Pastor Moises Martins

The 'villain' pointed out as the main cause of the obesity epidemic 

Foto: Reprodução

One teaspoon of oil, measured exactly. That's how Professor Tim Benton remembers his mother cooking the fry.

During his childhood, in the 1960s, cooking oil was still a precious commodity, used sparingly.

Nowadays, however, it is so plentiful and inexpensive that we use it unrestricted at all: from seasoning the salad to frying.

This is not limited to cooking: oil is also a common ingredient of most of the products we buy at the supermarket.

In fact, vegetable oil, especially soybean oil and palm oil, is among the eight ingredients - the other being wheat, rice, corn, sugar, barley and potatoes - that provide 85 percent of the calories consumed worldwide.

With each passing day, no matter what country we live in, we all have a similar diet - high in calories and low in nutrients.

Very Cheap Calories

It is a process that Professor Benton, a University of Leeds researcher specializing in food safety and sustainability, relates directly to global trade.

Source: BBC