When it comes to food that divides opinions around the world, there isn't a better example than Marmite.
And now the salty paste has created even more controversy on social media after a recent documentary revealed how the condiment is made in factories.
As part of Channel 4's Food Unwrapped, presenter Kate Quilton went on a mission to find out exactly what goes into making the controversial foodstuff by visiting a factory in Staffordshire that specialises in Marmite and other yeasty products.
The Mirror reports the factory has been producing the spread since 1902, but viewers were taken aback at one certain ingredient that went into making it.
While at the factory, Kate spoke with Sinjin Skelton, a quality specialist who was able to shed some light on the process.
Sinjin revealed: "When breweries makebeer,they take a sugary solution and they'll add yeast to it, and the yeast will convert the sugar into alcohol."
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Viewers were then shown how these yeast cells produce alcohol as they multiply, meaning breweries can end up with seven times more yeast than they originally had - a lot of which isn't actually needed.
They then sell it to yeast extract factories, where it's distributed into enormous vats and heated to 95C, killing off any live yeast.
Sinjin went on to explain: "What's happening there is we adjust the temperature so the yeast starts to decay."
A centrifuge is then used to separate the "yeasty soup", leaving the broken-down cell walls as well as the contents of the cells. Many viewers had no clue whatsoever that Marmite was actually made using an alcohol by-product.
One person shuddered: "Oh gosh, I can't eat this anymore, but my childhood though".
Another commented: "Toast, marmite, and beer. Yeasty way to start the day."
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Foods with live microorganisms include yogurt and other fermented foods, as well as raw fruits and vegetables. The study found that increased consumption of these foods was linked to better health markers such as lower blood pressure, better blood glucose and insulin levels, lower inflammation, and lower waist circumference and body mass index.
A recent study reveals that individuals who consume higher amounts of live microorganisms on a daily basis tend to have lower weight and improved overall health.
Live microorganisms that are safe to consume can be found in many of the foods we eat daily, including fermented foods like yogurt and raw fruits and vegetables. Despite the common perception that these blends of live bacteria promote good health, there has been a shortage of concrete evidence supporting the link between live dietary microorganisms and improved health.
A recent study has presented some of the first real-world evidence that consuming more live microorganisms can have a positive impact on health. Researchers from the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) led the study and used the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to categorize over 9,000 foods into three groups based on the concentration of live microbes they contain. By analyzing the reported food intake of NHANES participants, the scientists were able to quantify the amount of food consumed that had moderate to high levels of live microbes.
Then they determined how these intakes correlated with various markers of health such as blood pressure and weight.
The scientists found that increased consumption of live microbes in the diet was linked with multiple measurements of better health: more favorable blood pressure, better blood glucose, and insulin, lower inflammation, as well as lower waist circumference and body mass index. This established that those who consumed higher quantities of live dietary microbes showed tangible, if modest, health benefits.
While the scientific approach did not allow researchers to conclude that the live dietary microorganisms directly caused the health benefits, the results are consistent with plausible arguments that dietary exposure to live microorganisms, in general, could benefit health by increasing the diversity of microbes in the gut or by supporting immune function. In the past century, a reduction in the amount of fermented foods in the diet and increased consumption of processed foods have led to a dramatic reduction in the number of microbes most people consume on a daily basis.
This trend may be reversing, however, since the dietary data used in the study showed that US adults have gradually increased their live microbe consumption over the 18-year study period. This may bode well for the health of the population.
This study was built on two previously published papers, here and here, which conducted the preliminary work necessary to make this assessment of live dietary microbes and health.
”Although the dose-response associations we found were relatively modest, it was notable that these estimated benefits applied to several plausible and important health outcomes and were robust to adjustment for available confounders, including body mass index,” says co-lead author Prof. Dan Tancredi, Ph.D., of the University of California – Davis. “More research that extends these findings to other populations and research that uses study designs that permit stronger causal claims is needed, especially given the potential benefits that might be available by simply substituting into the diet more foods that have safe live microbes.”
