The best way to learn is to teach. I find this all the time with nutrition. Whenever I give a talk, I invariably find myself thinking ‘Oh yes. I must do that!’ Telling others is a great way to keep yourself on track!

I’m currently giving a ten-week nutrition course and today we talked about salt. We had a look at the nutrition information panels of breakfast cereals and everyone was amazed at the variation in sodium levels. They ranged from 4mg to over 700mg per 100 grams. To claim ‘low salt’ a food must have less than 120mg per 100 grams.

Which cereals hit the over 700mg mark? It was Cornflakes, Ricies and Rice Bubbles. A plate of Cornflakes has more sodium than a small bag of potato crisps.

Who said 8-year-olds can’t cook? I’ve just spent the afternoon helping a group of them grate carrots, slice cabbage, measure out vinegar and finely chop garlic and parsley. We made coleslaw – the real way. No store bought mayonnaise for us. The kids made it from scratch – an egg, vinegar and garlic whisked together. Then the oil very slowly drizzled in while the cooking teacher whisked until it became thick and creamy. What a fun way to teach the science of emulsifiers.

Some women, particularly if they gain lots of weight during pregnancy, can develop gestational diabetes – high blood sugars. They usually return to normal after the baby is born but it does make you more prone to developing diabetes later on. If it’s not controlled by diet you end up having a big baby (ouch!)and he or she has a higher risk of being overweight and developing diabetes when older. Now here’s a study, just published in the British Journal of Nutrition, that has found taking specific probiotics may reduce gestational diabetes by 20%.

What did they do? It was a double-blind, randomised controlled study which means the study participants (256 healthy pregnant women) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: dietary counselling plus a daily probiotic capsule, dietary counselling plus a placebo capsule (looked and tasted the same but had no probiotics in it) or just the placebo capsule.

Double-blind means that neither the study participants nor the study organisers knew which group was which. Actually the control group who had no dietary counselling and just took the placebo capsule were single-blinded which means they didn’t know it didn’t contain probiotics but the study organisers did.