Whole Foods Market / Boycott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trB5CSDmf1E

Having said that I do support reducing food miles e.t.c but some of the shops centered around this idea are full of overpriced shit.

a couple of things....

organic food is not toss - it's scientific. It *IS *better for you and *IS *better for the world.

It isn't scientific, it's a lifestyle choice, which does have some favourable consequences with regard to livestock conditions, but these can be achieved without going "organic".

THe only foray science has made into organic food are:
-Studies funded by the soil association which show marginally lower risk of food poisoning in organic food
-A more comprehensive assessment showing no apparant health benefit of organic produce: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article6731910.ece (direct link on site)

You are saying that our human, bacteria like growth is ok and the food world should bare the brunt - nonesense. you are right, organic food farming has much lower yields but this doesn't translate directly to less food for mouths.

How does lower yield not correspond to less food for mouths? Lack of argricutural land, future water scarcity/overabundance, and population growth mean we need more food from less land.

With no significant benefits, Organic food can only be detrimental, in much the same way as the push for certain biofuels lead to land for food being converted to land for fuel, and thus to food shortages last year (and also large scale deforestation: 80% deforestation in Malaysia since early 90's to plant palm oil plantations for biodiesel)

Ok, I've just skimmed this thread and so I might go back over some old ground.
What follows is opinion not fact, except the first bit which is fact not opinion

Wholefoods bought out Planet Organic a while ago so Planet Organic is Wholefoods.(that was the fact).

If you've got problems with with Wholefoods then I don't think you should shop at Planet Organic (this is not a defence of Wholefoods)
Organic farming is positive in terms of quality of produce in many cases but is often a signifyer of good farming practices rather than the good practice itself. If you take a good farmer who has concern for his animals/vegetables/minerals then the produce is likely to be good regardless of whether or not it is organically certified. An example of this is artisanally produced french cheeses, often made from un-pasteurised milks but which are almost never certified organic. It's a cultural thing, some could qualify for organic status but its not on the agenda there.

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.

tynan is a freegan!

I mainly look for part-cooked meats past their sell by date.

Reminds me of Babs, my 8th wife.

if you are serious about food, then trade in your fixxie lifestyle and get on a waiting list for an allotment and grow your own stuff in your free time, and stop whingeing about the ethics, middle-class bullshit..

or shop at tesco...

or live like tynan (bloody freegan)

rant over..

Fail, a fair few spices can and are readily grown on our fair shores. Admittedly most of them are imported although the environmental cost of these alone could be "manageable".

the most commonly used spice in the UK is black pepper, can that be grown in the UK?....as a generalisation I don't think I'm far off, probably more than 90% of spices on general sale are imported.

I know that some farms in the south have managed to grow chillies successfully, and coriander thrives in cooler climes and we have one or two natives such as juniper...

out of interest what spices are being grown commercially in the UK, cumin, turmeric, ginger, cloves, cinnamon?

But the main point of my post is that many things we consume as a nation in vast quantities, even some things we asociate with "Britishness" are in fact imported....the best example being tea...spices is just one item in a huge list of food and drink we import, could you live without coffee, wine, olive oil, pasta....even the herrings used to make kippers are imported!...

There would have to be huge shift in British culture if we were all to only eat local, we would never see around 80% (guess) of the foods we consume regularly and there would most likely be shortages if only seasonal....

Like many things it's one of those things that certain people like to say / do for their own personal image reasons, the reality of their actual behaviour and the practicalities are often very different.

I stopped buying Anchor butter and have switched to Country Life, thanks Mr Rotten.

First thing I would reccomend is to get an organic veg box going on. With the exception of Farmaround, most of them source about 98% of their produce from the UK. I'm pretty good with my meat, the farm is 1.1 miles away and I travel by fixed.

Do you drink coffee, tea or wine? do you eat pasta, tinned tomatoes, brown sugar, CHOCOLATE!....etc, etc.

it's great that you ride a bike (we all do), no offense, but your efforts are pure tokenism, unless you're prepared to go the whole hog....I just cannot see the chattering classes giving up Java, claret or olive oil, yet the people so accustomed to these products are very often those who like to tell us we should be buying "organic" and showing off that they go to farmers markets and posh butchers.

