Organic food in supermarkets

vincenta

HI,everyone!
I really enjoy reading this thread and learn a lot of useful information. It's a shame that I didn't know much of it earlier. I guessed that food in supermarkets wasn't so good but never thought that it is so awful and full or nasty things.
I cook almost everything from scratch, but still buy some fish fingers, fish in butter sauce, sausages, when I am short in time.
I even try to do all baking at home and my son and hubby really enjoy home baked treats.
While I was reading about organic food I found out this quite interesting article about MSG- Monosodium Glutomate -salt of the amino acid-Glutamic acid.

http://www.msgtruth.org/whatisit.htm


And this article show which food with MSG to avoid:

http://www.msgtruth.org/avoid.htm


Hope it helps! If someone know something more about MSG I would love to hear it!:j


found one more:

http://www.ukhippy.com/stuff/showthread.php?10726-MSG-free-shopping-list

bornintoit

Hi Vincenta,

Welcome to the madhouse . Thank you for the links, I knew that MSG was not good but it's only been recently that I have realised just how many products it is in. I was eating some dry roasted KP peanuts the other day and yes they had MSG in, KP also put MSG in their Space Raider snacks which scarily are intended for children. I imagine there are many other products from KP that contain it. Needless to say I will be avoiding their products completely from now on which is a shame as my mum used to work at their Ashby factory for years when I was a child. Awhile ago I saw that Jacob TUC cheese sandwich biscuits also contain MSG.

Maybe we can start a list with all the specific products that we find or know to contain MSG. I have signed up for a blog to chart my organic journey but haven't posted yet but I am tempted to start a list on that.

I have just looked and it turns out that United Biscuits makes both KP and Jacob products so I went onto their website and I found this.

"In 2005 UB embarked on a major ten-year programme to improve the nutritional content of its products by removing hydrogenated vegetable oil (the main source of trans fats), reducing saturated fat and salt and by removing artificial additives such as flavour enhancers (including MSG), sweeteners, colours and artificial flavours.

Target - Start date 2005 – end date 2015
• There will be no artificial colours or flavours in any UB product
• Remove artificial flavour enhancers including Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) from UB products"

So by 2015 their products should be free of MSG. Although I am trying to cut out as much processed food as possible I will remember this and check in 2015.

bornintoit

Edwardia, I am tempted to email Waitrose about it. I was pleased with my Ocado order though, the bananas were squashed but they did give me a refund no arguements. I wonder how Ocado are doing performance wise though, they were close to going bust IIRC.

My local Sainsburys has stopped stocking organic meat or at least I couldn't find any and I used to buy the 3 for £10 offer which I liked. They used to do thighs and legs for £3.50 which went up to £4 and now I cannot find them at all. I can get to a bigger Sainsburys on the other side of town though which may have a better selection. When I next do a decent sized shop I will go to Sainsburys and see what I can pick up.

Edwardia

Hi vincenta and welcome. Thanks for raising the MSG issue as I had no idea that MSG could be found in peanuts :eek: I will now be checking the labels on the peanuts I buy for OH for Christmas !

I low carb and don't eat crisps much but Kettle Chips don't have anything artificial in them - maltodextrin is a natural starch used as a thickener or binding agent. The 40g bag of cracked black pepper flavour is low in sugar but still has 200 calories. I'd also suggest looking at the ingredients of Tyrrell chips which can be found in Lidl.

Chinese food is notorious for MSG, which the Chinese call gourmet powder. My only suggestion on that is to use Wai Yee Hong as a reference because they have lots of ingredient info and you could either buy online (prices are pretty good) www.waiyeehong.com or make a note of the products and try and find them locally.

bornintoit, MSG is not allowed in certified organic food. However, products which claim to be all natural and made with organic ingredients and which aren't certified organic could potentially have MSG in some form or other.

What might be more useful is if we posted up the '100% natural' and 'made with organic ingredients' things we find which have nasties in them. Cos I think that's a deception dodgy food manufacturers shouldn't get away with !

Legally if it's not certified organic then it's not organic and there's no traceability.

Edwardia

bornintoit I would email Waitrose and ask if they have plans to do deliveries in your area. You may find that other people have done this too and there will come a point when Waitrose feels that there is enough of a customer base to extend deliveries.

Ocado was founded by a couple of former investment bankers from Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is like the US Marines of investment banking - they will do eleven interviews and then turn someone down. So I'm not doubting at all that the co-founders are smart cookies and that Ocado isn't viable.

What you may have heard/read about is that Ocado is re-jigging it's banking arrangements to raise more money ie re-capitalising in order to build a second giant computerised warehouse. I think there have been mutterings about the cost and deadlines and various other City gossipings but it'll get sorted.

I would if I were you, also contact Sainsbury's customer services and whinge about the disappearance of organic food in your nearest branch and complain about the trek. Again if enough people do it, they'll reinstate it but if no-one does then Sainsbury's has got away with it.

For anyone nosing on this thread thinking of going organic or just adding more organic stuff into your diet, I would suggest talking to customer services of the supermarkets you use. I found, when doing other research, that managers often have the discretion to order in organic food for their branch. If no-one asks for it then it won't get ordered.

If they say they have it and you can't find it, ask when it comes in or when is the best time of day to snap it up. Often the people filling the veg racks will be able to tell you this. I found staff in Sainsbury's particularly helpful on this.

