Whole Foods Market / Boycott

You're applying your own limited experiences to a situation (vis. "I've only ever seen", "what I was referring to")

You're applying your limited experience of me, you probably don't know my profession is in food, a qualified chef, patissier and nutritionist. I have always paid great attention to where the food I use comes from and have opened probably 100 x more timmed tomatoes than your average consumer!

oh god oh god oh god, why?

do you hate me or something? have i set myself up for a fall?

I didn't mean to be confrontational, I just wanted a response to justify my existence. Thank you for doing so

A conscientious consumer does not, by definition, seek to replace standard products on a like for like basis.

So you have given up tea, coffee and chocolate then and replaced them with "Local" beverages and confections?

I missed the part where I claimed to do so.

I also missed the part where I claimed that my own limited experience could be extrapolated to draw conclusions about others. Particularly where the target group appears to be arbitrarily defined by you alone.

Being champion of the debating society changes nothing.

Champignon of the debating society/fun guy/blah blah

Hmm. Maybe we should offset Velocio's servers?

This thread rocks!

But i really couldn't care where my chocolate comes from or who picked my peppercorns, unless he was called peter piper but that has enough comedy value, like the tree specialist called Mr Wood i met. Magic!

Anyway I have massive reservations about organic shops and even larger reservations for people who bang on about how they live their lifestyle choices affecting the world at large, make it your choice and make it silent, fkng martyr; don’t care what class they are, upper middle have the money, lower have the chip square on there.

The increase of Organic and fair-trade in our everyday supermarkets is a good thing, Organic for all the posturing in this thread is a step in the right direction. The earth can sustain growth at a given level, massive treatment for higher yields goes against natures plans and something has to give. Nutrients, the earth, surrounding insect and wildlife.. to be fair the full extent with all it's knock ons will not be know as nature takes the hit.

But the key point that has been missed is the consumption levels. There are claims that organic farming cannot feed the numbers required.. Do we really need to buy the amounts we do? Do the shops really need that much stock?

The big push should be back to local shops and local produce, and for people to pay more for the luxury imported items via heavy taxation!

City’s have a hugely diverse culture and millions are made selling local foods to immigrants, from pickled polish pig fat to dried otter nose or what ever those Chinese eat. Choice and imported foods are high in both camps

Get to the country and the story gets sad, the impact of the supermarket is huge and the volumes of local produce is lower than it is in London… when London doesn’t have the land to grow shit!
Sadly the prices charged for organic food to London fad chasers prices out country folk, Tescos and the like have pretty strict pricing models based on their bulk buying. And the spread of villages and towns in the country highlight the convenience of supermarkets
Sadly they wont go away, little organic shops wont move down there, so people with the best produce on their doorsteps don’t have an easy way to get it. that’s in our own country….

oh /rant

You're quite right. From now on I'll stick to inconsistent diatribes, and change the world one illogical step at a banana.

Diatribe? I had to look that up. Dissecting a point of view using semantics rather than tackling questions posed (in whatever grammatical form) is a pretty tired tactic on this forum, but it does make you look clever!

I have read some of this, and I would just like to say..........

Its a nasty nasty world outside. Deal with it.

everything you brought up in your post was embarrassing, hush yourself.

@Greasyslag

i agree, do we really need to have ALL foods available all year round? Blue Fin Tuna? If i flash a bit more cash in some restaurants can i get an endangered fish on my plate? Some people should have more of a conscious and not care about money - HA!

Never gonna happen, greedy greedy people everywhere.

Also, i'm not claiming to be a martyr by saying all this. I'm not looking for any type of pat on the back, also i dont feel like i have a chip on my shoulder, i enjoy this and i enjoy the benefits. A horrid thing about my personality is that i hate the majority of human beings for doing the wrong things everyday and this is just one more of them.

:)

maybe we should sterilise the shit out of humanity.

@ Hauska

i agree with your principle, and i am sure most of us make an informed choice to either grow our own or buy our food as we wish without question, regret or anguish.. there are however many people who simply do not have that choice, even in the UK.. where cheap imported food is all they can afford, granted a little bit of education could go along way, but who wants to listen to 'the satan of sainsbury' Jamie Oliver

PS offence earlier 'c)

@ winston -
the wartime rations certainly made people appreciate what they had, less refined perhaps - spam / condensed milk fritters anyone??

@Tiswas - didn't someone else register their cat as a phd nutritionist?

granted a little bit of education could go along way, but who wants to listen to 'the satan of sainsbury' Jamie Oliver

love the satan of sainsbury....I wonder how many of his recipes would be possible using only UK produced ingredients...not many if you were really strict.

@ Hauska

i agree with your principle, and i am sure most of us make an informed choice to either grow our own or buy our food as we wish without question, regret or anguish.. there are however many people who simply do not have that choice, even in the UK..

agreed, its just sad. and indeed, is it not messed up that it's insanely easy and cheap to buy shit food rather than the good.

i understand why 'good' food is more expensive, but why the hell isn't the food world based the otherway around; to make good food grown in abundance, with/without the restraints, protocol, procedures, materials etc and therefore making 'good' food the easier and cheaper thing. Does it just come down to space?

In this 'better world' make McDonalds and shit food like that expensive - add a tax to that kinda food, tax that pays for the inevitable hospital visit and tax that goes to having to out of the way of the 'norm' (good food) to make shit food.

