Supermarkets pull items off shelves over meat fears

Nada666

PLRFD wrote: »

snowball is gathering speed who knows where all this will end ?

Snowball will end alongside Mr Ted and Hans in the bolognese.

Celia

I think the whole basis of this is that people should be able to make an "informed choice" about what they eat - with the key word being informed.

How can you do that when you can't trust that it is what it says it is and has been produced/ reared in the specified manner?

[Deleted User]

A._Badger wrote: »

The 'it's cheaper to eat rubbish which is why the poor do it' argument is just a hoary old myth. It has been debunked many times. here is just one (there's a nice pictogram in the leftmost column for the hard of reading).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?_r=3&

The NYT example is a bit disingenuous, they're comparing cooked food ready to eat on the High St. with self cater ingredients bought from a supermarket. Try comparing a roast chicken dinner at a restaurant with some cheap burgers from Tesco. Their cheap healthy example is not cheap either, at £2.58 per 1000kcal it's two and a half times more expensive than I'm paying.

It is possible to eat a healthy diet on a budget, but not the way NYT are going about it, and I wonder how many are actually prepared to do it. I have my diet on a spreadsheet, so I know exactly what I'm eating and how much it costs. The top most expensive items are:

Aubergine £26/1000kcal
Mushroom £21
Pepper £21
Lemon £15
Tomato £14
Turnip £13
Mango £12

All good healthy fruit and veg. At the bottom, the cheapest items are:

Flour 10p/1000kcal
Oil 17p
Porridge 21p
Spaghetti 23p
Sugar 25p
Bread 27p
Peanut Butter 29p

Many of those are healthy too, but they're also bland. My diet meets the RDA for all the major nutrient groups (including fruit and veg), most by a country mile and on a budget, but how many others would be willing to eat it? Bread accounts for 24% of all my calories!

As someone who doesn't much like cookery I was interested to see where the "bad" elements in my diet come from: 40% of all my salt comes from bread and marge, and 46% of the fat came from milk, marge and cheese before I switched to lower fat options. Processed foods are high in salt and fat, but they don't contribute much overall if they're not eaten in large quantities. My intake of red and processed meat is not much more than half the recommended maximum.

Fire_Fox

jack_pott wrote: »

The NYT example is a bit disingenuous, they're comparing cooked food ready to eat on the High St. with self cater ingredients bought from a supermarket. Try comparing a roast chicken dinner at a restaurant with some cheap burgers from Tesco. Their cheap healthy example is not cheap either, at £2.58 per 1000kcal it's two and a half times more expensive than I'm paying.

It is possible to eat a healthy diet on a budget, but not the way NYT are going about it, and I wonder how many are actually prepared to do it. I have my diet on a spreadsheet, so I know exactly what I'm eating and how much it costs. The top most expensive items are:

Aubergine £26/1000kcal
Mushroom £21
Pepper £21
Lemon £15
Tomato £14
Turnip £13
Mango £12

All good healthy fruit and veg. At the bottom, the cheapest items are:

Flour 10p/1000kcal
Oil 17p
Porridge 21p
Spaghetti 23p
Sugar 25p
Bread 27p
Peanut Butter 29p

Many of those are healthy too, but they're also bland. My diet meets the RDA for all the major nutrient groups (including fruit and veg), most by a country mile and on a budget, but how many others would be willing to eat it? Bread accounts for 24% of all my calories!

As someone who doesn't much like cookery I was interested to see where the "bad" elements in my diet come from: 40% of all my salt comes from bread and marge, and 46% of the fat came from milk, marge and cheese before I switched to lower fat options. Processed foods are high in salt and fat, but they don't contribute much overall if they're not eaten in large quantities. My intake of red and processed meat is not much more than half the recommended maximum.

I feel I maybe missing the point of your post, interesting as it is, so feel free to tell me I am being dense/ explain in words of one syllable.

I think it's a little disingenous of the article (and thus you) to measure the financial value all foods by the calorie especially given most Westerns don't need to eat more calories they need to eat fewer, although I fully appreciate that is exactly what happens in the ready meal! The comparison I am too lazy to do is roughly cost a recipe for a lasagne with just 16% meat and 2.5% cheese (a la Findus) and see how much cheaper it can be done. I suspect you could make the same using organic ingredients.

It's interesting to give pounds per calorie but, from a nutrition/ dietetics perspective, the purpose of produce in a diet is not to supply calories it is to supply vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibre and you get a whole lot of those in 1000 calories.

The primary purpose of flour, spaghetti, bread and sugar is to supply carbohydrates, oil and butter are for fat. Protein fat and carbs are all macronutrients so costing those per calorie makes sense to me. Of course if you eat wholegrain you also get minerals and vitamins, but there is little in the way of micronutrients in oil or sugar so they'd be incredibly expensive if you used a different benchmark.

I would finally note that a key healthy eating guideline is to eat a wide variety of different foods - if you are eating 24% calories as bread plus flour and pasta you might want to work towards a better variety of carbs (beans, lentils, barley) instead of so much wheat.

gailey_2

Any updates on what fresh beef products have horse in them?

