Be Excellent To Each Other

This is derailing the point.

What has supermarkets and massive corporations mis-selling products and not scrutinising their supply chain in the pursuit of profit got to do with whether people buy expensive or cheap food?

Yes, there are perhaps better ways of eating on a low budget than buying cheap food at Tesco, but that a totally separate issue to what has been happening.

Why are some people wanting to blame the victims here?

The link Craig posted is spot on.

Although you have a good point about making your own food, Raidy, you ruined it by referring to boiled cauliflower. Frankly, I'd rather eat dobbin

Many have purchased SKY, Tobacco, Alcohol and an IPhone before the food budget is considered.

I've blamed no-one but the supermarkets, obv.

But equally, I've made the more general point that people should not, IMO, trust factory mass-processed foods anyway and should give a higher priority to eating alternative, better food which, as I know from my own experience and in the very example I mentioned (homemade veg curry), can be as cheap, if not cheaper still - by some margin.

Actually I was still thinking about veg curry. Cauliflower is awesome in that.

Quite - the point is that we shouldn't need to have faith in the institutions selling the food, the whole point of the Food Standards Agency and a whole host of industry standards and practice should be exactly that it shouldn't matter in the slightest whether you buy the most expensive food Waitrose have or the cheapest food Asda have - it's all covered under the same regulations and it should all be covered by the same processes to ensure those regulations are followed. Sure - a retailer is going to attempt to source the cheapest shit possible if they're trying to sell at bargain basement prices, but that shouldn't matter in the least. It should still be safe and edible, and it should still contain what it says on the box.

Someone has committed a criminal act - either the suppliers, the retailers, or both.

I haven't read a single post from anyone, since this thread started, who tried to argue otherwise; this is indeed how things SHOULD be, clearly. We all of us agree.

That they are not, however, should surely not come as any huge surprise to people - or at least so I, and others have tried to suggest. It's not a perfect world.

The only way to be reasonably sure of what you're eating is to prepare it yourself - and that's a worthy aim, oft overlooked. I have suggested that this can be achieved relatively cheaply - at least as cheaply as buying shedloads of mass-factory-produced processed ready meals - and in a reasonably time-efficient way, too. Especially if cooking in bulk, and taking advantage of local butchers, greengrocers and the like, rather than the convenience of out of town supermarkets.

I never ate crap when I was skint and living on my own, so I certainly wouldn't have fed it to my kids.

Not eating meat does tend to solve a lot of the problems too though.

To be fair, even though I'm not a veggie - I agree.

I always (quite rightly) regarded meat as a luxury (note: meat, not the hosings off bones as "rendered" by some hideous industrial process or other).

I took the view that, by and large, I couldn't afford to eat it. Funny how I went about 7 years in between colds etc./was never ill... except the one occasion during that era of my life when I had some scuzzy chicken burger from a take-out and then promptly got salmonella.

Nobody came here for a lecture on vegetarianism.

Dude. Some of the cauliflower in the veggie lasagne was actually parsnip!

Point proven

These tofu cultures were cloned by untrained lab technicians!

One of those memories that will always stick with me is my (then) 1 year old niece being given a delicious apple desert.

Which accidentally turned out to be parsnip.

She wasn't impressed.

Don't disagree in the least - and were I in the convenient situation of being a house husband, I wouldn't eat a damned thing that wasn't prepared from scratch by my own two hands. The problem is, it's hard to beat the convenience of pre-prepared meals. Having said that though, from that perspective there's minimal difference between asda convenience food and waitrose convenience food other than cost.

You don't need to be a house husband or anything even remotely approaching it. Are they all of them house husbands/housewives in Italy or France? Believe me, your average working class Italian or French household would not dream of eating this crap in their wildest nightmares, because they prioritise good, wholesome, edible home-prepared food far more highly than the average Brit and consequently are all the better for it. The Mediterranean diet is rightly lauded as incredibly healthy.

To suggest such a thing is disingenuous and a myth. Many wholesome meals can be prepared, cooked and served in 30 minutes from scratch; there are endless good cookbooks bursting with recipes and suggestions. The bottom line, though, is that people give higher priority to watching endless shite on television - be it soaps, football or whatever - and would rather spend their money on other stuff, all as asfish and Chinny have said. That's up to them, it's a free country etc., but I'm suggesting that whilst it is no-one's fault but the supermarkets that they evidently cannot control what goes into their TV dinners, it's hardly a good idea to trust something as so fundamentally important as one's diet (and kids' diet, who don't even get a choice in the matter) to mass produced factory food and greedy corporations.

As far as your final point about Waitrose and other supermarkets, there clearly are differences, however 'snooty' that looks (cue HoE). Like I say, you get what you pay for. I'm not saying I like that, but it's a fact nonetheless.

