Organic food in supermarkets

Edwardia

Luckily, my nearest Sainsbury's does have quite a good selection of organic meat and I buy all my steaks and most of my lamb chops there and stash in the freezer.

I prefer either Daylesford from Ocado or Abel & Cole own brand chicken drumsticks, thighs and wings but Sainsbury's are perfectly fine.

Personally, I prefer the Sainsbury's SO organic bacon to Helen Browning but my favourite is the Duchy Originals from Waitrose which you can get from Ocado too.

My nearest ASDA, Sainsbury's, Lidl and Morrisons are all about ten minutes walk in different directions. Tesco and Waitrose are a bus ride away. Even though I don't have to walk as far as you, I agree it's still a waste of time when you can't find enough food

I go shopping with my mother every fortnight now. The second video was quite useful to me too in terms of organisation and what I do now is do my Ocado order then if I find what I've ordered cheaper in say Sainsbury's I can delete that as I go round on the Ocado on the Go app. So far it's only been special offers which are cheaper.

bornintoit

Edwardia wrote: »

Luckily, my nearest Sainsbury's does have quite a good selection of organic meat and I buy all my steaks and most of my lamb chops there and stash in the freezer.

My nearest ASDA, Sainsbury's, Lidl and Morrisons are all about ten minutes walk in different directions. Tesco and Waitrose are a bus ride away. Even though I don't have to walk as far as you, I agree it's still a waste of time when you can't find enough food

I find it quite scary that we are talking about not being able to find enough of the food that the majority of human kind has eaten for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's no surprise that as a race human beings are getting sicker and sicker. It is very worrying indeed.

Edwardia

bornintoit wrote: »

I find it quite scary that we are talking about not being able to find enough of the food that the majority of human kind has eaten for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's no surprise that as a race human beings are getting sicker and sicker. It is very worrying indeed.

I agree with you bornintoit and with londoncakes too, on the previous page. It's eye-opening, walking into a supermarket the first time looking for organic or additive free and seeing aisle after aisle of processed food full of chemicals. Fifty even thirty years ago, that wasn't the case. Food is so intensively farmed that's a real industrial process.

Processed food takes cheap raw ingredients and "adds value" - for the manufacturer. If you look at the per kilo price of fish fingers it's generally something like £16-£18 whereas I just looked up cod fillet on Ocado and from the fishmonger section it can be as low as 9.99/kg on offer for better quality fish.

Michael Pollan is a lecturer at the University of California. He took a group of students to the area of Washington where Twilight comes from and looked at food prices in this rural area. The US has a far more industrialised processed food chain than we do and there, to get calories cheaply the students found they could ONLY buy junk food, they couldn't afford fresh veg/

The food manufacturing industry is now making money by producing for example gluten free food. If they hadn't been messing around with wheat and corn and their products maybe people wouldn't have these allergies ????

I'm no scientist but the fact that my liver enzymes improved so dramatically within weeks of switching to organic gives me enough reason personally not to go back to non organic food.

And for all the pesticides, fertilizers etc, averagely the crop yield is only 20% better than organic so I read today.

Edwardia

Buying fish is a bit of a minefield, it has to be said !

Farmed fish is not always labelled - and unless it's labelled and certified organic it isn't.

Most of the fresh salmon you see filleted will be farmed whether it says Scottish, Lochmuir, Loch Fyne etc. Even Responsibly Sourced or Sustainable doesn't mean that the fish has been fed on a diet free from genetically modified feed. A lot of the standard feed has colouring added to it to make the flesh that pink colour.

RSPCA Freedom Food may mean the fish were reared in better than average circumstances but it doesn't guarantee non GM feed AFAIK.. Organic will mean that the salmon were reared without coloured feed and GM feed and to better than average welfare standards but RSPCA welfare standards could be higher. Depends really which is more important to you as an individual.

Supermarket, company and RSPCA websites will give the info on the fish or should do - if not an email or call to customer services should.

Wild means wild and it was fished. If you want to avoid the destruction of dolphins and turtles look for line caught on the tin, label or pack. Some species of fish are under pressure and the Marine Stewardship Council website www.msc.org will give you all the info.

Generally when browsing on the fish counter at the supermarket, sea bass fillets (especially labelled Aegean) are farmed. Unless labelled organic or wild, the salmon will be farmed and the trout also.

Pre-2000s cod wasn't farmed but now farmed Norwegian cod is sometimes available but may not be labelled as such so suggest asking.

Plaice can be farmed but if you're in the south it probably comes from the English Channel, ditto mackerel, sprats and pouting.

If you're in the south then the bream could be relatively local but bream is farmed now too so suggest asking.

Octopus can be farmed now, prawns have been for years. It is possible to buy organic prawns.

Oh and though you need a licence to fish in rivers, if you fish out of the sea with a rod then you don't

Kirri

Edwardia wrote: »

Calling Kirri, where are ya ? x Did you get to As Nature Intended yet ?

Not yet sadly! With one thing and another I've had to stop everything else and concentrate on my flat repairs the last few days though the weather has also been an added factor in not going out! My list of items has now been added to though so early this coming week hopefully now. I've even slipped from being temporary vegan to veggie this past week as I'd run out of vegan items and had a stash of hm veggie meals in the freezer so sort of made sense to eat them..

