The Terror Of Packaging
These bacon packs from Waitrose are some of the many packaging ideas, that need to be opened with smoething sharp.
The Terror Of Packaging
Once you’ve opened the packet, you then have to wrap it all in clingfilm, with all the problems that means, otherwise it quickly goes off.
I think, I’ll find a proper butchers that sells loose bacon, so I can buy the quantity I want.
It’s all a plot to get us more, than we actually need.
I probably need three rashers of bacon, twice a week at most.
They Can’t Tell Sheep From Goats
The Sunday Times is reporting that goats meat has been found in some lamb products.
This doesn’t strike me as serious as the horsemeat scandal, but yet again, it shows the importance of knowing where food has come from.
I’m cooking some pork for my lunch and will be particular, where I buy it from. It will probably be Waitrose, but on other days it could be Marks and Spencer or a proper butchers, like the one on the Essex Road.
If you pay a crap price for food, you probably get what you deserve.
The Guy From Iceland Has A Point
In this article on the BBC web site, the boss of the Iceland chain, blames councils for forcing down meat quality and prices.
Local councils are to blame for driving down food quality with cheap food contracts for schools and hospitals, the boss of Iceland has said.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, Malcolm Walker said the “problem really lies” with councils buying food from the poorly supplied catering industry.
He may not be totally right, but I do think he has a point.
I must admit, that I have met several individuals, who through their farm or company have supplied the big supermarkets for a number of years and from their comments, dealing with the supermarkets isn’t always as difficult, as the press would have us believe. But then saying the supermarkets are honest and good, doesn’t sell newspapers.
Apparently, It’s Romanian Horsemeat!
According to this report on the BBC, the horsemeat at the heart of your burgers and lasagne is of Romanian origin.
What the article doesn’t say is that the reason why horses are being killed in Romania because they are now no longer allowed on the road. This was said by an expert on the BBC News.
So these horses and our consciences are the victims of a Road Safety campaign in Romania.
At least the horses are dead before they are transported all the way across Europe. This couldn’t always be said for some of the meat we export, as it is exported live, so that the recipients can say it is locally killed.
It just shows how stupid everybody involved is, as to take a given number of animals to somewhere in Europe, takes three animal trucks or one refrigerated one. I’ve also taken a competition horse all the way from Suffolk to Scotland, and this needs stops on the way and a good rest in a field or large stable with lots of straw at the end, to make sure the animal is in the correct state to compete.
A farmer friend, who rears top quality meat for Waitrose and others, told me that, the law should be that all meat should be shown as EU-killed in the shop, so that the French, Greeks and Italians, couldn’t say it was locally-killed.
But then when did the EU do something sensible, where animal welfare is concerned.
Following The Horsemeat
The horsemeat in food saga goes on and on, with Findus lasagne, the latest product to be cheval-rich, according to this article on the BBC.
In all of the problems reported, there doesn’t seem to have been one, which has occurred with a gluten-free product.
It is also reported that a drug called bute is found in some of the meat. This led to some wag on the radio, saying that these products will be good for your gout.
It will be interesting to see, if we’ve changed our eating habits in a couple of months.
I haven’t! But then, I never knowingly buy or eat food from the bottom of the pile and I doubt most of the restaurants I visit, source their meat in that area too!
Tesco Don’t Know Their Horse From Their Gluten
Tesco seem to have withdrawn their Free From gluten-free burgers after the horsemeat scare.
But they made a mistake in Oxford and got caught out by the BBC, as they report here.
As I’ve said before, the odd bit of horse won’t hurt me, but the levels of gluten in the usual burgers on sale in supermarkets most likely will.
Get Your Horseburgers From The Supermarket
This story is not really about how horse and pig meat ended up in beefburgers. It’s probably more about the rubbish that gets put into cheap meat products, to keep the price acceptable to the supermarkets. After all, we may not generally eat horses, but they are generally well looked after and are unliely to give you any disease, which might not be true of some of the rubbish.
I rarely buy meat and meat products, where the provenance is not obvious. That doesn’t necessarily mean I always buy organic, although I often do, but I would always by a product, that was fully described. I wouldn’t buy a meat pie or something similar, if it was too cheap, as then the profit will be the same, so the quality will have suffered.
Gourmet Burger Kitchen
I bought two of their burgers last week in Waitrose and I had them for supper last night, with some onions and new potatoes. And very nice they were too! The only ingredients in the burgers are Aberdeen Angus beef and seasoning, which is just salt and pepper.
They may not be vegetarian, but they are certainly gluten-free!
Kentish Lamb
This is a tale that probably should have been handled better.
If we are going to eat meat, then we should educate children about where it comes from.
Perhaps not go as far as my youngest who spent several summers in the Hunt Kennels, cutting up animals for the hounds. What everybody does forget though is that the Hunt has traditionally been the receptor of all the dead animals of the countryside. You have a horse that needs to be put down and it’s more humane to do the deed in a field on a sunny day and then give the carcase to the Hunt, rather than submit the animal to all the stress of going to the slaughterhouse.
Life is hard and we all have to die someday. But when that day comes, death should be as painless and without stress as possible.
I’m afraid that the laws on abbatoirs brought in by the EU, don’t make that process any better for animals, as they often have to travel miles before death, because so many have closed. And when it comes to transporting animals, such as sheep, miles to slaughter in Southern Italy or Greece, I’m totally against it. It’s actually cheaper to transport them as carcases, because you get three times as many animals on the truck. So you need to refrigerate, but you only need a third of the drivers.
The best beef I ever tasted was illegal.
Twenty years ago, a local farmer used to kill his own cattle and then butcher them in his kitchen. He just took the bullock into the field, gave him some grass and then shot him. No stress and the meat was superb.
But then he was a real countryman, who has forgotten several times more about life in Suffolk, than I know now.
The Anonymous Widower 