Category: news

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Would you drink milk from a bag?

BBC reports on milk in plastic bags.

One of the UK’s leading supermarkets has begun stocking milk in plastic bags – but how easy are they to use?

Rory Cellan-Jones road tests a bag of milk to find out if it is likely to replace the traditional doorstep pint.

Would you drink milk from a bag?

Watch the video.

Looks all a bit complicated to me.

Having said that, I read on a Canadian blog  that they have been using milk bags in Canada for years. In the UK we are sometimes a little behind, for example it took us ages to move away from leaded petrol for example, or embrace organic produce.

Though I know really large milk bags have been used in catering for some years, but this is the first milk bag for consumers.

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Where we go…

The blog is back up and running after my hosting service moved their servers from the UK to Germany!

Apologies for those who were trying to access the blog.

We’re back…

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Tate & Lyle sugar to be Fairtrade

BBC reports that Tate & Lyle sugar which is to be sold to consumers will be Fairtrade only.

Granulated white cane sugar will be the brand’s first Fairtrade product but it says it expects its entire retail range to follow by the end of 2009.

Fairtrade Foundation executive director Harriet Lamb said:

“In terms of size and scale, this is the biggest ever Fairtrade switch by a UK company and it’s tremendous this iconic UK brand is backing Fairtrade.”

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Huh!

Confusion

How to confuse people.

The European Commission has come out in favour of a system of food labelling opposed by the UK regulator. The commission is proposing it should be mandatory to have guideline daily amounts on the front of packs – a system backed by some UK supermarkets.

But the UK Food Standards Agency favours a traffic light system, where red means fat or sugar levels are high.

Confused you soon will be, read more.

Photo source.

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Surely middle class people know how to eat proper?

Pupils at a school in Brighton are being taught how to use cutlery properly according to a report on the BBC.

Pupils are being taught which cutlery to use and whether to remove their jackets at dinner at an independent school in Brighton.

Brighton College introduced the classes in etiquette after a survey of company directors said graduates displayed impoliteness and poor table manners.

And this is an independent school…

Surely middle class people know how to eat proper?

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Explains a lot…

BBC reports that one in three of us is always on a diet…

One in three adults in the UK is now on a permanent diet, a survey suggests. 

We need to stop as a society focusing on body image and focus much more on changing lifestyles so that we have a healthy balanced diet and there is no need to “diet” as such.

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Ban on junk food ads introduced

The BBC reports

A ban on adverts for junk food during television programmes aimed at children under 16 has come into force.

Will the ban have any effect?

There will still be the big roadside places with all the colourful signs.

Junk food places will still be the only choice available in many shopping mall food halls.

For me healthy eating starts in the home and that means families working together to change their eating habits.

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Go on, make me feel even worse…

So there I was saying how much I didn’t enjoy Young’s Scampi when I read on the BBC today about how ludricously Young’s catch their langoustine (scampi) off the shores of Scotland, ship them to Thailand for peeling, ship them to Grimsby for breading before moving them by lorry down to me here in the south-west.

It sounds mad: shipping UK-caught langoustine thousands of miles to be processed, then back again to be turned into breaded scampi and put on sale.

Now I  feel even worse…

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Don’t buy the salty food…

The Guardian reports today that consumers are been asked to stop buying excessively salty ready meals.

Shoppers are today urged to boycott an unhealthy “hit list” of supermarket ready meals amid claims that they undermine the progress made by most manufacturers in reducing the average salt content of convenience foods.

It can be quite amazing, well more like scary, how much salt can be found in some ready meals. Often as much (if not more) than the recommended daily amount of salt, and then some people add more salt!

salt

For me personally I try and avoid salt for health reasons, but now much prefer the natural flavours of food, herbs and spices and I don’t need the taste of salt. I certainly don’t consider salt to be a natural flavour enhancer.

Photo Source

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Organic is “better for you”

When I started buying organic, and about 90% of what I buy is organic, the data and research seemed to indicate that there was no real difference between organic and non-organic produce.

I justified it to myself that possibly it was good for me, but in reality the main reason for buying organic was the flavour, and I still stand by that.

Fruit

However it was nice to read today that:

Organic produce is better for you than ordinary food, a major European Union-funded study says.

The £12m four-year project, led by Newcastle University, found a general trend showing organic food contained more antioxidants and less fatty acids.

So there we have it, organic food, well organic produce, could be better for you than non-organic produce.

It should be noted that they are talking about organic produce and not processed organic food like crisps or other unhealthy foods.

Photo source.