Author: Seamus Higgins, Associate Professor Food Process Engineering, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham

Still Life by Edward Hartley Mooney (1918). Manchester Art Gallery, CC BY A few thousand years ago, sugar was unknown in the western world. Sugarcane, a tall grass first domesticated in New Guinea around 6000BC, was initially chewed for its sweet juice rather than crystallised. By around 500BC, methods to boil sugarcane juice into crystals […]

Baby food pouches came under scrutiny earlier this year, following a report from the University of Leeds and consumer group Which?. The findings were troubling. Many pouches are high in sugar, nutritionally inadequate, and potentially harmful if consumed regularly. The report also warns that parents are being misled by so-called “halo” marketing claims – labels […]