are you losing faith in the food industry ?

COOLTRIKERCHICK

its also like live lambs being exported to another country... and slaughtered there.... then they are then classed as being from that country......

Justie

Triker you are of course entitled to your personal opinion and if you have example of breaches in things like the use of the red tractor logo then that's useful and informative but to extrapolate that because you have seen bad work practice in a small aspect of the food industry that the whole industry is unsafe or untrustworthy is not helpful imo. It is adding to the feeling of confusion that many people have about what food is safe or unsafe, healthy or unhealthy etc. IMO, and again it is only my opinion, I would far rather have the controls that we have in this country over the food that is produced here than have what a lot of other countries have and as always the buyer should beware and should use his/her judgement as far as possible. I am all for education but I am against scaremongering.

Queenie

ZTD wrote:

The only way this can be done is for every child to be quizzed on what does happen at home. You can't complement something unless you know what it is. That would never happen, that would open so many cans of worms...

So the only way that's left, is to teach basic things in a "Everyone needs to know this" kind of way. This doesn't happen. Kids are just taught things which it is possible to teach in a "sit down and watch the blackboard" kind of fashion. The lessons are geared to the delivery mechanism, and not to what is required for them to know.

The thing which would have come in so useful for me is "How to sharpen a knife using a steel."

Here you go :whistle: How to sharpen a knife

Changes are afoot ....
Major review of the secondary curriculum for 11-14 year olds published today - Published: Monday, 5 February 2007

Cooking
Pupils will be taught how to cook simple healthy meals from basic fresh ingredients in revamped Food Technology classes.

It's fascinating to note that old fashioned "cookery" lessons come under the heading of "Design and Technology"

Pleased to read this part:

Personal Finance
Pupils will be taught essential financial life skills through functional maths and in Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE). These will include: personal finance, enterprise and financial capability; learning about risk and reward; investment and trade; personal budgeting; mortgages; interest rates; and balancing credit cards.

We'll have to agree to disagree on quizzing what occurs in the home ... no one quizzed us and we enjoyed great Home Ec lessons, far superior to "lessons" my children have received in school.
My point remains though, I do not and have never viewed it as a schools responsibility to teach my children how to cook - it is a natural part of our daily routines - just like toilet training, teeth brushing, personal hygiene!! If you don't eat, you die.
For people to leave school and say they didn't know how to cook and imply that the failing is due to our education system as if they should be the sole provider of that information is ridiculous (IMO) How on earth were they eating before they reached Secondary School education? Or, perhaps they ate out every breakfast, dinner, teatime and never saw anyone in the kitchen before aged 11?

Ms_Piggy_2

bluenose1 wrote:

Without going all philosophical I think society will eventually reap what it sows.
No wonder bird flu etc is on the cards with the disgusting conditions animals and poultry are kept in.

Avian flu has very little to do with the way poultry is kept. It's just as prevalent in wild birds (if not more so) as in farmed birds. The issue with avian flu is the worry it will mutate into a strain of flu that can be passed between humans. This is what happened during the last major flu pandemic which was in 1918, long before modern farming methods took over.

BSE on the other hand...... well, feeding cows to sheep was never going to work was it?

ETA: Home Ec - why is it the school's responsibility to teach basic cookery anyway? Surely that's for parents?

ZTD

Queenie wrote:

Here you go :whistle: How to sharpen a knife

I know how to do it *now*, though I am so crap at it I eventually bought a electric sharpener. I always fancied doing it like the chefs do it with the whirling blade and steel. The problem with that would be it would look like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but with less petrol used.

Queenie wrote:

My point remains though, I do not and have never viewed it as a schools responsibility to teach my children how to cook - it is a natural part of our daily routines - just like toilet training, teeth brushing, personal hygiene!! If you don't eat, you die.

Be we aren't talking about eating - we're talking about cooking. Not just heating (i.e ready meals), but actual cooking.

Queenie wrote:

For people to leave school and say they didn't know how to cook and imply that the failing is due to our education system as if they should be the sole provider of that information is ridiculous (IMO)

I do not feel they should be the sole provider of that information, but I do feel that to say to a child "Learn from someone at home or eat ready-meals for the rest of your life" is also not very good either.

You must remember there are people on here who say they can't cook. These are the parents who are supposed to teach their children to cook.

Queenie wrote:

How on earth were they eating before they reached Secondary School education? Or, perhaps they ate out every breakfast, dinner, teatime and never saw anyone in the kitchen before aged 11?

Freezer door opens. Freezer door closes. Sound of cardboard being ripped off. Sound of plastic being perforated. Microwave door opens, microwave door shuts. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttt. Ping! Microwave door opens. "There you are, your dinner's ready."