Had a Nakd bar this week picked up last week in Waitrose, not organic but maybe worth a mention here for being a raw, fairly natural but tasty bar.

and ^^ totally agree, walking into a supermarket now is just shocking seeing what they have done with 'normal' food and to the point now that still people think organic food is an expensive fad, not realising just what crap manufacturers are putting in the food to keep it cheap or profit from it. If you took out all the crap, the bulk of the food I would buy would fit back into a small grocers shop..

Edwardia

Kirri wrote: »

Had a Nakd bar this week picked up last week in Waitrose, not organic but maybe worth a mention here for being a raw, fairly natural but tasty bar.

and ^^ totally agree, walking into a supermarket now is just shocking seeing what they have done with 'normal' food and to the point now that still people think organic food is an expensive fad, not realising just what crap manufacturers are putting in the food to keep it cheap or profit from it. If you took out all the crap, the bulk of the food I would buy would fit back into a small grocers shop..

I hope the repairs aren't due to the weather this week :eek:. a 1.83m fence post snapped in our garden and a piece of trellis fell off but neighbour's kitchen extension flat roof sprang a leak, weather was pretty dire

I haven't had Nakd, I should check how carby it is.

My local ASDA has a long aisle just for crisps, my mother lives a few miles from a 24hr Tesco and it has TWO huge aisles of crisps. My local ASDA also has a whole aisle of ready meals but fresh meat and poultry (and that includes burgers, bacon and sausages) doesn't even rate a quarter of one side of an aisle. :eek:

It's weird how organic food is seen as a fad here but in the USA even Wal-Mart has an organic range and so does Aldi.

Edwardia

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6uXsgMMRdQ
Whole Foods Giffnock (Glasgow)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFc1pr2yUU
Whole Foods parking lot video West LA

Some fun..

bornintoit

Edwardia wrote: »

Buying fish is a bit of a minefield, it has to be said !

Farmed fish is not always labelled - and unless it's labelled and certified organic it isn't.

Most of the fresh salmon you see filleted will be farmed whether it says Scottish, Lochmuir, Loch Fyne etc. Even Responsibly Sourced or Sustainable doesn't mean that the fish has been fed on a diet free from genetically modified feed. A lot of the standard feed has colouring added to it to make the flesh that pink colour.

RSPCA Freedom Food may mean the fish were reared in better than average circumstances but it doesn't guarantee non GM feed AFAIK.. Organic will mean that the salmon were reared without coloured feed and GM feed and to better than average welfare standards but RSPCA welfare standards could be higher. Depends really which is more important to you as an individual.

Supermarket, company and RSPCA websites will give the info on the fish or should do - if not an email or call to customer services should.

Wild means wild and it was fished. If you want to avoid the destruction of dolphins and turtles look for line caught on the tin, label or pack. Some species of fish are under pressure and the Marine Stewardship Council website www.msc.org will give you all the info.

Generally when browsing on the fish counter at the supermarket, sea bass fillets (especially labelled Aegean) are farmed. Unless labelled organic or wild, the salmon will be farmed and the trout also.

Pre-2000s cod wasn't farmed but now farmed Norwegian cod is sometimes available but may not be labelled as such so suggest asking.

Plaice can be farmed but if you're in the south it probably comes from the English Channel, ditto mackerel, sprats and pouting.

If you're in the south then the bream could be relatively local but bream is farmed now too so suggest asking.

Octopus can be farmed now, prawns have been for years. It is possible to buy organic prawns.

Oh and though you need a licence to fish in rivers, if you fish out of the sea with a rod then you don't

I will come down South for a weekend and we will set sail on our dinghy, how many fish do you think we could catch before drowning? :rotfl:

In all seriousness though I was thinking about this today at ASDA I ended up buying frozen "sustainably sourced wild caught Alaskan Salmon". I thought this was a better choice and was cheaper than fresh farmed Salmon.

I normally buy line and pole Tuna by the Reel Fish Company. www.reelfish.co.uk/

Edwardia

My local chippy goes sea-fishing and he says that at the right time of year you can just wade into the sea with a bucket and catch whitebait. I was once in Hastings on the beach and there were zillions of herrings leaping about near the shore.

I've never sailed so my answer would be none :rotfl:

bornintoit

Edwardia wrote: »

My local chippy goes sea-fishing and he says that at the right time of year you can just wade into the sea with a bucket and catch whitebait. I was once in Hastings on the beach and there were zillions of herrings leaping about near the shore.

I've never sailed so my answer would be none :rotfl:

Wow. Sounds like that would be good to witness. I have been to the coast but have never seen anything apart from a dead jelly fish.

Ah so looks like we need a skipper. Uncle Albert it is.

I agree with you and Kirri going into ASDA this morning was almost like walking into a different store because my eyes were open I didn't really see food anymore I saw toxins and chemicals. I thought I would find it difficult to resist all the different food choices in there but It was easy. I was shocked at myself for not really noticing it all before. I don't know if brainwashing is the right word perhaps it is because it feels like people are being brought up to believe that this is normal.