Britain's Really Disgusting Food...

peasantboy

phizzimum wrote: »

another good programme on at the moment is Jimmy's Food Factory - it's on tonight at 8pm (I think)

he looks at how lots of processed foods are made - but he does it in a non judgemental way. he just explains (and tries to recreate) the food, but doesn't lecture about what we should or shouldn't eat.

I caught some of that program last week I think when I was up my friends. Did he look at mechanically recovered meat? That's what I saw and it was absolutely disgusting.

I've read my fair share of books and I've seen quite a few documentaries on food and is incredible what's allowed in our food supply. What's even more incredible is that there is a small handful of companies who control a majority of the worlds food. Anyhow that's another topic of discussion altogether.

One recurring message is simply to eat your fruit and vegetables, eat organic if possible.

Bunny200

I was struck the other day in the supermarket how little of the products on the shelves were relevant to me. Since becoming OS and cooking from stratch all the time now I don't even look down some of the aisles (ready meals etc). I do sometimes have some processed food but I'm having less and less these days. I put back a tin of hotdogs the other day as I looked at the ingrediants list for the first time (I'm not eating pork fat if I can help it!) even though it makes a cheap quick meal when chopped up in tomato and served with pasta.

Going back to your original question about what to avoid
cheap processed meat - mechanically recovered meat _pale_ like nuggets, some pies, burgers and definatly cheap sausages (need a high meat content)
cakes/bread - anything with hydrogenated fat in it

general rule I take - if the ingrediants sound like they could be in my kitchen fine, if they sound like a chemistry experiement no thanks!

misskool

Bunny200 wrote: »

general rule I take - if the ingrediants sound like they could be in my kitchen fine, if they sound like a chemistry experiement no thanks!

All food is chemistry though.

And if we're talking E-numbers, E290 is just plain old carbon dioxide.

zippychick

I must watch this programme. I must admit to not always understanding what labels say on foods. I have already been put off most types of meat in one form or another. I refuse to eat the reformed meat , and refuse to eat sausages below 90% meat - 85 at a push. This means I hardly ever eat sausages but when I do i really enjoy them. I simply couldn't make myself eat cheap nasty sausages, knowing what's in them.

I'm constantly learning what's in different foods, and my latest one to avoid is processed breakfast cereal as they most are heaped with added sugars and salts.

Bunny , I also find I have very little to get in Tesco being OS.

Haven't eaten chicken nuggets or any rubbish like that in a long time., It baffles me that people feed their kids this stuff on a daily basis .

My brother used to buy tins of steak. That disgusts me! He can't see what's wrong with it

misskool

zippychick wrote: »

I
I'm constantly learning what's in different foods, and my latest one to avoid is processed breakfast cereal as they most are heaped with added sugars and salts.

An interesting experiment with breakfast cereal is to crush them really finely (you'd need about half a bag for this work :rotfl: ). Use a rolling pin for extra effect. Then shake it all to the bottom and run a magnet in it.

You can see the fortified iron from the cereal on the magnet when you pull it out.

To be fair, iron is a necessary mineral (which is why cereal is fortified) so it's not really junk but an interesting experiment.

phizzimum

I think you make some very interesting points miskool

I was amazed and a little horrified when I first read about the breakfast cereal/magnet experiment. It made me think about how many foods are marketed as healthy and natural - when in fact any health benefits are added. you'd be better off eating a slice of buttery toast and taking a vitamin tablet.

misskool

phizzimum wrote: »

I think you make some very interesting points miskool

I was amazed and a little horrified when I first read about the breakfast cereal/magnet experiment. It made me think about how many foods are marketed as healthy and natural - when in fact any health benefits are added. you'd be better off eating a slice of buttery toast and taking a vitamin tablet.

You'd be better off eating fresh toast and fruit.

People are scared of things they don't know and there's an overwhelming trend for faddy foods (superfoods and detox diets anyone?) when you just need to be sensible.

I can see why people have issue with mechanically recovered meat but in reality, if you look at it from a detached, non emotional point of view you are essentially using up every bit of the animal that was bred for eating. Animals cost a lot of money to breed and the wastage of animals bred for eating must be phenomenal if the dietary habits of those I know are taken into account.

Lots of people will just eat chicken breast (because the rest of the chicken is too ickky), so what happens to the rest of the chicken they've decided isn't good enough for them? The time/money and food has been spent on rearing the animal, best for it to be put to use into making food than just chucking it.

It's most annoying when people develop a holier-than-thou attitude about food and the associated wastes that go with it (and I'm guilty of that sometimes and have to slap myself into submission)

sunflower76

As a rule we don't buy pre-processed food mainly because it seems that a good percentage of what goes into it is undecipherable. Someone on here wrote once that if you cant buy it and use it in your kitchen, then you don't want to be eating it and I find that a pretty good mantra to live by.

I will eat any part of an animal or plant as i believe that you shouldn't waste something that you've killed so I have no problem in eating the bits of meat that some will squirm at but I do oppose MRM as there is a better way to cook with the ingredients that you've been given. Surely it's better to produce a yummy stock or soup from the bones of, say, a chicken than to bash it around and pretend that it's something else entirely.

If I'm honest I think programmes like this don't help an awful lot as they tend to shock and cause a fuss but don't help people to understand what's so bad about it all and don't really help them to change their lifestyles to accommodate a better diet.

phizzimum

misskool wrote: »

You'd be better off eating fresh toast and fruit.

you got me there!

sunflower76 wrote: »

If I'm honest I think programmes like this don't help an awful lot as they tend to shock and cause a fuss but don't help people to understand what's so bad about it all and don't really help them to change their lifestyles to accommodate a better diet.

that's why I liked the Jimmy Doherty prog, as it didn't try to shock people just inform. Having said that it did seem more like a kids programme at times - not sure if it's dumbing down or maybe people are so ignorant about food they had to pitch it pretty low?

tinkerbellsmum_2

thank you all