were a kid?  The answer is re-constituted fats and chemical additives. Along with vitamin powder and omega 3, soya bean oil, vegetable gum and corn extract are all a part of the mix in all brands of milk available in shops and major super-market chains, and they certainly weren’t put there by the cow.

Bowel Transit
On Food Investigators, the dangers of life as part of the fast food nation.

Australians eat 2.7 million take away meals every day and the developed world gets through nine million tonnes of hot chips every year.  Fast food is quick and tastes great. But it’s also hard to digest and dangerous. Highly processed and fast foods are a major contributor to the risk of bowel cancer. Bowel cancer kills 80 Australians every week. In fact we have one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world. It’s a big problem, but early prevention is nowhere as difficult as you might think. Joe Avati has been investigating.

If you’re aged between 50 and 65 you probably took part last year in the Federal Government’s National Bowel Screening Programme. Unfortunately, there was a fault in some of the test kits and around half a million people will need to do the test a second time.  If you received your kit between December 2008 and early May this year you should do the test again. The new kits will be sent out in the next six to eight weeks.

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