ISAPP Executive Science Officer Mary Ellen Sanders, Ph.D., points out the research focused not just on probiotics, but on all microbes in foods, including environmental microbes associated with raw fruits and vegetables as well as lactic acid bacteria associated with fermented foods. Thus, the study differs from probiotic research, which focuses on microbes defined to the strain level, specific dose, and proven health benefits.
Co-first author Prof. Colin Hill, Ph.D., of University College Cork, Ireland, says it’s possible that dietary advice of the future could include a recommendation for the daily consumption of high levels of live dietary microbes.
“Those foods with high levels of microbes (fermented foods, raw vegetables, and fruits) are all nutritionally valuable parts of a healthy and diverse diet,” he says. “Secondly, these same foods could be providing an additional, hitherto unrecognized, health benefit due to live microbes themselves that enter the gut and interact with the host microbiome, immune system, and even the enteric nervous system”.
Reference: “Positive Health Outcomes Associated with Live Microbe Intake from Foods, Including Fermented Foods, Assessed using the NHANES Database” by Colin Hill, Daniel J. Tancredi, Christopher J. Cifelli, Joanne L. Slavin, Jaime Gahche, Maria L. Marco, Robert Hutkins, Victor L. Fulgoni, Daniel Merenstein and Mary Ellen Sanders, 22 February 2023, The Journal of Nutrition. DOI: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2023.02.019
Ihave just ironed my husband a toasted sandwich like some kind of tradwife and to be honest, I’m disappointed with his reaction. Admittedly, there were a few issues. The steam didn’t help, plus I wrapped it in too much tinfoil, so the heat couldn’t penetrate. The main problem, though, was that holding an iron meant I automatically started ironing the package, pressing hard and going to and fro industriously. The result is flat, very flat. “We have a sandwich toaster,” my husband points out, holding the crepe-thin delicacy between finger and thumb. He should be thrilled: this is the closest I’ve come to cooking for him in months. He tries it, reluctantly. “It’s very soft. Did you put mustard in it?”
“I thought it would help,” I say.
“It doesn’t.”
Unless you are a particularly online person, you are probably asking why, at this point. It’s a question I have asked myself repeatedly, in a rising pitch of incredulity and distress as I dived deep into TikTok food – or FoodTok, if you will. Because that is where the ironed toastie comes from: it’s part of a new generation of TikTok recipe hacks that embody a provocative, frankly deranged “why not?” philosophy. We’ve come a long, wrong way since 2021’s viral feta pasta. Now, in addition to ironed toasties, you can enjoy a beatifically smiling blonde putting dried pasta in a blender to create an approximation of flour, then adding an egg to create a sort of dough. She then fashions lumpy, fat noodles, which she boils, tops with tomato sauce and declares “exactly like fresh pasta”. Comments include the likes of “YOU VIOLATED THE PASTA”, “Ma’am, blink twice if someone is holding you hostage” and many irate Italians.
But that is not even as bad as the unholy tacos made by boiling beef, eggs and cheese in a bag of Doritos. There’s a whole genre of sponsored-by-diabetes content, where beautiful, young, slim women combine terrifying quantities of marshmallows, sweets, chocolate, butter, cereal, preprepared cookie dough and the like into “incredible” desserts that should be illegal. Many videos are titled: “Why am I just finding out about …” to which the answer is surely: “Because it should be on trial at The Hague.” You can watch people boil up crisps to make mashed potato, or dump uncooked dried pasta in the oven covered in a house-brick sized portion of cream cheese and a jar of sauce. Dry packet ramen oven-baked in tomato sauce and cheese is called “pizza” (I worry for Italy’s collective blood pressure). How about marinading chicken in the sink, or massaging mountains of mac and cheese on a worktop? “Everybody’s so creative!” TikToker @Tanaradoublechocolate, who seeks out culinary atrocities to comment upon, says.