Oh GOD

I fucking swear the next cunt that says "No I've got a life" if I so much as mention videogames or the like can get to fucking fuck unless they spend every spare waking minute of their precious "life" snowboarding or campaigning for the release of subjugated Chinese dissidents. Definition of "life" for these clusterfucking shithehounds is basically discussing X Factor or Dancing on Ice whilst slapping a horse lasagne into the microwave so they don't miss 5 minutes of Eastenders while checking Facebook because their time is so FUCKING PRECIOUS.

I work 50 hours+ a week and play lots of videogames yet I can still find the time to cook a proper meal from proper ingredients (when I'm not in a hotel. If I'm in a hotel I tend to eat protein bars made from Otters Paws, probably)

I may need to eat more valium though reading that back.

Just couldn't agree more mate, bloody well said my son.

We never buy ready meals or anything like that but it's just that we don't really like them. Even this latest horsemeat thing doesn't make me frightened of them or anything.

I dunno, I think I'd have to be taking much better care of myself in every other way before I'd start losing sleep over the tiny chance that some trace of some chemical or other in some food I ate might turn out to be harmful.

I think that the main worry appears to be that many of these horses were never intended for human consumption, if I understand it right? (Old, tired, possibly sick animals potentially pumped full of drugs that wouldn't necessarily be allowed within livestock intended to be butchered?)

The cynic in me thinks its funny how when the scandal first broke and Tesco were in the frame - being caught out thanks to the intervention of the Irish government (i.e. not themselves), there was none of this talk. But now, when a relatively small company (by comparison) holds its hands up through it's *own* testing, the tone has completely changed?

It's a fallacy to think that own brand products from high end shops are inherently better than those from Asda or tesco. Odds are they're made in the same factories

Well... results seem to be showing that they aren't, as more shops would be reporting horse meat, wouldn't they?

I can only speak for cereal and biscuits admittedly.

Ah, sponsorship deal related, I assume?

Certainly not.
(This post is brought to you by the crunchy, wholesome goodness of Harvest Morn Breakfast Bars. Start your day the best way, with Harvest Morn)

Bread and stuff like that? Very possibly (albeit to completely different recipes).
Meat and meat products? No, or at least only rarely. AFAIK Waitrose in particular have very rigorous animal welfare, sustainability, quality, ethics and farming policies.

One thing is for sure though, it most certainly isn't fallacy to think you don't get what you pay for. If life has taught me anything at all, it's that, right there.

Which might sound throwaway, but it also showcases problems with contamination and mislabelling. My wife's eaten food that, unbeknown to her, contained apples or strawberry juice, both of which she's hugely allergic to. We then get to play the "will we need to get to hospital really fucking quickly?" game.


Except there are plenty of places in the UK, notably poorer areas, where good, fresh food isn't readily accessible, and where there aren't rows of supermarkets and local retailers.

In a more general sense, Mrs G and I have noticed something quite interesting over the past few years. Some supermarkets and outlets will be very specific regarding their sourcing. Waitrose is particularly good at this, and even the likes of GBK talks about its beef, which is 'West Country'. Other places will instead promote "British and Irish" beef, presumably relying on the British picture of Ireland as some kind of green and leafy loveliness, despite British standards in beef being higher due to the country's previous massive fuck-up with BSE.

I'll concede that the meat based products are likely to be superior.

I'd be interested to know of any urban areas where there's no butcher, greengrocer or market within, say, a 3 mile radius. But anyway, if there's a shortage of them, there's only one reason for that: the likes of Tesco and the British consumer who can't be arsed and buys shit like we've been discussing, by the gross.



Indeed, that's precisely the sort of thing I'm talking about, tight control of the supply source chain and an unwillingness to accept anything else. That costs money though, which is reflected in the purchase price, but the likes of Waitrose well know that quality and integrity of food is their USP and they fuck with that at their utmost peril.



Well yeah, it's the usual misleading crap. It depends what you call "beef" as well; personally I would not include the foul, foamy hosings off cow bones as being "beef".

Only sourcing food from the UK has been tried before* and that didn't work very well. Also, the UK cannot produce enough chickens a year** to feed our fowl habit, according to someone I spoke to recently.

*1939-1945
**I think it is something crazy like 25 MILLION deficit.

We have local butchers and grocers, but the prices are way higher than the supermarkets.

By which I mean 200% higher rather than 20%.

Seriously...?
A large chicken costs £5 from Sainsbury's (when on special offer, more at other times). Are you really saying that a chicken costs £15 at your butchers?

Where do you live mate, Mayfair?

I buy all our meat from a local farm shop. It's cheaper than supermarkets and a lot tastier + locally produced so a lot less food miles.

Trick of supermarkets - Mark down some key items and sell them for near cost. Mark up other items where people won't notice. Also sell stuff in packets (eg mushrooms) where the loose product would actually be far cheaper.

On average you'll find your local friendly shop barely if any more expensive on average for the same products.

The local farm shop sausages are more expensive than the "best" from the supermarket. But fucking nom! All their pigs are reared on site. The only thing done off site is the slaughter and the bit where the animals are cut up.