Quantities, quantities. Tokenistic efforts by survivors to the harsh British climate to aid and abet the misleading impression that it is a habitable country don't count. ;)

it's great that you ride a bike (we all do), no offense, but your efforts are pure tokenism,

Possibly, but not quite. The real reasons I go to the farm on the bike are that it's sort of on my way home and it's where I collect my veg box. It's not tokenism, it's just a matter of convenience. I get a variety of seasonal veg without having to bother to choose them myself and the farm is closer to my home than any other shop. It's also cheaper than the supermarket. As for the meat, I'm picky and cheap. Most of the cheaper cuts just aren't available through the supermarkets and definitely not in the volumes that I want. I also get free advice from the butcher on how to cook things.

Yes, black pepper can be grown in the UK, just go and take a look in my parents old garden (and current one shortly after Christmas if things go according to plans). Ginger's a pretty sturdy root and yes, that get's grown in the UK. In fact just about any spice can be grown in the UK at a lower carbon cost than importing, such is man's ability to create environments. We could also return to using spices that we've lost as a culture. They're still out there, growing in the wild and their decline has more to do with the Reformation than current market forces and recent history.

I accept your point that we consume as a nation. But don't forget, that we also consume as individuals. And is my butcher posh? Well, she doesn't swear much and she did come from Surrey, but underneath the haute couture of a bloody apron in a concrete shed is a woman who likes to produce good quality meat and run a decent farm, so I guess I don't care. As long as the meat's OK then I'd still buy from her if she were a sweary shellsuit wearing hobo.

if you are serious about food, then trade in your fixxie lifestyle and get on a waiting list for an allotment and grow your own stuff in your free time, and stop whingeing about the ethics, middle-class bullshit..
rant over..

fail - 'Fixxie' lifestyle doesn't mean i dont have an alloment and/or grow my own stuff. And as for middle class - doubt it (or at least don't care) i'd rather whinge about ethics and give a shit than be an ignorant twat.....no offence ;)

There would have to be huge shift in British culture if we were all to only eat local, we would never see around 80% (guess) of the foods we consume regularly and there would most likely be shortages if only seasonal....

Like many things it's one of those things that certain people like to say / do for their own personal image reasons, the reality of their actual behaviour and the practicalities are often very different.

Surely though, if everyone gave a shit and started to be more aware, started eat 'locally', 'organically' and 'seasonally' then there would be no hypocrisy or controversy about importing foods from around the globe because we wouldn't be raping the lands etc etc. I have already started to eat like this and have cut out lots of foods that i'd like to eat; meat, some dairy, fish etc. I've also got a charts of seasonal foods so that i know what to not to buy during the year. If things were even, globally and people were less selfish then, i believe, it wouldn't need to be this strict....but alas, people are cunts. right?

there are lots of these ' ' in my post because i think that everyone has de-badged everything :)

care to comment on my post above hauska?

oh god oh god oh god, why?

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

however, to respond to your post.

All pretty valid points. I too heard about that biodiesel thing - using enormous amounts of rapeseed oil to make very little fuel.
As for 'organic' is more a lifestyle choice, true indeed. I guess i'm just using the universal terms.

I love all that organic shit, my City mates reckon I'm a freaking hippy though.

Move to Devon, walk to a farmers market or local farm shop, pick some veggies from your garden, job done.

Buy local/decent when you can and accept that most of the time (in the city) you can't. Being a vegan/vegetarian does not contribute to positive change, buying from producers with great animal welfare/practices does.

Not great examples there. There are a number of British vineyards (and Northern French vineyards), and olive groves. Tomatoes are a native plant, and are tinned in the UK. And pasta is made from wheat flour, egg and water. As far as I recall, wheat is occasionally found to be growing next to hedgerows and by farm tracks.

There is no such thing as chocolate.

I'm not aware of any UK tinned tomatoes, I've only ever seen imported, dried pasta (actually what I was referring to) generally does not contain egg, it is made from durum wheat, every pack of spaghetti, fusili and conchiglie you will find on general sale is made in Italy or from imported wheat.

Vines are grown in the UK and wine is produced in small quantities, wine from grapes grown in the UK make up less than 1% of the UK market ( do not forget that wines labelled "British Wine" though made in the UK is fermented from imported grape juice) and despite what enthusiasts say, quality is generally low, "lesser" grape varieties have to be used such as "Muller Thurgau" that are more suited to our climate, If England were to produce even only 10% of the UK market in wine, people who prefer to buy local would have to accept a massive drop in qulaity and huge rise in prices...when was the last time you drank English wine? if you mean the "buy local" mantra, stick to cider, yoiu'd have to check with beer as the UK hop-growing industry is pretty much extinct and they're imported pelletised from Europe.