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Justie wrote:

Triker you are of course entitled to your personal opinion and if you have example of breaches in things like the use of the red tractor logo then that's useful and informative but to extrapolate that because you have seen bad work practice in a small aspect of the food industry that the whole industry is unsafe or untrustworthy is not helpful imo. It is adding to the feeling of confusion that many people have about what food is safe or unsafe, healthy or unhealthy etc. IMO, and again it is only my opinion, I would far rather have the controls that we have in this country over the food that is produced here than have what a lot of other countries have and as always the buyer should beware and should use his/her judgement as far as possible. I am all for education but I am against scaremongering.

i am not saying the whole industry is unsafe....i am trying to say i have lost faith in the industry because of what is going on ........

i have seen at first hand what some companies will do to make extra money... and yes i have reported companies that i have worked for the the councils etc....

i dont think i am scare mongering....in saying what i personally feel and what i have experienced.......

i totally agree that food in other countries are prepared to a lower standard than ours.... but one of my points is that british companies are importing this food from other countries and saying its british.. which we have just found out with bm

debtworrier

beer2006 wrote:

You should try being a boy and learning about this stuff :rolleyes:

I became interested in growing things when I was 13 and wanted to start, I wasn't given a place to grow them, even though we had space, it wasn't till I had my own house many many years later I could start.
Cooking at home, er no, I wasn't taught anything. But even men need to eat, its no wonder so many end up going back to their Mums for feeding after they leave.
I think at school I was taught to make a cake or something, I don't even like cake.....

Yeah, I asked if I could learn cookery when I was at school, and they said no - you're a BOY so you do woodwork. Thankfully my Dad cooked at home, so I didn't think it was somthing genetic. :cool:

As for a lot of people who don't cook - some of them are just not interested: a friend of mine does M&S unwrap 'n' heat if he has people round for dinner, otherwise he eats cheese/crackers/fruit. He just doesn't want to "waste" the time planning shopping preparing and eating.

Other people are intimidated by the glossy cookery shows: a professional chef with a thousand ingredients in a kitchen big enough to have its own postcode - not to mention a team of underlings doing all the shopping and veg prep. Makes a bit of a difference when you go out to a kitchen so small you have to fry the sausages standing up, and the store cupboard contains half a bag of plain flour, a tin of pilchards, three sticky sauce bottles and a rather brown lemon. Show me a gor-may meal made out of that, mate!

I don't know whether I was ever explicitly told it, but I know that providing delicious food for people you care about is a demonstration of your love. So for a lot of people a 'failure' in the kitchen is a BIG DEAL: it's in public, in front of the people you love. Is it any wonder that a lot of people choose the 'no risk' option of ready prepared food?

Generali

Most of the food industry is an absolute disgrace. I cite 2 examples, both seen on the baby food shelf in Waitrose in Wapping:

1. Heinz Beef Puree - less than 60% beef, the rest is water and cornflour.

2. An organic brand which I cannot remember the name of (curse my memory) that used proportions of the 2 main ingredients in each of it's concoctions so that water came 3rd (and so was listed 3rd) by 0.1% of the total weight of the product.

The cynicism astounds me. Someone at each of these firms has decided that watering down baby food to boost profits is better than providing decent food!

Always read the label if you buy processed food and always assume that the seller is trying to rip you off and doesn't care whether you live or die.

debtworrier

Ms_Piggy wrote:

Avian flu has very little to do with the way poultry is kept. It's just as prevalent in wild birds (if not more so) as in farmed birds. The issue with avian flu is the worry it will mutate into a strain of flu that can be passed between humans. This is what happened during the last major flu pandemic which was in 1918, long before modern farming methods took over.

BSE on the other hand...... well, feeding cows to sheep was never going to work was it?

ETA: Home Ec - why is it the school's responsibility to teach basic cookery anyway? Surely that's for parents?

ITYM the other way round: cattle feed was infected by including other animals (and even processed human remains) in the mix.

Wikipedia: BSE

I guess we're lucky the press didn't find out about THAT one - can you just see the headlines? "Cannibal Cows" :rotfl:

(Yes, I know it would be a misuse of the word "cannibal". I don't believe that would bother the red-tops.)

seraphina

I agree with Queenie and the others - it's not the school's responsibility to teach cookery and other basic life skills. If we do decide it's a school's responsibility to do so we are sliding down a slippery slope of erosion of parental rights and responsibilities.

I would far rather money was spent educating *parents* about cooking good, nutritious food.