Karmacat: To Infinity And Beyond!

ZTD

Karmacat wrote: »

With all the weird and wonderful stuff you know! Norty Z! :kisses3:

It's called not reading the label and making the assumption that Golden Wonder (now a Unilever brand) wouldn't put anything nasty in their stuff...

Karmacat wrote: »

This stuff is made by big business - of course you can't trust it!

Exactly. Back to reading *all* the labels.

What I find ironic, is that branding rose as a reaction to food adulteration scandals during the Victorian (and earlier) era. The local shopkeeper would sell you 1 part flour and one part chalk. So the brands rose with their sealed containers so that you knew exactly what you were getting and that it hadn't been altered by the shopkeeper.

Now we are in exactly the opposite situation, where the shopkeeper offers good and unadulterated food, whilst brands laden their stuff with all sorts of weird and wacky substances.

Try reading the label on a bottle of Sunny Delight (or Sunny D as it's known now) and seeing what's in it. Vegetable oil is one "delight".

For futher irony, white flour is once more sold adulterated with chalk. Though by government mandate, and it's referred to as "fortified"...

Karmacat wrote: »

None of it is made in the business model that people on here are talking about - its exactly what Martin says, the *only* thing these people care about is the return to their shareholders.

Wrong.

The only thing they care about is the return to themselves. I'd like you to show me the benefit to the shareholders in "back-dated options". These are options where the award date is changed to when the shares are cheaper, so the person to whom they've been awarded can get more shares for less money.

There has been a growing chorus of protest in the US, about the board looting the company in order to line their own pockets. So we're talking about companies going bankrupt, having just paid a couple of hundred million dollars to the board in bonuses.

It has been blamed on a couple of things, the rise of the "citizen shareholder" who has voting rights, but doesn't use them and doesn't keep up with matters and the Pension Funds, who have big tranches of shares, but who use the buddy-buddy system to not rock the boat.

Ironically the last shareholder revolt I can think of was done by Anthony Bolton, who was (he's retired) a hugely successful unit trust manager.

There is a growing tide of disillusionment, and combined with the growing tide of disillusionment with bonds (especially rating agencies' antics) we are headed towards interesting times.

Karmacat wrote: »

If you doubt that, think about the babies who lost a finger in those buggies recently - Americans complain and the thing is withdrawn in the US. People here didn't speak up as strongly, and it wasn't withdrawn. The babies are in the same kind of danger in the UK as in the US, but that wasn't the point to the company.

The thing about the US, is that they have something called "punative damages". In the UK you get paid what you've been damaged, and there are tarrifs for various kinds of injuries. A finger is not very much. In the US, there is something similar, but there is also the part of the damages to dissuade the company from doing similar in future. If a company has a turnover in the billions, that punishment could be in the hundreds of milllions of dollars.

So in the UK, they could spend a couple of million on a recall to avoid a few thousand in damages - in the US they could spend a couple of million on a recall to avoid a couple hundred million in damages.

You can see where that leads.

It might be worth dobbing them into the health and safety executive, who can obtain fines in court (but not damages) which is also tied to their turnover.

However, money talks - just bear that in mind. Government agencies who don't prosecute offenders in dubious circumstances, end up having employees, who were directly involved, working for that company at a later date with substantially greater salaries.

Karmacat wrote: »

Anyway ... I've done my 2.5 hours today, and been out to get 5 minutes of sun on my face, and I *don't* feel like death warmed up :j tho I'm definitely very, very tired.

Take care of yourself... :kisses3:

Karmacat wrote: »

I think there's being knowledgeable about vitamins, carbs and whatnot, and being knowledgeable about what big business do ... the only overlap is that a lot of food is produced by big business - and thats why locally produced food, or food from smallscale manufacturers, is so much more expensive, they don't do this stuff

It doesn't have to be more expensive. Unfortunately, you start advertising "organic" or (my favourite) "biodynamic" and people start turning up, the producers think "ka-ching!" and start hammering up the price. Where I am at the moment, there are people selling farm produce outside their gate, and it is all very reasonably priced.

Karmacat wrote: »

Said she, sitting here with quorn fingers, steamed frozen veg and microwaved tatties

Frozen veg is fine. Microwaved tatties - did you do them from real potatoes, or are these a produced thing?

Quorn - I have no idea what's in quorn... :eek:

Karmacat

Not gonna do any more to-ing and fro-ing on finance, I'm all financed out

But my meal: yep, frozen veg are fine, tho not organic; the tatties, I peeled them myself (sainsbo basics, 99p for 2.5kg ) and quorn - ahem, quorn is a mycoprotein something or other originally made from mushrooms, I'm not kidding :rotfl:

And a cuppa tea. And then some dried apricots :beer:

macgirl

Evening KC and friends, I'm liking the food chat.

Aspartame bothers me and the fact that it's so evil, it's banned in the States - but not here....My DH is a sucker for NO ADDED SUGAR cordials - I hate them.

But I know someone who knew a guy who helped develop Quorn and I think that is actually ok - (I eat it) - and probably better for you than Linda McCartney's stuff...

Karmacat

Hi macgirl! Glad the food chat is on your wavelength - and I'm glad quorn is okay, as far as you've heard. I know that when its still in the factory, its *pink*, which never really reassured me :rotfl:

Linda McCartney's stuff has a *lot* of wheat in it, doesn't it? I quite used to like the texture of the sausages, but once I found out about the wheat thing for me, they were a no-no - sounds like thats just as well.

macgirl

Yes, I think there is a higher fat content in her stuff - but as Z said, that's the taste!

