Organic food in supermarkets

[Deleted User]

A and C arrived and it is a big wow from me. I bought from them many years ago and was expecting the same sort of condition but it is lovely and fresh and I love the way they packed the milk and cream. A big thumbs up

Kirri

kittie wrote: »

A and C arrived and it is a big wow from me. I bought from them many years ago and was expecting the same sort of condition but it is lovely and fresh and I love the way they packed the milk and cream. A big thumbs up

The org delivery companies seem to have improved a lot since I used them first time round, much bigger selection too now. They are usually quick to sort any issues as well.

However, it was tempting to keep using them even after the allotment had sprung back into life last spring/summer...

alfsmum

Missed the cut off last night for this week's A&C order but have plenty of freezer stuff, HM soups etc to use up so might be a good thing!

Probably lots of gadget offers on pre Christmas so could be good for anyone who is thinking of buying. John Lewis are offering free ice cream maker with a kitchen Aid mixer (actually the ice cream bowl attachment rrp £70).

smallblueplanet

renegade wrote: »

I do not normally buy Organic foods, as I didn't think the taste could justify the price. However, I picked up Organic carrots at Tesco as I was in a hurry they cost £1 per pack.
I must say they were the sweetest carrots I ever tasted, certainly changed my mind about Organic foods.:)

As with lots of veggies the varieties that are grown play a large part in tastiness - not that I want to turn you away from organic!
If you ever get chance to grown any of your own veggies or salad - things like beans and courgettes are very bountiful - you'll be surprised at how fresh vegetables can be, I know I was when we started growing some veggies - love freshly dug salad spuds!

smallblueplanet

Kirri wrote: »

kittie - I really must learn how to make sourdough, it's the only bread I give in and buy these days..

Now then Kirri did I catch you 'snooping' around my sourdough post on the bread thread?!


C'mon it really is VERY simple to get a sourdough starter going - nothing more than adding flour and water to a jar daily and leaving it! Really how hard is that? Keep it in the fridge and it keeps for weeks, if not months, even years (I saw on one bread forum post!)...

Kirri

smallblueplanet wrote: »

Now then Kirri did I catch you 'snooping' around my sourdough post on the bread thread?!


C'mon it really is VERY simple to get a sourdough starter going - nothing more than adding flour and water to a jar daily and leaving it! Really how hard is that? Keep it in the fridge and it keeps for weeks, if not months, even years (I saw on one bread forum post!)...

Lol yes! I've read it, bookmarked it and filed it in my food folder..
Admittedly it does sound reasonably ok, I think it's the thought of being organised enough to look after it, measuring all those 30g bits out, throwing bits away and remembering to get it ready for when I want to use it that's making me faff Almost like having another pet to look after..

[Deleted User]

yes sbp, very easy and really quite exciting seeing the bubbles form from scratch. I added a few grapes and that helped. Mine is about 8 now, doh I used to have one that was 12 years old until we moved. I neglect mine badly at times, leaving it for months but it is very satisfying coaxing it back to life. I just wash with warm water, add flour and it takes a few days but then gets lively. I always have a backup these days, a little pot in the freezer, some dehydrated in a dark cupboard and a little very neglected pot at the back of the fridge. All because I didn`t do it to my 12 year old and learnt the hard way. I bought sd bread the other week and it just does not taste like mine, I like a sour sourdough ie with a bit of rye

kirri, no 30g bits. All it needs is flour and water. Just give it any amount. It will live, believe me, it just needs a biggish surface area to start and a bit of mixing the air in

smallblueplanet

Kirri wrote: »

Lol yes! I've read it, bookmarked it and filed it in my food folder..
Admittedly it does sound reasonably ok, I think it's the thought of being organised enough to look after it, measuring all those 30g bits out, throwing bits away and remembering to get it ready for when I want to use it that's making me faff Almost like having another pet to look after..