At the risk of sounding like Grampa Simpson yelling at clouds – which is exactly how I feel exploring FoodTok – what is going on? “There’s a long and storied history of gross-out food on social media,” says Chris Stokel-Walker, social media expert and the author of TikTok Boom. Twisted, the social media food brand that just announced a collaboration with Iceland, started out in 2016 and dared us to make the likes of deep-fried barbecue chicken-stuffed pizzadilla. Now, says Stokel-Walker, “It’s been supercharged by the arrival of TikTok.” The app is designed and engineered to “capture people’s attention as they are scrolling through that endless feed of content” and one good way to do it is precisely “the outlandish, the gross-out”. It is a notion echoed by Jonah Berger, professor at the Wharton school in Pennsylvania and bestselling author of Contagious, a study of social transmission and virality, who notes that these videos combine surprise and often disgust. “The more surprising something is, the more likely we are to share it with others. And disgust is a high arousal emotion that also causes us to pass things on.”
So is this content engineered to provoke? Some of it, definitely. “I never work to appear genuine,” says Eli Betchik of @elis_kitchen, the self-proclaimed “most evil chef on TikTok”. “If anyone asks, I say: ‘Yeah, I do this for attention.’ I think it’s pretty obvious I do.” It is a mark of Betchik’s evil genius that every video of theirs makes me shout “No!” in genuine anger at some point. Betchik was behind the much-reviled potato crisp mash, and a horrifying sandwich made of blended peas, pineapple, cheese and nuts, with the bread coated with mayo, then fried, among other outrages.
Betchik is a fine art jeweller, who started their channel after discovering TikTok at jewellery school. “I thought, I already love experimenting with food and trying new things – I could probably take that a few steps further and use it for some good old-fashioned shock-value entertainment.” Their first video was fried mayonnaise. I make a strangled noise hearing this. “Yeah, it was horrible,” confirms Betchik. Another early favourite was meatballs boiled in lime juice “until the juice was a thick syrup. I’m salivating because I can still taste the sourness. It was the most violent flavour I’ve ever had.”
Outrage is the point, and, Betchik says, people enjoy feeling it. “Obviously, what I’m doing is to gross people out, but people keep coming back – they wouldn’t keep coming back if they didn’t get something out of it. I find that sometimes people get happy when they’re upset in the right way.” On their jewellery TikTok account @eli_metal, Betchik says, a mean comment would take days to digest, but with the food, it’s a mark of success. The one comment they won’t accept is that these horrendous creations are wasteful: impressively, worryingly omnivorous, Betchik finishes almost everything. In addition, “I try to use foods that are close to going bad or things that have been donated to me. And if I can’t eat it, I compost all the scraps.” It’s not clear if this level of diligence is common practice among the creators, but it feels doubtful.
Mean commenters on the @myjanebrain TikTok account include a certain Gordon Ramsay, who angrily described a chicken stuffed in a pumpkin, garnished with cinnamon sticks and many onions as “Halloween salmonella right there.” “It was pretty awesome,” says Jane, a preternaturally cheery 27-year-old Canadian and full-time content creator who prefers not to give her surname, perhaps for fear of reprisals from Italians angered by her ramen “pizza”. “But I know the chicken was fully cooked. It was moist, it had great flavour.”
Jane ended up in the realm of what is sometimes called “rage-bait” cooking accidentally. Her early videos, she says, were straight instructional content, but she pivoted when her fried chicken recipe went viral. “It got 31m views, 3,000 comments,” says Jane – this is, of course, highly populated TikTok territory, the hashtag #FoodTikTok had accumulated 112bn views by the end of 2022, for example. “I thought it would be positive but it was more like: ‘You’re the worst chef I’ve ever seen.’ So I realised that I would have no idea what people were going to think of my videos.”
She started focusing on finding the “craziest combinations”, including one titled “I learned this hotdog trick in England”, in which she makes jelly from pickle juice, adds frankfurters and eats it in a bread bun. “That is absolutely not English,” I challenge her hotly, TikTok commenter style. “I can’t remember; it was from some sort of British something,” she says. “I was going to ask you why you make pickle juice jelly!” What makes people angriest, though, she says, is her cooking techniques. “As soon as you cook for the internet you open yourself up to all the critics who are so specific in the way they cook.”