There is a single olive grove in the UK which is yet to produce any olives... I've seen Ginger in the hothouses at Kew Gardens and I've grown all manner of semi exotic fruit and spices (including cumin) myself, this does not mean you could create a financially sustainable spice farming industry in the UK. Indeed it is possible to grow more exotic produce in northern climes, which is why (strangely) most of our peppers come from Holland a country with a similar climate to us, they use huge heated greenhouses to achieve this, I'm not sure how green this is.

Tiswas they are great examples, and you didn't deal with tea, coffee, chocolate, although your comments are correct, they are classic "exceptions proving the rule".

A recent example of how things can change is the UK bread industry, until around 15 years ago most of the wheat used for british loaves was imported, mostly from Canada, however the use of new strains of wheat and climate change have allowed UK farmers to produce wheat that meets the minumum protein requirement to produce the kind of bread that UK consumers like to buy and now UK millers use around 80% Uk grown wheat, this is the sort of thing that can make a huge difference, possibly more than a small percentage of our citizens choosing to "eat local" for a small percentage of what they consume weekly... and should be encouraged, the impetus behind this change was probably purely economical and had nothing to do with consumer pressure. Unfortunately though this year, though yields have been high, the protein levels have dropped and millers have once again had to turn abroad for decent wheat.

Is anyone going to take up the UK only diet? it's a tough ask, similar to becoming a vegan I would imagine, a lot of sacrifices to be made, seems no-one hear wants to take it on fully, would the whole UK population? the last this came close to happening was during the war as the enemy was making it difficult to import. There was little variety, and there was shortages leading to rationing (which actually extended many years into peacetime after the war) since then the population has grown and the amount of land given over to agriculture has declined, the UK is probably not capable of producing enough food for it's citizens even if they were happy to eat a restricted diet, so the "eat local" thing will probably remain a "hobby" for a minority of concerned thinkers who are prepared to make plenty of exceptions.

BTW tomatoes are not mative they are sub-tropical in origin

Move to Devon, walk to a farmers market or local farm shop, pick some veggies from your garden, job done.

Buy local/decent when you can and accept that most of the time (in the city) you can't. Being a vegan/vegetarian does not contribute to positive change, buying from producers with great animal welfare/practices does.

Hey Jono, long time no see :)

as for Devon, man, i'm only a few years away!! :)

When are we gonna have our next Breakfast Club?

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

+10

Indeed it is possible to grow more exotic produce in northern climes, which is why (strangely) most of our peppers come from Holland a country with a similar climate to us, they use huge heated greenhouses to achieve this, I'm not sure how green this is.

Almost always three times as green as you think it is.

Firstly they generally use water that has been heated through an industrial process as the method of heating.
Secondly by using the heat from that water it allows it to cool to a point where it can be classed as acceptable to return to the water course through standard sewerage systems eliminating the need for energy intensive water treatment and cooling plants.
Thirdly because the source of that water is commonly a renewable energy/carbon neutral energy generation source such as CHP.

Potentially greener than British Peppers, even with the food miles and far better than the Israeli alternative as they don't massively oppress half their workforce and use profits to massively oppress their neighbours.

When are we gonna have our next Breakfast Club?

This weekend? Combined with a scrabble tourney I think... rock on.

This weekend? Combined with a scrabble tourney I think... rock on.

Yours or mine?

I'll speak to Holly too. :)

Carbon footprint ha ha ha.

Non-sequiter of the day

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

I drive to the supermarket, where I can pickup most of the stuff I want, easily. I shop at my local butcher for one reason and one reason only, the meat is very very good. I could not care less if he stole the whole lot and all of his suppliers were screwed over or not, or if the cows where treated well or beaten to death with a stick.

I think the problem is this view is held by the vast majority of the population, they have a measure, whether it be price of the goods for the less well off, or quality of the good for the more well off, whatever, that is all they Really care about. Very (very) few, and I would suspect quite a few less than claim too, actually care about any other factors.

Its a nasty nasty world outside. Deal with it.