It isn't that much of a faff, we just take it out the fridge to warm up before using it, if we remember. Otherwise we just wait for the dough to rise...
We only threw away the first lot of flour and water before the starter had started. Now we never throw the 'excess' away when feeding up the starter, if it needs to be particularly lively, just put it in another jar in the fridge and add it to a recipe (adjusting the flour and water in recipe as necessary).
We started with a rye one like in the Weekend Bakery link http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/rye-sourdough-starter-in-easy-steps/ but after we got used to that have now got a white starter as well - made exactly the same way, but it is a slightly different 'beast' but still easy.
G'wan the sooner you start the sooner you can taste your own sourdough bread! We will be trying to make sourdough stollen this Christmas and sourdough Swedish crackers!

Edwardia

Averagely, organic food isn't more nutritious than conventional food, though a couple of studies showed that organic tomatoes and organic milk can be. In other words a carrot is a carrot.

The dangers in conventional food are invisible. Chemical pesticide, herbicide, insecticide and fertiliser residues - even food grown in land fertilised by human sewage.

Genetically modified material is not allowed in organic food, not even via animal feed.

UK supermarkets allow GM soya, maize and mixed feed containing GM ingredients to be fed to animals producing your eggs, milk, meat etc without it having to be labelled (I checked with DEFRA). Unless you eat only organic and wild, these days you ARE eating GM.

A study by Dr Trudy Netherwood of Newcastle University fed human volunteers a single GM soya bean and were able to track it and show that the transgenic DNA survives processing and is detectable within the digestive tract. There was also evidence that the transgenic DNA transferred into human gut bacteria.

We also take up genes from all nutritiens through the Payer Plaques in our guts according to Friedrich-Schiller University in Germany.

Professor Jahreis' study found that chickens reared on GM Bt corn have been found to contain transgenic DNA in their meat after only 32 days on it.

Another German research group found that genes from GM Bt corn can be found in cow's milk and also in the immune cells of the cows themselves.

All current GM plants use CaMV (Cauliflower Mosaic Virus) as the switch to turn the modified genes on because of it's ability to hijack a cell and make copies of itself. CaMV was found to be unstable as far back as 1994.

One cob of corn contains hundreds of millions of CaMV which is actually related to human viruses which cause AIDS and Hepatitis B.

CaMV could be a carcinogen in humans and it has been found to be able to combine with other genetic material and create new viruses. It has already been proved to be unsafe in GM spuds fed to lab rats.(Not that I'm sure rats should be eating spuds anyway ?)

If you eat organic food you haven't so much to worry about because UK only allows 0.1% GM to allow for accidental contamination.

Edwardia

With organic food then it's not so much whether it's more nutritious, but what's NOT in it. Two or three weeks after switching to organic I had a liver function test and my liver enzymes (which had been raised) were normal. It's the liver which processes all the toxins.

If you don't have much money I would suggest:

(a) choosing additive free food, which doesn't have to be more expensive, it just means reading labels. You can find additive free food in Iceland, Lidl, everywhere.
(b) Non-organic UK lamb can be fed GM feed so if you buy New Zealand lamb (Lidl, Sainsbury's Basics) it's grass-pastured and from a completely GM free country.
(c) Wild venison isn't that expensive now, certainly compared to organic beef. If you can find NZ venison (Lidl, Sainsbury's probably elsewhere too) that will be GM free.
(d) wild fish and seafood, be it canned, fresh, pickled (check for additives) or frozen. Scottish and sustainable don't mean wild. You can buy canned from anywhere even Poundland. Lidl has great prices on frozen wild fish, Iceland too.
(e) reduced priced yellow stickered organic and wild
(f) offers see https://www.mysupermarket.co.uk

If you think that eating takeaways seven nights a week and smoking 60 a day is great, unless you want to change that you're most likely on the wrong thread.

But if you want to ask questions, learn.. jump in, the more the merrier, let's get the party started !

People always have different ways of eating but one thing remains true, the purer your food the better.