I try to avoid processed foods as much as possible and like to buy organic if i can, especially milk, carrots and bananas as I've read they absorb higher levels of pesticides/antibiotics than other foods. Don't know though, DH thinks I'm a sucker falling for it. It is difficult to decipher a lot of the "green/organic" info, as much of it is just used for marketing and an excuse for higher price points.

I'd love to visit the butcher, baker and candlestick maker and do my shopping with a nice wicker basket, but like most I am slave to the "Big 4" due to time constraints and general CBA

Karmacat

Milk and carrots, I totally agree with buying organic - milk, because farmers do crazy things to cows, between the hormones, the steroids, the antibiotics; and any root crop just sits in the pesticide thats been used in it, its not above ground so it doesn't even wash off when it rains, not really.

I'm on a food roll at the mo - thanks to Squizz, and Cheery, I've become aware of blogs and how much information is in them - I've been looking at some lovely food blogs

http://www.gethealthycheap.com/2010/07/ridiculously-healthy-burritoswaittheyre.html

http://fromapples2zucchini.blogspot.com/p/recipe-index.html

Amazing stuff! I need to start doing a batch cooking day each month when I'm well, like Shaun does/did.

HM hob nobs.
pumpkin oatmeal bread - that sounds nice!
cuban black bean soup, cor!
oatcakes
cake of some sort, gluten free.
falafel patties.

Erm, not every time, naturally - this is about a year's supply of recipes

ZTD

macgirl wrote: »

Yes, I think there is a higher fat content in her stuff - but as Z said, that's the taste!

I try to avoid processed foods as much as possible and like to buy organic if i can, especially milk, carrots and bananas as I've read they absorb higher levels of pesticides/antibiotics than other foods.

What absorbs pesticides and other organic (as in carbon-based) chemicals are fatty foods. Animals concentrate them a lot - there's only so many chemicals a blade of grass can absorb, but a cow is made up of many tons of grass...

Of course a cow has kidneys and a liver which a blade of grass doesn't have, but even so.

macgirl wrote: »

Don't know though, DH thinks I'm a sucker falling for it. It is difficult to decipher a lot of the "green/organic" info, as much of it is just used for marketing and an excuse for higher price points.

It's bollox - ignore most of it. If you read it carefully most of it are just trite generalities. Sometimes along the lines of "eating food is essential for a healthy life"...

macgirl wrote: »

I'd love to visit the butcher, baker and candlestick maker and do my shopping with a nice wicker basket, but like most I am slave to the "Big 4" due to time constraints and general CBA

To be honest, someone did a test (I think it was C4 - but don't quote me on that) and found out "doing the shops" was quicker than a supermarket. Mainly because you went in, asked for what you wanted, and then left. There was no endless trudging up and down the dog-food aisle looking for matches "because they were here last time", or looking at the half-price tartan golf-ball socks - because they have a yellow sticker on them....

Their main problems are that you usually have to pay for parking, the opening hours aren't good, and getting them all together in the one location is a bit of a rarity since the supermarkets crushed the high-street.

ZTD

Karmacat wrote: »

Hi macgirl! Glad the food chat is on your wavelength - and I'm glad quorn is okay, as far as you've heard. I know that when its still in the factory, its *pink*, which never really reassured me :rotfl:

So why is pink a problem? Just so long as it's not part of Dulux's Shades Of Green collection, especially the "Soylent" shade... :eek:

Karmacat wrote: »

Linda McCartney's stuff has a *lot* of wheat in it, doesn't it? I quite used to like the texture of the sausages, but once I found out about the wheat thing for me, they were a no-no - sounds like thats just as well.

Was her brand the one that had the animal extract put in during the early years? (before the "brand technicians" quite understood the market she was selling to...)

ZTD

macgirl wrote: »

Evening KC and friends, I'm liking the food chat.

Aspartame bothers me and the fact that it's so evil, it's banned in the States - but not here....

It's not banned in the US, the FDA love it. Apparently.

macgirl wrote: »

My DH is a sucker for NO ADDED SUGAR cordials - I hate them.

Why can't anyone make a "no added anything" kind of cordial?

I used to make my own lemonade - two segments of lemon stuffed down the neck of a fizzy water bottle with a pinch of salt. It was very nice.

Of course we don't have the summers for that any more...

taxi73

We do have no added stuff cordials...ROCKS ORGANIC is one such brand.

I have gone onto organic everything due to my illness and the amount of veggie people also having breast cancer.Of course a lot of the veggie people may have been eating a lot of processed veggie food or they may have eaten vast quanties of normal fruit and veg covered in pesticides.
the sheer amount of chemicals in toiletries is also horrendous so I'm fully organic there.

It does amaze me the difference in colour of some of the organic stuff compared with it's counterpart .

I am not veggie soplease excuse the next bit....I've been buying organic chicken for months but decided to give the packs of normal shop 3 for £10 chicken breast offers a go....both DD and I had to feed it to the dog....the taste is totally different from organic...the organic tastes like chicken used to the special offer chicken tasted watery and tasteless..yuck.

So don't think the cost increase has anything to do with someone just putting organic on it..it takes a long time to produce an organic chicken and they have a lot less chickens per sqm ....