ASDA offered to put by the organic food they had in store if I called them before setting off there. However, my local ASDA doesn't stock any organic meat or poultry so that was pretty pointless. If you can find organic veg in ASDA, I have found the quality and price to be very good.

Edwardia

bornintoit - as I low carb I don't eat biscuits and crackers often. I haven't found any low carb organic crackers yet especially not Jacob's cream cracker type. Nor have I seen actual organic crisps/snacks.

Sainsbury's SO organic digestive biscuits are nothing like McVitie's. OH is the biscuit lover and not impressed with Duchy Originals from Waitrose organic range other than the shortbread.

Heinz organic biscotti are really for babies. They are like fingers of Rich Tea but although they taste good and per finger are low carb too, they are useless for dunking. Normally around 1.09 but I've seen them for 75p in Lidl.

Walkers shortbread does an organic shortbread finger which OH loves. Have only seen it in an independent store so far though.

If you can get English Food by Jane Grigson (Sophie's mother) from the library or can Google 'Mereworth Thin Biscuits' and find Neil Cooks Grigson on blogspot, you'll find the yummy little round crackers which you can make with just organic plain flour, organic unsalted butter, pinch of salt and organic milk. They are soo easy to make my mother used to let me do them when I was a kid and only take 5 mins to bake.

Edwardia

Yeo Valley organic butter salted/unsalted 250g 1.60 in supermarkets but 1.75 at Planet Organic)and on offer 2 for 2.80 to 04/12/12 Ocado and Waitrose. Abel & Cole sells them for 1.49

Yeo Valley organic spreadable 250g is 1.59 but only available from Ocado according to mysupermarket. It's also 1.59 at Abel & Cole however. The 500g Yeo Valley organic spreadable is 2.90 at Tesco,Waitrose, Ocado and £3 at Sainsbury's. Not available at ASDA and currently on special at Ocado and Waitrose to 04/12/12 2 for £5

Waitrose organic salted butter 250 is 1.50 Sainsbury's SO organic slightly salted organic butter 250g is 1.49 and Tesco organic salted butter 250g is 1.50.

Lurpak organic spreadable slightly salted 250g is 1.70 at Ocado and Sainsbury's only. Yeo Valley uses organic sunflower oil, Lurpak uses organic rapeseed oil. I'm not keen on rapeseed oil myself as up until the Canadians bred hybrids in the 50s (Canola) it was toxic to humans. OH likes it though.

Duchy Originals from Waitrose organic English butter with Anglesey sea salt is 1.69 for 200g. Calon Wen organic slightly salted butter 250g 1.85 only available Tesco. Berkeley Farm unsalted organic butter 250g is 2.20 from Abel & Cole but the price is partly justified by the use of Guernsey as well as Friesian cows.

Rachel's organic unsalted/slightly salted butter 250g is 1.65 at Tesco, Waitrose and Ocado, not available Sainsbury's or ASDA. Am using the unsalted at the moment and husband hasn't complained about it not being President unsalted French butter.

I refuse to buy OH the President beurre doux biologique (organic) 250g from French Click www.frenchclick.co.uk as it's a mind boggling 2.99 :eek: However that's not the most expensive French organic butter.. steel yourselves.. Grand Fermage beurre moule doux biologique is 3.50 for 250g :eek::eek: It's made from pasteurised creme fraiche but that still doesn't explain the price to moi !

Planet Organic sells Vrai organic unsalted/slightly salted French butter 250g in store and for deliveries in London only at 2.29 making it the cheapest organic French butter found so far.

Butter and spreadable butter freeze no probs so I have a freezer basket half-filled with butter bought on offer.

Edited to add that Kirri reports that ASDA and Morrisons DO sell the 250g Yeo Valley spreadable organic butter. Thanks Kirri !

bornintoit

Edwardia wrote: »

Lurpak organic spreadable slightly salted 250g is 1.70 at Ocado and Sainsbury's only. Yeo Valley uses organic sunflower oil, Lurpak uses organic rapeseed oil. I'm not keen on rapeseed oil myself as up until the Canadians bred hybrids in the 50s (Canola) it was toxic to humans. OH likes it though.

Thank you for that, I didn't know that about rapeseed oil. I am going to avoid although I don't have it anymore, I use Yeo Valley for butter and coconut and olive oil for cooking.

Edwardia

Can you afford to go organic ? Came across an old Daily Mail article today that mentioned Safeway. At the time Waitrose had 1500 organic products, Sainsbury's 1000, Marks and Spencer 159, Tesco 800, Safeway 500, Co-op 200 and ASDA 400.

I thought it was interesting that although these product numbers are old, that we've still been finding more organic products in Waitrose and Sainsbury's than other stores.

Edwardia

Celebs who eat organic..

Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin, Julia Roberts, Roseanne Barr, Alicia Silverstone (vegan too), Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Giselle Bundchen, Kirstie Alley, Kourtney Kardashian, Nicole Richie, Christian Slater, Daryl Hannah, Marc Jacobs, Madonna, Stella McCartney, Kelly Osbourne, Courtney Cox Arquette, David Arquette, Nicole Kidman, Miranda Kerr, Orlando Bloom, Kate Bosworth, Kate Hudson, Fran Drescher, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Steven Spielberg, Sting, Liz Hurley..