If you ever wondered if you were headed in the wrong direction.........

When he was very young my son asked me how the factories made the chicken that we ate, and why did we call it the same as the chickens on Farms.  I explained that factories didn't make it, that it was the same thing, that we ate the chickens from the farms.  He didn't believe me.   It seemed cute at the time.  Now I think back on it, he may have had a very good point.  These days I think he is right, factories are making chicken for us to eat, and its nothing like the chicken on the Farm.

This week they found that some ready meals contained between 60-100% horsemeat. Traces of horsemeat or horse DNA caused quite a ruffle, but 100% horsemeat!!  That's not a slip up, that isnt some machine being slightly wafted over by DNA molecules, that is a deliberate act.  And the outcry is less about the horse it seems, but the condition of that horse.  What was its life, was it injected with this or that, what state was it in.  My view is more why aren't we up in arms that cheap always means crap.  One journalist said that maybe we should not be surprised that cheap burgers contained horsemeat or pig meat but instead we should be surprised that it contained any meat at all.  I think the thinking is often - if you pay 99p for four burgers what did you expect to be in them?

And this is where I come in really, I am in agreement that dodgy horse meat should not be in the food chain.  But neither should dodgy beef or rubbish chicken be fed to people either.  And who does it target the most?  Those who cannot afford to choose organic happy meat.  It targets the old, the poor, the food-on-a-budget people and it targets the got-a-set budget people (like schools and hospitals)  Why is it always the case that the families with the most need for good nutrition have to make do with very poor quality ingredients?.

Apparently in order to be called a beefburger the patty needs only to contain 62% beef.  Thats a lot of % to fill then, so its filled with cereal and all sorts.  And the meat portion can be made up of connective tissue, tongue, heart, feet, tail......... in fact as far as I have discoverd by reading Trading Standards pretty much anything apart from genitals and bums.

So we could all have a part to play in this food shame - we demand cheaper and cheaper and the supermarkets respond by sourcing cheaper and cheaper materials.  Its one arguement.  But on the other hand, most of the big supermarkets are producing very healthy profits.  They are doing OK.  So, I am not really going along with the idea of the poor supermarkets being forced to sell us cheap food just to scrape by.

The other thing I'd like to spout on about is cooking.  I was raised in a family who planted most of their garden to veg and fruit, we ate from the garden, we cooked from scratch.  When I went to school we had cooking lessons.  All that is eroded now.  I cant name a school that has regular cooking lessons as an essential part of the curriculum, maybe you can and if so you're lucky.  Most adults are prepared to buy ready meals, take-outs etc and the thought of making a pie from a bag of flour and a joint of beef would be a nightmare or a joke.  But, guys, it can be a cheap way forward.

OK leaving the soapbox behind let me tell you of a lovely place.  I have been indulging, and indulging is the right word as its been a gourmet pleasure, in researching good food, good ingredients and good places to eat.  Following a trail from one source I ended up on the facebook page of Local Roots, which is a cafe in High Wycombe that also sources and sells local artisan food products.  Went there yesterday, had a most delicious baguette for lunch (oat baguette filled with blue cheese and ale chutney - oh my) and then we shopped.  We bought a wide and wonderful collection of cheeses to try, all suitable for veggie's and we could taste them before buying, the owners could tell us about them; where they came from, what they would taste like etc.  We bought eggs, scotch eggs (runny middle) brownies, bread, honey and pasta.  Bridge enjoyed the chocolate tasting array and chose cranberry and peppercorn dark chocolate to treat herself with.  We asked for goats cheese and were told the reason they had none in stock was that the goats had not had their kids yet so were producing no milk.  That is so cute!  And very pc food wise.  Love it.

And, on Friday, our invisible milkman delivered goats milk, apple juice and baking potatoes to our front door, sitting waiting for us when we opened the door at 7.30am.  Just like in the old days.


Happy days foodwise, and not a T burger in sight.

So, here we are.  At the beginning of a new phase, maybe even a short lived phase, but we shall give it a try.  We are walking away from the ease of online deliveries, ready meals, packaged goods, plastic wrapped food and goodness-knows-the-quality edibles.  We are saying No to the supermarkets.  So Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsburys, Asda, Co op, we are walking away. (I know I could include Morrisons, but I cant as I have never shopped there, so they wont notice I've gone!)

Reasons many and varied, but in all things there comes a breaking point.  The idea started as a seedling on our many holidays to Wales, we loved shopping locally, we loved going to the local butcher, bakers and fishmongers, something I did as a child.  And yet when we got back home we never kept up the life.  Life at home was too busy, we became lazy in our food, we ordered supermarkets to deliver food to our door, we pushed trolleys around shelves laden with out of season produce, we demanded cheap food that tasted good.  We got neither in actuality.  And the food scares came and went.  So, in the week they discovered horse and pig DNA  in beefburgers we decided enough was enough.

We already care where our eggs come from, and we like organic, and we have started to research into better food, and rediscover recipes.  But we do not have a smallholding, we do not keep chickens, we have no garden to seed with veg.  We are urban, and busy, and mostly broke.  So its going to be a challenge!

The rules are these

1. We will try to shop local, failing that we will aim to shop well - so if we travel further to get good food we must stock up to make the best of the mileage

2. We will not be silly, if we run out of milk on a snow storm night and the local small shop is shut, we will go to the supermarket.  Failing that we will do all that we possibly can to only shop from small shops, independent food producers, farm shops, farmers markets and suchlike

3. We will aim to relearn how to cook properly, make the most of all we buy and waste as little as possible

4. In the interest of not throwing away money in the search for better we will succumb to the benefit offered by work to buy our laundry products at Costco and shall not feel guilt for doing so

5. We will never forget we are so fortunate to live in a part of the world where we have a choice