However, maybe this is evolution? - maybe we've outgrown mother nature and this is the human way to keep the population down? i dunno - bit of a weird tanjent.

The Nazi's said "If you control their food, you control them".

?!

I haven't been, actually--is it still there?

I met someone who was involved in that and will be talking to them next week if you have not found out the details..

As for organic and locally sourced, the Growing Communities in Stoke Newington is amazing and has a farmers market AND a box scheme - which is pretty reasonable. £20 a week for the small box + fruit and I eat well on that.. or £40 for the large and a house can eat on it. Its all organic and much of it is even grown in Hackney (and when its not its within a Xmile radius - which i can't recall). there are several box schemes based on the Stokey one now and personally I think its the best bet.

I met someone who was involved in that and will be talking to them next week if you have not found out the details..

As for organic and locally sourced, the Growing Communities in Stoke Newington is amazing and has a farmers market AND a box scheme - which is pretty reasonable. £20 a week for the small box and I eat well on that.. or £40 for the large and a house can eat on it. Its all organic and much of it is even grown in Hackney (and when its not its within a Xmile radius - which i can't recall). there are several box schemes based on the Stokey one now and personally I think its the best bet.

Excellent. Do you know where i could go to get a box sorted?

Excellent. Do you know where i could go to get a box sorted?

http://www.growingcommunities.org/box-scheme/index.htm#payment

Has the different boxes you can get on that page too..

(just noticed sweetpotatoes and of course banana aren't local)

i'm signing up tomorrow!!

:D

thanks for that.

@ winston, not that i think you have time on your hands BUT ever considered putting on a "cooking for cyclists" class? If we combine it with a local scheme it could be really interesting an possibly fit with the "Fit for Life" inniatvie... :)

Despite not earning alot these days, we have gone back to eating more traditional / seasonal foods.. simply to save money, cooking stuff like toad in the hole, shepherd's pie and modest roast dinners.. actually these are all comfort foods, cheap though when we buy just the basic ingredients from decent shops.

We are a family of four.. monthly food bill was £600+ now down to under £400..

The best part is when we grow our own stuff, it may not last long but to eat home grown tomatoes / pumpkins or cut endless supply of tarragon / rosemary / bay leaves in our garden is very satisfying..

I could not however live without tea, coffee, olive oil, black pepper, cinnamon, saffron, and tons of other spices..

There was a time when I would worry about losing the south american rainforest to cattle ranches, or damn building in india, but i am too old and too tired to fight on, sad i know but true..

We have a theory at home, that the reset button on earth will be pressed soon and a 200 year deep freeze beckons..

bring on the freeze :)

From cheese to vegetarianism. From an animal welfare point of view there is no real sense in being a vegetarian. If you consume dairy then you are responsible for the deaths of countless calfs which are required to keep the cows milking. Vegetarian cheese is a red herring. If you going to kill the calf anyway surely it's more sustainible to use it's stomach to make the rennet rather than just burn it and make synthesised rennet.
Vegan's my respect goes out to you, it's a pure stance and one which makes more sense than veggie.
But, In certain geographical/topographical conditions you might find it quite hard to survive. As such the vegan v meat eater argument for sustaining a world population is a false on. In the temperate zones where arable land is the most productive then veganism (is that the right word) makes sense but an inuit can derive greater energy from his/her environment than he would be able to as a vegan by eating other animals. Is it a coincidence that the vegetarian religions are found where grain is most plentiful?
That'll do for now. Oh, by the way, I sell dairy, just declaring my interest.

I'm a vegan (wherever humanly possible :D) and I never really understand the 'what if' stuff. Of course if I was in a load of snow or on a desert island or something I'd do whatever I needed to survive. As do the people who do, no doubt. But, you know, I don't need to eat animal produce. So I don't.

I'm a vegan (wherever humanly possible :D) and I never really understand the 'what if' stuff. Of course if I was in a load of snow or on a desert island or something I'd do whatever I needed to survive. As do the people who do, no doubt. But, you know, I don't need to eat animal produce. So I don't.

Right there - in a nutshell

George Monbiot provides some interesting - and alarming - figures about the future of industrialised farming in today's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/16/oil-running-out-madman-sandwich-board

to answer the point about hops not being grown here, that's not true.
I went on a Fuller's tour a couple of months ago and they are proud to use only British hops in all their beers except for the one Organic ale they do - there are no organically certified British hops so they get them from the Czech republic. I suspect you could make a fair bit of money by becoming the first British organic hop supplier.

Fullers produce a huge amount of beer, and must be supporting a pretty healthy hop farming industry. They can't be the only brewer of proper beer (horrible pissy lager doesn't count) that uses British hops either. So there's no need to sink to drinking apples just yet.

to answer the point about hops not being grown here, that's not true.
I went on a Fuller's tour a couple of months ago and they are proud to use only British hops in all their beers except for the one Organic ale they do - there are no organically certified British hops so they get them from the Czech republic. I suspect you could make a fair bit of money by becoming the first British organic hop supplier.

Fullers produce a huge amount of beer, and must be supporting a pretty healthy hop farming industry. They can't be the only brewer of proper beer (horrible pissy lager doesn't count) that uses British hops either. So there's no need to sink to drinking apples just yet.

possibly another exception proving the rule, I actually visited a hop farm in Kent a few years ago, but it was one of only very few left...I've no doubt that Fullers use British hops....but the hop-growing industry is severely diminished and the majority of hops used in the UK are imported (Czech???)