My local butcher charges £13 for a 2kg chicken

Whereas tesco website say they charge £2.48 per kg in their everyday value range.

That's only £2 shy of 200pc difference.

Malc

How long does it take to walk three miles, with a kid behind you, after you're knackered after a long day's work in some minimum-wage
shithole? Are the local shops of the sort you're talking about open at that point, or are you left with just Spar? I'm sure some people do have the shops nearby and just don't use them (for whatever reason), but plenty of people lack nearby stores that actually sell decent produce.


I don't disagree there's a supply-and-demand issue in some cases. I live in Toryville, Hants, and we surprisingly have few local indie food shops. We do have two butchers, but the local greengrocer was a hideous place last time I ventured in there. Bizarrely, we don't appear to have any farm deliveries either—and only Able & Cole flyers, which, as it turns out, isn't a great place to buy from anyway (lots of overseas sourcing). Friends in Oxford say they get everything from local farms now, bar things like bleach, which requires a monthly shop to a supermarket. Gits.

Of course, another thing Brits could do with is not being infatuated with identical-looking produce. It's funny to go to a Spanish supermarket and see the fruit and veg. It's often all over the place (although last time I was there, I noted even the Spanish are starting to pre-pack a lot of identifood), whereas here it's like every tomato has to be the exact same size. It's a pity our local Sainsbury's stopped selling 'basics' peppers. They were great—a bloody great bag of the things for a quid, just because they were a bit misshapen. It makes no odds when you chop the things up anyway.

Malc, might I suggest you are being mischievous.

The Tesco "everyday value" chicken will be some battery raised thing in all probability sourced from China.

The butchers chicken will in all probability be a UK raised chicken, corn fed and kept in a barn with access to the outside.

In fact, shock horror, go on the Tesco site and look for a corn fed UK free range chicken and the price is 12 quid.

I've cycled past battery farms. They are horrible and they STINK. I've also visited farms where they raise free range birds. Some of the buggers had got out and were running free in the farmyard and I was having to avoid running them over!

That's 500g of chicken and 500g of injected water.

Craig, I know the Supermarkets are convenient for a lot of people but I'm sure low income families get days off when they can get to a proper butchers and freeze stuff or prepare meals for a later date.

I was only backing up what curio was saying. That some people can't afford to use a butchers because they can't afford to pay triple the price. I know that £12 chicken in tesco is going to taste nicer than the £5 one, but a lot of people will just see that it's cheaper and go for that option.

Malc

Well not sure why, but here the Irish beef is some kind of quality lable too, why british doesn't get in... maybe indeed because of the leafy green image of Ireland ."british" meat doesn't get a show though..maybe we think britain=london or because like to bash british food (as a defense of our own lack of culinary culture;))..

Dutch meat is only advertised when in biological beef, as in not just the country of origin but the village of origin is used as "quality label").. We just had a big fuss on Dutch milk. One of the biggest milk producer made a commercial about "milk from dutch cows", and environmental group hijacked the campaign with a message of 'the cows might be dutch, but the soja they eat surely isn't and produced in a not very environmental way and shipped oversees'..

(and that's without the discussions of the virtues of Milk itself, which has been fed to us in huge quotas, because of the overproduction of milk due to european subsidies)

It's a premium, luxury product which you don't need. Can't afford it, then don't buy it at all and save yourself some money.

DP

Malc

Less food miles is incredibly unlikely. Even if they just drove a quad bike from the pen to the shop, they're going to be throwing down a far higher mileage per product than a supermaket.

Also, food miles are basically worthless from an environmental point of view for us living in the UK. There's far less carbon involved if you grow and ship tomatoes from Spain to the UK than if you try to grow them here yourself.

Unless you are British Sugar. But that's somewhat off the point.

Lots of people wouldn't say that fresh meat isn't a luxury though.

Malc

I can get chicken breasts for a quid each in the supermarket, but they cost three each (at least) from the butcher.

Yeah, it's a better product, but that doesn't matter from a purely cost perspective. Butchers and grocers in London (including farmers markets) are luxury producers.

What? Than Tesco value chicken being sent from the Far East?

The chicken breasts from our butcher are nearly twice the size of the standard free range from the supermarket. Mrs Chinny thinks the butcher has access to some giant mutant birds.

When people talk about cooking at home versus ready meals, what do they actually mean? Is a salmon fillet that comes in a packet, and has a separate sauce packet that comes with it, a ready meal?

I doubt the Trooper household is that different to the majority.

Fresh meat and veg to cook stuff from scratch.
Packaged ingredients in a kit to make up.
Pre-made pies and stuff like that.
Pre-made desserts
Home baked desserts
Frozen pizzas
Frozen veg and chips and stuff.
Plus everything else possible and everything in between.

Any and all of the above used at random depending on what is in the fridge, and how much we can be arsed.