tbh i thought it was marshmallow
So I saw this picture of mechanically separated chicken on tumblr a couple of days ago, and then the next night my boyfriend (who has just got into tumblr) linked it to me, all disgusted like. In all honesty I thought it was marshmallow. At the beginning of the week I happened to glance at one of my PR friend’s facebook and she had linked a news story of a mouse baked into some bread. Yesterday my boyfriend sent me an email saying “i have just read a story on bbc that has made me feel so sick that i have had to run to the bathroom twice........ omfg it is SO BAD” Now for me, there is nothing worse than someone saying this then not disclosing what it is. Secret tease I like to call them. After much cajoling it turned out to be the mouse in the bread, which I had already seen. Earlier last week a discussion on a community I belong to had a heated “debate” about organic produce in relation to the channel 4 documentary "Food: What goes in your basket?". What have I concluded from these three examples? My boyfriend is always about a day late with the news, and I don’t use a basket to do my shopping in, I use a trolley, and there is some serious shit going on with food.
This is an old news story really, what with Jamie Oliver’s crusades to change the worlds dietary habits no matter what their income, the past few years and various other celebrity chefs talking about local produce available to all, and Ronalds doing all 100% beef and chicken breast, because eyelids, ear holes and arseholes being mashed in as above in what looks like an appetising mallow wasn’t for everyone. How does this affect me? Well I am fat, there really isn’t two ways about it, I am fat. It is because for about 3 years I ate noting but papajohns and ben and jerrys and rolled around in bed not having a job and not doing any exercise. I am also really really lazy. So I have sort of got my act together and lost some weight, but only because I am not eating my worries away anymore and not through some Nazi regime of slimming world, amazing quality ingredients, jogging to work and doing 4 hours of cardio in the gym 3 times a week followed by ZUMBA! So, this concludes I really like food; I love cooking, I love eating, I love eating to suit my mood, weather, season, outfit, and any old excuse really. Food is the accompaniment to my life, it’s like an accessory. A dirty fattening greasy broach if you will.
From Tescos finest range
My mum is an amazing baker. She bakes a Victoria sponge like no other, she can make these amazing shortbreads she can make these amazing shortbreads and omg these flapjack things that are LUSH. She is also a decent cook, however I guess down to financial constraints or just lack of knowledge, or that there were more important things going on in her life, quality of ingredients were never really the top of my mums list. We also didn’t really eat out a lot or even get a lot of takeaways. It was really just head down, push through eat what you are given, and it was nice food, I never had any reason to complain. It was only when I had outside influences (see: boys) did I really enjoy good quality ingredients. I think my parents thought I had turned into a food snob, when I refused to make a curry out of frozen chicken breast in a bag of 12 that could have been called “fillet pick n mix” or a lasagna from frozen reconstituted mince, or a roast dinner from organic produce. I think they thought it was too much fannying around, for something, from their point of view, didn’t really taste that much different and took a load more effort than needed.
Whoops! you lost your job now you have to eat cheap crap!
So when I moved out, I had my chance to my own informed purchases with my money and make flamboyant roast dinners that took all day to cook. My partner and I only bought very good quality ingredients, making everything we ate from scratch and eating at lovely places for a long time, and then we were both made redundant. We then had to buy ~no frills~ Asda WHOOOOOOOOOOOOPS range meat, and he could not cope with it, the taste, the ethics, and the entire thing of buying minced up animal parts. But for me, having been bought up on this stuff, I just thought it’s just a bit of cheapo mince, you can’t tell the difference, and you have NO OTHER OPTION, build a bridge and get over it. I questioned then maybe for me it wasn’t taste, it was ethics….
The thing is this, if you get up at 7, get on a tube to London, do a shit job all day, get tube home for 6 or 7, go to your local tesco metro on your 18k a year wage, two thirds of which are on your stupidly high rent, council tax, a credit card, your car, your bills, your savings so you can eventually afford to put down a deposit on a house so you can pay an equally high mortgage until you die or until its paid off and you have to live off your savings as all the pension money will have been eaten up… will you pick the mince for £2.30 that has been a bit processed, the mince that came from a cow that ran around for 20 miles everyday, and voluntarily gave himself up to die and just keeled over nicely without pain and ate lovely organic hay barrels all day long, that costs £5.50, or a microwave chilli for £1.99?
Not everyone is privileged enough to have the opportunity to buy organic products, or even able to locally obtain them but are financially able to. Does your choice makes you a bad person, or is it that you are just a victim of your circumstances? Or do you (as one individual suggested during the food in your basket debate) just don’t eat any meat or iffy produce to save your conscience? I think that for me, if and when I can, I will make a conscious effort to buy ethically and healthily. For example, no matter what, I have always bought free range eggs, because once when I was about 13, I vividly imagined being a battery hen at the egg bit of Sainsburys and burst into tears when my mum didn’t go for the free range eggs. However I cannot always afford that lovely looking organic chicken that has a wicked yellow tinge to it and have to opt for the 5 odds and sods bag from the freezer. If money allows, and the shop allows then I will try my hardest, but I shouldn’t be penalised or made to feel bad because my circumstances and my lifestyle do not permit.
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