Both Jane and Eli are clear that their content is knowingly provocative rather than instructional, whether viewers understand that or not. “A lot of people take this content at face value when you have to remember we’re through the looking-glass on social media, where these things are being deliberately gamed for the benefit of those that create it,” says Stokel-Walker. All attention is good attention, since views and shares – including the genre of angry or incredulous “duet” videos where other creators (including Ramsay) comment on their depravity – are the point. That’s how you make money after all: successful TikTokers can become part of the app’s creator fund and get paid – admittedly pennies – per view. Stokel-Walker says that success can allow creators to pivot to the kind of genuinely lucrative mainstream collaborations that Twisted has managed.
There is another possibly upsetting angle: fetish. “Videos where they point a lot and touch things and make super-repulsive stuff are apparently fetish,” a baker friend tells me airily, when I inquire if she uses TikTok recipes. It turns out there’s a fairly widespread suspicion this is a thing. The messier foods could fulfil a “sploshing” fetish: getting sexual gratification from food mess. “I’ve seen this aired,” says Stokel-Walker. “Certainly, it appeals to your senses. It’s like a slow-motion car crash in food form, where you’re like, how more disgusting can this get?” TikTok user @lenarae.lh analyses food videos and pronounces them fetish or non-fetish on the basis of how the women – it is almost always women – use their hands, splash or squirt stuff suggestively or massage phallic things. A friend also directs me to the work of a creator called @cedriklorenzen who specialises in whacking pieces of raw meat, dribbling, drizzling and taking his top off. It’s a better appetite suppressant than Ozempic: after watching, I never want to eat, have sex, or indeed see anything again.
There is actually plenty of good, normal food on TikTok. Asking around, people mention recipes for homemade crispy chilli sauce, broccoli pasta, sesame dip and various noodle dishes they’ve tried, then added to their repertoire. Seema Pankhania, a 25-year-old former chef de partie at Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat who posts as @seemagetsbaked, has 1.3 million followers for her eminently achievable, delicious-looking recipes. They are pleasingly lo-fi, especially her pyjama recipes for hungover, no bones days and ultra simple versions of Indian classics – her butter chicken has 1.7m likes (she also recommends her “super simple creamy chicken curry”. But even Pankhania, a proper cook, is aware it is all grist to the gnat’s attention span TikTok mill. She aims to keep videos under a minute long (“the shorter the better; people are going to get bored”) and has no illusions that much of the food content is only meant to be consumed with the eyes. “There’s a whole other field of cooking on TikTok which is indulgent,” she says, giving the example of elaborate lasagnes. “Nobody is going to make it, but it’s very nice and satisfying to watch.” Clearly that goes for the bizarre and the gross-out stuff too in some more depraved way. “At the end of the day, social media is entertainment, right?” says Pankhania. “Most of it is just for entertainment and people aren’t actually going to be cooking a lot of it.”
Given much of food TikTok isn’t meant to be cooked, or is intentionally tongue in cheek, I’m sure I’m missing the point entirely as I cram half a packet of spaghetti into my blender. A flimsy thing, it protests loudly with an ominous smell of burning rubber. I whiz up vermicelli instead, dump the “flour” on the worktop and add an egg, making a claggy mess. I have to add normal flour – surely invalidating the whole madness – to form a dough ball capable of being rolled out. The resultant approximate noodles are dumped in boiling water. I take them out based on vibes alone – TikTok recipes are wildly unspecific – then my family gather to taste and criticise. My husband – whose former student staple of peas and camembert prepared in a kettle would be a runaway TikTok hit – declares it raw. “It’s not terrible,” one son ventures. “It’s not good either,” says the other, correctly.
I dare not attempt anything of Betchik’s, and Jane recommends her own recipe for cinnamon buns baked in cream and coffee, topped with sugar, butter and flattened toffees – but I am 48 and my organs will explode if I eat that. My wimp’s version – a vegan bun sliced and covered in oat cream, sugar and cinnamon – comes out of the oven ominously black; my just deserts for messing with the recipe, I suppose. I eat it all anyway – it’s a cinnamon bun and cream, what’s not to like? – then, exhausted and hyperglycaemic, I close TikTok, hopefully for good. Everybody’s so creative! I wish they weren’t.
