Obesity

[battered]

I checked - plain digestive 1892, chocolate variant 1925. The biscuits haven't changed a great deal, if at all, in that time.

 

[Reynard]

The Digestive has been around since, when? Pre war, probably. Were they putting the crack cocaine in then, or is it a recent thing?

First developed in the late 1830s, but only put into mass production by McVities in the 1890s.

But they would've been significantly more expensive in relative terms than they are now. Today, things like biscuits are really cheap - you can get a ridiculous quantity of custard creams for 40p, for instance.

 

[KnittyNorah]

Various things. I can't speak for the whole industry, but I've seen food bank donations, homeless shelter donations, staff shops selling food cheap ly, and staff being given food for free or for a nominal sum at the gate. As an example, one bakery I know of lets all its staff buy up to 3 loaves for 10p each every day. We all know the flour in there costs more than that. I ve also known companies that assist in education, work experience, and other child development stuff. Where does your food come from, etc.

I grew up in an area such as you describe. I never routinely saw any food in gateways. The only free food I picked up was roadkill.

The food industry would do better to ensure that those who enable it to make its huge profits are all paid a wage sufficient that they don't need to be provided with 'free' food - all the way down the production chain to the folk who work in and around the fields, and everywhere in the world.

There is no roadkill. The area is too intensively cultivated for worthwhile edible animals and birds to survive in sufficient numbers to get killed on the roads, and in all the years I've been visiting my friend and her daughter, I've never seen one fresh rabbit or a pheasant down there. You need to move up into the hills for that, away from the hydroponic salad growers, the acres of greenhouses, the carrot and onion fields, packing stations and pumpkin fields. What was that mixed pumpkin field all about? I like to think it was someone having fun; it was certainly a lovely sight full of gradually-inflating pumpkins and squashes of a wide range of different sizes, shapes and colours. I believe the growers eventually gave them away at the county town's market and supplied them to all the charitable and similar institutions which requested them.

 

[Reynard]

Various things. I can't speak for the whole industry, but I've seen food bank donations, homeless shelter donations, staff shops selling food cheap ly, and staff being given food for free or for a nominal sum at the gate. As an example, one bakery I know of lets all its staff buy up to 3 loaves for 10p each every day. We all know the flour in there costs more than that. I ve also known companies that assist in education, work experience, and other child development stuff. Where does your food come from, etc.

I grew up in an area such as you describe. I never routinely saw any food in gateways. The only free food I picked up was roadkill.

Just because you didn't doesn't mean that it's not the case.

Another rural dweller here. There are always onions, potatoes and carrots to be picked up for free from the verges - you just need to know where the bits of bumpy road and dodgy corners are. One such corner just happens to be outside my gate.

Never mind what can be foraged from the hedgerows; blackberries, apples, filberts, walnuts... You just need to know where to look.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Pringles were of course made by/for Proctor and Gamble, best known for soap powder.
I was introduced to this factoid by a marketing course - when the big P&G did still hand-craft/extrude them.

We make the flavours for Pringles...just sayin’...

 

[battered]

The food industry would do better to ensure that those who enable it to make its huge profits are all paid a wage sufficient that they don't need to be provided with 'free' food - all the way down the production chain to the folk who work in and around the fields, and everywhere in the world.

Who said the food workers need to be provided with free food? The last place I was at the principal beneficiaries of free food was a community cafe. You asked me what the industry did to help food poverty, I answered. The UK workers get minimum wage or better, same as those in retail, distribution, etc. As far as the chain back to the producer, there are measures in place to ensure that fair trade is practised and a fair market rate is adhered to. KP foods, part of Intersnack, are very good at this.

There is no roadkill. The area is too intensively cultivated for worthwhile edible animals and birds to survive in sufficient numbers to get killed on the roads

I don't believe you. Sorry.

 

[Reynard]

I don't believe you. Sorry.

How can you possibly refute that if you don't live in the same neck of the woods? What's true for you isn't necessarily true for someone else.

Don't judge until you've walked a mile in someone's shoes and all that...

 

[matticus]

We make the flavours for Pringles...just sayin’...

So do you deny putting addictive flavourings in food??

 

[battered]

How can you possibly refute that if you don't live in the same neck of the woods? What's true for you isn't necessarily true for someone else.

Don't judge until you've walked a mile in someone's shoes and all that...

Yes, I get that, but I don't live in one place and never leave. I'm not refuting anything, I'm saying I don't believe it.
I've been around longer than I care to remember and I have worked and lived everywhere. The 4 corners of Britain, also France and Ireland. Have I lived in their particular village? Probably not, but I like to think close enough, at some point. In all these places as soon as you get out of the inner city rabbits are ubiquitous. Do I believe there's some Shangri-La where fresh produce abounds yet there are no rabbits? No. Plentiful food, but no pests. Unlikely. It's like when I go to food factories and look at the pest records and find no rodent activity for a year. "No, we never get mice". Oh really? All this food, doors opening and closing, and not one mouse, ever? Come on.

So, maybe it's true. Do I believe it? Not until I see it.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, I get that, but I don't live in one place and never leave. I'm not refuting anything, I'm saying I don't believe it.
I've been around longer than I care to remember and I have worked and lived everywhere. The 4 corners of Britain, also France and Ireland. Have I lived in their particular village? Probably not, but I like to think close enough, at some point. In all these places as soon as you get out of the inner city rabbits are ubiquitous. Do I believe there's some Shangri-La where fresh produce abounds yet there are no rabbits? No. Plentiful food, but no pests. Unlikely. It's like when I go to food factories and look at the pest records and find no rodent activity for a year. "No, we never get mice". Oh really? All this food, doors opening and closing, and not one mouse, ever? Come on.

