‘Healthy and healthiness have nothing to do with calories’ Oxeye's executive chef Sven Hanson-Britt

Sven Hanson-Britt, Founder and Executive chef at Oxeye discusses his thoughts and feelings regarding the government's new Calorie Labelling law

With the government’s new calorie labelling scheme coming into effect at the end of last week. We sat down to talk with executive chef Sven Hanson-Britt regarding his opinions on the scheme.

Sven made it clear very early on in the conversation that he was against the scheme. Right at the start of our conversation, he said, 'I think it has signs of being quite a dangerous and damaging thing, really'.

He said that while he can understand the government's reasoning for implementing the scheme, that being able to help tackle the obesity crisis in this country, he disagrees with the methodology.

He said: "I think tackling something like that takes education, takes generational change, it takes time, and it starts from when people are young. We need to change our focus as a society. It's not just changing individuals. It comes down to kids learning about food, having a confident relationship with food and not fearing eating."

While the government initiative only currently affects businesses with over 250 members of staff, such as chain pubs and supermarkets, Sven is sure that it’ll trickle down to smaller places very quickly.

He said: “I think the large business model is just them poking their toe in the water just to see how it goes. With the way that they are thinking and the reason they are bringing this in, I don't think they can not bring it in further.” 

‘Healthy and healthiness have nothing to do, really, with calories’

The first and possibly the most obvious issue with this calorie scheme is the fact that calories are a measure of how much energy something has. It isn’t a measure of how healthy it is.

Sven put it well when he said: “You can have 40 calories of really bad rapeseed oil, that's not been grown in an organic way and is terrible for your body, or you can have 40 calories of fresh fruit and vegetables. They've both got 40 calories but they both do completely different things. It's about nutrition.”

Nutrition is a much more important fact when it comes to eating healthily however, it is a lot harder to implement a scheme that helps give consumers more information about the nutrition of the food they are eating without turning every restaurant menu into a book.

Sven said: “Healthy and healthiness have nothing to do, really, with calories. Calories is just a form of energy. Unfortunately, I think that's what will happen, people will start to link that number with living healthy or not.”

‘I do genuinely worry it could lead to a further spate of eating disorders in this country’

Sven’s biggest worry when it comes to this scheme is the effect it could have on mental health specifically regarding eating disorders such as bulimia.

He mentioned how he knows a number of people who have suffered with eating disorders and thus was alert when the government scheme was announced looking into more information surrounding calorie counting and eating disorders.

He found that a 'number of tests and studies have been done' since [the scheme was announced] looking at the effects of understanding and knowing calories, specifically on bulimia, and it has been found to actually increase the chances of people developing bulimia.

"Not even aggravating it but actually developing it from not having it before,” he said.

Along with this he discussed how since he originally posted his tweet thread on the matter he received “genuinely hundreds” of messages from people who either have or have struggled with eating disorders in the past thanking him for bringing attention to this scheme and discussing how scary this scheme is to them.

The problem with the calorie labelling program is that it is giving people information without the understanding to use it. Therefore, it is setting itself up for misunderstanding, and that misunderstanding, and misattribution of calories can so easily lead to some very serious consequences. 

Sven said: “I genuinely believe it will start to increase anxiety with eating, eating disorders and other mental health issues around food.”

How should we tackle the obesity crisis?

While the plan appears to be good in theory and is attempting to tackle a very serious issue, it has some serious shortcomings and could actually end up being a danger in itself.

So, the question becomes: how should we tackle the obesity crisis?

For Sven the real sources of the obesity crisis are a lack of knowledge about food and food poverty because, as he said, “Generations of food poverty or tens of years of food poverty has led to this detachment [from food] and then there's no way to change is there.”

“If you can't afford to actually go and buy fresh fruit and vegetables or something to cook on the weekends that's a lovely dish to cook as a family. If you can't even afford that, the nutrition aspect goes out of the window. That's the first thing to drop.”

Sven feels there is most chance of actual change and improvement to be made when it comes to education and that through education and through building 'a much closer relationship with food and cooking in this country” we can actually make an impact on the obesity crisis.

Sven said: “I believe there's definitely a correlation between issues that we have in this country with health and the fact that we have a detached relationship with food.” Because of this his thoughts on education surround building that closer connection with food.

Sven discussed his wife’s experience growing up in Japan, where food was treated very differently in school. He talked about how while it wasn’t necessarily a school subject there was more importance put on food with the school chef discussing the food as the class shared it.

Sven said: “It doesn't have to be an academic subject. It doesn't have to be hours and hours a week,” what you need is a connection to food so that you can build an understanding of how it works and what good and bad food really is."

Written by Harper McCarley