Rather than board the injection bandwagon, Britain should be taxing unhealthy food and clamping down on marketing

Humankind has been freed from the threat of disease by some wonderful, transformative inventions, from smallpox injections to the Covid vaccinations. With all due respect, I don’t think the so-called skinny jab is one of them.

A boom in injectable weight-loss drugs, such as Wegovy from the Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, a biological type 2 diabetes medication containing semaglutide, has promised to revolutionise obesity treatment in recent months. For some people with serious obesity-related health conditions, these appetite suppressants will indeed be a life-saver. Trials show Wegovy can help people lose 15% of their body weight, and the drug has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) for use in the NHS. That’s good news for people whose health is already suffering.

Sarah Boseley is the Guardian’s former health editor

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Scientist and author Tim Spector shows how to make small but important changes to improve the way you eat – while still enjoying your food

Whilst researching my latest book, Food for Life, I learnt that we’re very short of practical advice on food choices which are the most important things we can do for our health (humans and our gut microbes) and also to help the planet. I also learnt that how we eat can be as important as what we eat. Here are my top five, practical everyday tips to help you make small but sustainable changes across the year that will be far better for you than a few weeks of crash dieting or restrictive eating.

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Two easy, economical dishes of chicken and spring greens pie and chicken and vegetable stew both make great use of a tin of soup

These dishes are designed to make life easy; they can be batch-cooked and frozen, are packed full of flavour and areguaranteed crowdpleasers. The stew can include any seasonal vegetables you like, such as crisp asparagus, sweet peas or baby spinach.

Follow @FullTimeMeals for more filling and budget-friendly recipes from Tom Kerridge.

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Butterhead lettuce leaves make an excellent wrap for cheese, crumbs, herbs and nuts, all poached in a tasty broth

If I had to make a bed from one vegetable, it would be butterhead lettuce . Its soft, velvety leaves and bouncy heart would make a good mattress, I think. And, if I had enough and they’d never seen a fridge, the largest leaves could provide a floppy cover. My green bed would not only be comfortable; it would also be useful: despite modern conclusions that the milky lactucarium that seeps from lettuce stems is not a sedative, I’m with ancient doctors and hopeful that eating my cover would send me to sleep.

The ancient Egyptians – great cultivators of lettuce – saw it as sacred, though for different reasons. In Egyptian mythology, Min , one of the earliest known Egyptian deities of rain, fertility, crops and male potency, and often represented by an ithyphallic figure, was often associated with lettuce. But it was not the butterhead from which I am going to make my bed, but rather a tall variety with a “straight vertical surge of growth and milky juice”, as Jane Grigson describes it. Yet research in 2015, by Pauline Norris at the University of Manchester about the association of Min with the lettuce plant, concludes that lettuce was offered to Min simply to ensure the fertility and regeneration of agriculture, rather than as an aphrodisiac to increase sexual desire. Even so, buying a cos at the corner shop is now forever changed.

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Exporting churpi, herders’ smoked yak cheese, has transformed lives in remote Himalayan villages

On a cold, wet August morning in the windswept high pastures of the Nepalese Himalayas, a stream of herders bring fresh milk to a makeshift tent at an altitude of 4,200 metres. The bells of grazing yaks and chauris (a cross between male yaks and female cattle) echo across the silent valleys as men work under a tarpaulin measuring, boiling and separating milk into curds and whey.

The curds are strained in cloth bags and pressed under weights to remove as much whey as possible before being sent to the village below to be made into churpi (or chhurpi ), a dried snack that has found an unlikely new lease of life, transforming pastoralists’ lives in Nepal in the process.

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Sugary foods are easier to access than ever and designed to keep us coming back for more. Are they actually addictive – and should we quit them?

Everyone loves sugar. And for good reason! Back in the paleolithic days, when food was scarce, you’d have had to gnaw through nearly a metre of chunky, fibrous sugar cane to get the same amount of energy you can now glug down via a single can of Coke. But apart from the fact that most of us aren’t chasing enough mammoths to need that kind of calorie hit any more, is there anything really that bad about our fondness for the sweet stuff? Or is it actually addictive and should we be quitting it entirely? Toothbrush at the ready: the truth might leave a sour taste.

First of all, it’s important to understand the distinction between “free” sugars – added to foods like sweets, cakes, biscuits, and fizzy drinks – and the sugar found naturally in milk, fruit and vegetables. “The intrinsic sugars naturally incorporated within the cellular structure of food, like the sugar found in whole fruit and vegetables, are released more slowly into the bloodstream,” says the nutritionist Lily Soutter . “This is also the case with milk sugars that come alongside a helping of protein and fat, which can keep you feeling fuller for longer. The recommendation for adults is that we cut back on ‘free’ sugars to just 5% of total energy intake, which equates to about 30g a day for adults.” That’s roughly seven teaspoons.

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Turn up the colour with vibrant, seasonal soups featuring watercress and carrot

Whenever I find watercress in fine condition, I buy enough to make not only salad but also a pot of emerald soup. By “fine condition” I mean large-leaved, thick-stemmed and with leaves of deepest green. Watercress as it should be, with glossy, deeply peppery leaves, bursting with health. Watercress with spirit.

As salad leaves go, watercress is the most difficult to keep in fine fettle, such is its love (and need) for cool, clear, running water. Bunches used to be sold on the streets of Victorian London by “watercress girls” who would regularly refresh the leaves from the city’s many water pumps.

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In failing to regulate the food sector, successive governments have allowed industry giants to flood the market with products that make us ill

Britain’s system for producing and distributing the food we eat is not working. Last week, we learned that UK food prices rose an astonishing 19.1% in the year to March. Yes, they are rising everywhere, but faster in Britain – over 2022, 40% higher than in the EU. There are frequent shortages of key products. Two million people used food banks last year. British consumers eat more cheaper, fatty food than other Europeans. As a result, nearly one in three is now classified as obese , the highest in Europe besides Malta and Turkey. Five million people are estimated to be at risk of contracting type 2 diabetes, with all the risks that entails.

Every malfunction of British capitalism and the British state has combined in a perfect storm, fuelled by the way the laissez-faire consensus – inflamed by the rightwing media – frames our understanding of society. We are unhealthier, at greater risk of dying early and facing a deeper cost of living crisis than our peers in the EU. People should be as angry as hell. This, rather than the small boats influx, should be at the heart of our national conversation.

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Unusual flavours to pique your interest

I mentioned Luisa’s Whole Hazelnut in 75% cocoa chocolate last month . But if you like nutty ‘milk’ chocolate, but are vegan, I may just have found you the best such bar there is: Luisa’s Hazelnut Crunch (£4.50/25g) contains hazelnuts (both ground to give that creamy ‘milk’ texture, and roasted whole, for crunch), cocoa and sugar. It is really good and not even (relatively) that high in sugar. The 25g is perfect, you can eat the whole bar knowing it’s not a doorstep size.

Sur Chocolates , famous for their alfajores, have launched some new products, which I shall be covering in the weeks to come. First: their Passionate Pecans (£6.50/100g) are caramelised pecans in dulce de leche chocolate dusted in passion fruit powder. They are lovely! They have this sour tang which gives way to sweet crunchiness and they look like little pebbles. They may be my sneak-in bag for my next cinema trip.

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