There may be nothing that seems as chic as some hors-d'oeuvres served with champagne. However, there is one thing that can prevent a delicious appetizer from looking elegant in your hand: its size. According to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald, the British royal family likely understands this. Professional high-class caterer Matthew Haigh told the outlet that chefs understand that the upper echelon doesn't like large hors-d'oeuvres: "We always design menus for our clients who host cocktail events to avoid foods that take more than two bites, that are overly constructed, for example, piled high like Mount Everest and risk collapsing, and that are laden with sauces."
Because of this societal rule, the British royal family probably avoids eating large appetizers. After all, it's difficult to look elegant while attempting to cram a palm-sized sandwich into one's mouth. As per Reader's Digest, the royal kitchen seems to follow this rule, often trying to serve food in small pieces. Ex-palace chef Darren McGrady told the outlet that he used to prepare "one-inch eyes of lamb meat" for the royals. Apparently, though, Prince Philip would break the family's small servings rule, even offering to trade dinner with the staff to get his hands on a larger hunk of meat.
You don't have to focus on restriction or cutting out food groups to lose weight, dietitians say.
Instead, try adding nutritious foods like protein sources, fiber-rich veggies, and other whole foods.
Focusing on what you can eat instead of depriving yourself can help make a diet sustainable.
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Losing weight doesn't have to feel restrictive — adding healthy options to your diet can be a more effective way to see results than cutting out certain foods, according to dietitians.
To reduce body fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit, eating fewer calories than you burn off in the form of exercise and activity. But you don't have to cut out treats, eliminate carbs, or fast for long hours.
Instead, focus on getting enough protein, fiber, and whole foods, so you can enjoy meals while still lowering overall calorie intake to lose weight and keep it off long-term, dietitians said.
Eating more protein can keep you full and support your metabolism
One way to make your diet more satisfying and support weight loss is to include a varietyof protein sources to help you feel full, sports dietitian Angie Asche previously told Insider.
"Satiety is a big factor," Asche said. "If your goal is muscle strength and you want to decrease fat, than upping your intake might be helpful."
Protein is an essential macronutrient for maintaining tissues like muscle. Evidence suggests getting enough of it can help you lose weight by preserving muscle mass, keeping your metabolism strong as you burn fat.
The right amount of protein for most people is between 0.5 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, sports dietitian Nancy Clark previously told Insider.
However, it is possible to eat too much protein, which can cause you to overdo it on calories and won't lead to additional weight-loss or muscle-building benefits, according to Asche.
"Anything in excess, if you're not wanting to gain weight, may not be helpful," she said.
Fiber-rich foods help control appetite and keep your digestion healthy
Another strategy for eating more food and fewer calories is to load up on fiber, a type of carbohydrate found in foods like legumes, fruit, veggies, and whole grains.
Fiber slows digestion, which can keep you full after a meal to support healthy weight loss. It also feeds the beneficial bacteria in the digestive system known as the gut microbiome, which is linked to benefits like a healthy weight and lower risk of disease.
High-fiber meals and snacks include oatmeal, black bean wraps, nuts, and rice bowls, according to dietitian Bianca Tamburello. The FDA recommends adults consume 28 grams of fiber per day.
Fill your plate with whole foods like veggies to cut calories without feeling deprived
A common dieting mistake is focusing on restricting foods to lose weight, which can leave you cranky, hungry, and less likely to stick to your plan, dietitian Jaclyn London previously told Insider.
Instead, prioritize adding healthy foods to make sure you're meeting your nutritional needs, she said.
"Think about 'more' — more produce, more fruit," London said. "The more you can think about including, the more satisfying your meals can be."
A good starting point is to make the majority of your plate non-starchy veggies like leafy greens, according to Dr. Mark Hyman, a family physician who specializes in a food-as-medicine approach to health.
Structuring your meals around nutrient-dense whole foods for about 90% of your diet leaves the remaining space in your calorie budget to treat yourself, dietitian Georgie Fear previously told Insider.
"Think about what foods you enjoy the most and find a frequency that works for you. That's still a healthy diet," she said.