So, maybe it's true. Do I believe it? Not until I see it.

Actually, the rabbit population is in the doldrums at the moment due to mixy - certainly in this region at any rate. I don't know what it's like elsewhere.

There's no shame in saying you don't know, you know. Nor is there any shame in taking someone at their word.

Other pests? Certainly. There aren't as many rabbits around as usual judging by the distinct lack of poops in my orchard (sometimes that can be inches deep as rabbits use specific areas for their latrines) and the fact that neither of my cats has dragged in any little ones this year, but muntjac deer, pigeons and assorted rodents for sure. Plenty of pheasant and partridge though.

But then this is a mix of arable farmland, pockets of woodland and with beef herds out on the Hundred Foot washes. I don't live in market garden country, but I can well imagine that the high prevalence of greenhouses, polytunnels and labour-intensive agriculture does have an impact on the ecosystem as a whole.

 

[KnittyNorah]

I grew up in an area such as you describe. I never routinely saw any food in gateways. The only free food I picked up was roadkill.

I find that hard to believe, but there again when I was growing up, there was a great deal I didn't routinely notice about the area.

I don't believe you. Sorry.

Are you calling me a liar? If so, why apologise?

 

[mudsticks]

This was touched on in the documentary - that it's not a deliberate thing to hit that pleasure point, but it apparently crops up as an unintended consequence of stuff being run past panels of tasters / product reviewers etc. Same sort of thing applies to sugar / fat ratios.

Thing is our palates haven't really evolved to react sensibly to the food that we've surrounded ourselves with now.

Finding a cache of honey, or catching a meaty creature, was a rarity to be exploited and enjoyed fulsomely back in the day.


Now were surrounded by more easy calories than we know what to do with.

Even globally we've passed a point where more people are suffering I'll health due to an over supply rather than calorie deficit.

A triumph for modern agriculture you might say.
Except that type of agriculture is harming both human and planetary healt

If we're smart (!) we could make agriculture part of the solution, rather than the problem.

We need to recentre good food, and farming , and good nutrition in public policy.

Food should be yummy, and enjoyable, and do us good too.

Who said the food workers need to be provided with free food? The last place I was at the principal beneficiaries of free food was a community cafe. You asked me what the industry did to help food poverty, I answered. The UK workers get minimum wage or better, same as those in retail, distribution, etc. As far as the chain back to the producer, there are measures in place to ensure that fair trade is practised and a fair market rate is adhered to. KP foods, part of Intersnack, are very good at this.


I don't believe you. Sorry.

A fair market rate is not always adhered to, by any measure.

Some dairy farmers for instance, are paid less than the cost of production at certain times of the year.

The grocer code adjudicator that is supposed to oversee fair dealing, principally with supermarket buyers, is well known for being toothless and acting very infrequently.

The farm gate price for food has stagnated over many years.

So much buying power in so few hands - the supermarkets hold all the power, especially around fresh produce.

What will happen when the EU farmer supports are tapered off and removed in five or so years time remains to be seen.

But future prospects are looking a bit bleak for many farmers right now.

Especially once they're up against unregulated imports, produced to lower than EU standards.

Which we may well have to agree to under these 'wonderful' new trade deals we're trying to do unilaterally.

Where we certainly don't 'hold all the cards'

 

[Reynard]

A triumph for modern agriculture you might say. Except that type of agriculture is harming both human and planetary health

If we're smart (!) we could make agriculture part of the solution, rather than the problem.

We need to recentre good food, and farming , and good nutrition in public policy.

Food should be yummy, and enjoyable, and do us good too.

Can't disagree with you there.

Even if it's something as simple as persuading people to grow tomatoes and herbs in window boxes. But I'd love to find a community project where I can pass on my kitchen skills to others.

BTW, re the veg boxes we spoke about a while back, I've found a lovely chap who has a veg stall near the village rec ground. All locally grown by him and his mate. He has the best leeks and savoy cabbages ever, and his kale totally won me over.

 

[mudsticks]

Can't disagree with you there.

Even if it's something as simple as persuading people to grow tomatoes and herbs in window boxes. But I'd love to find a community project where I can pass on my kitchen skills to others.

BTW, re the veg boxes we spoke about a while back, I've found a lovely chap who has a veg stall near the village rec ground. All locally grown by him and his mate. He has the best leeks and savoy cabbages ever, and his kale totally won me over.

Can't beat it fresh, it tastes good so you want to eat more of it.

Some of my customers reckon I've got them addicted


There seems to be a big upswing in all things local and sustainable food production right now.

Especially among the youth..
So good to see.

Of course there are barriers such as access to land to farm, finance ,and even training in how to do it.

But I managed to become a fully fledged farmer starting with nothing more than £300 in the bank and the tools in the garden shed..

Oh and a tonne of work, lots of 'luck' and goodwill and community support.

Its the way forward for feeding ourselves better imo.

Cut out the extractive middleman.

Affordable good food for you, a living for me..

Everyone wins, apart from poor old T3sc0 - oh boo hoo.

Of course the hard bit can be getting this good food into the hands of those who need it most.
Its tricky to persuade very low income households that this good stuff is for them too, even if the price is within reach .

We have to tread carefully, so as not to come over prescriptive 'nanny knows best' .
And show and tell how to use this stuff, for those who didn't grow up with it.

But the advantages to health, and social outcomes have been proven, when regular fresh food gets into more economically deprived areas.

My son goes a gleaning on larger veg farms with a local organisation that makes up low or no cost veg boxes for low income households in our nearby city..

Seems much better than it going to waste.

 

[battered]

Are you calling me a liar?

Absolutely not. As you said above "I find that hard to believe." .