Checked on daughters school dinners its fine sourced from local butchers as down to individual schools here to buy and stay in budget not purchased centrally.

All gone quiet in news apart from coe of iceland saying they can be trusted, tests are wrong and its councils fault.

I think they testing steaks, stocks nextl.

A._Badger

gailey wrote: »

Any updates on what fresh beef products have horse in them?

Checked on daughters school dinners its fine sourced from local butchers as down to individual schools here to buy and stay in budget not purchased centrally.

All gone quiet in news apart from coe of iceland saying they can be trusted, tests are wrong and its councils fault.

I think they testing steaks, stocks nextl.

Expect the usual government hush-up.

The first rule of the civil service (and the politicians who pretend to run the country) in the event of any emergency is to 'reassure the public'.

The hope in Brussels and Whitehall will be that a few more 'rules' will be imposed which will shut us all up and allow the status quo to resume. That status quo involves giant corporations working hand in glove with bureaucrats and retailers to run things. It's convenient, technocratic - and thoroughly corrupt.

Governments, retailers and the food industry giants can't wait for this crisis to fade from the public's radar, so they can get back to making billions from selling us rubbish.

Sadly, past precedent suggests that is exactly what will happen. 'Oh, look! It's Celebrity Come Dancing on Ice! Findus lasagne, darling? Haven't had time to cook'.

Edwardia

Tesco has put organic beef mince and organic beef steak mince on offer ATM - will anyone buy mince from Tesco ??

Tesco also brought Graig Organics on board to supply anything from sausages to joints with 2 days notice needed for orders. Graig used to be independent farm but was bought by processors.

Sainsbury's already had SO organic mince and diced beef on offer 3 for $10 before Chevalgate broke. We bought the diced beef and I have to say most of it was the toughest beef I've ever had and I would give it -2 out of 10 frankly.

I think the reason ministers were saying that it was a labelling issue was because they were worried that the hooves would drop out of the beef market and it would be more bear than bull

[Deleted User]

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I feel I maybe missing the point of your post, interesting as it is, so feel free to tell me I am being dense/ explain in words of one syllable.

I think it's a little disingenous of the article (and thus you) to measure the financial value all foods by the calorie especially given most Westerns don't need to eat more calories they need to eat fewer, although I fully appreciate that is exactly what happens in the ready meal! The comparison I am too lazy to do is roughly cost a recipe for a lasagne with just 16% meat and 2.5% cheese (a la Findus) and see how much cheaper it can be done. I suspect you could make the same using organic ingredients.

It's interesting to give pounds per calorie but, from a nutrition/ dietetics perspective, the purpose of produce in a diet is not to supply calories it is to supply vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibre and you get a whole lot of those in 1000 calories.

The primary purpose of flour, spaghetti, bread and sugar is to supply carbohydrates, oil and butter are for fat. Protein fat and carbs are all macronutrients so costing those per calorie makes sense to me. Of course if you eat wholegrain you also get minerals and vitamins, but there is little in the way of micronutrients in oil or sugar so they'd be incredibly expensive if you used a different benchmark.

I would finally note that a key healthy eating guideline is to eat a wide variety of different foods - if you are eating 24% calories as bread plus flour and pasta you might want to work towards a better variety of carbs (beans, lentils, barley) instead of so much wheat.

The points of my post were:
1) The NYT are not comparing like with like. (Cooked prepared food vs. prepare yourself.)
2) Their 'cheap' option isn't really cheap.
3) It is possible to eat healthily on a budget, but such diets tend to be bland, which is why I think many people don't do it. Out of cheap, healthy, tasty and convenient, I think you can have any three, but not all four.

The NYT article was about eating healthily on a budget, therefore the points at issue are cost and nutrition. The way to establish whether a diet is healthy is to compare its nutrients against published nutrition data, and the way to determine cost is by looking at how much food you get for your money. That means you need a means to quantify the amount of food you're buying.

Since the primary purpose of food is to provide the body with a source of energy, the total amount of food any individual needs is specified in terms of its energy content in calories. It therefore follows that the primary way to establish whether you're meeting that need is by measuring the amount of food you buy also in calories. Of course you could calculate the unit cost of all the other nutrients, but what would you do with all the data? Some people need to lose weight, but if they're on a budget the sensible way to do that is by cutting what they eat, not by switching to more expensive foodstuffs.

Checking my healthy eating guide I see that I'm eating almost exactly the amount of bread they advise, with the proviso that they have a footnote at the bottom of the page recommending that you can eat plenty more if you wish. I don't know why you seem to think that wheat or bread is my only source of carbs, 15% of all my calories are coming from potatoes, rice and oats. I don't know why you think I eat little variety, there are over a hundred foodstuffs in my diet, out of which 32 are fruit and veg. For every kilogram of bread I eat I'm getting nearly 2kg of fruit and veg. (I said in my previous post that I'm meeting all the main nutritional standards, and that includes fruit and veg.)

On the subject of cheap and bland vs. expensive and tasty here's a good example:
I've just switched the loaf I buy to reduce my salt intake. The lower salt loaves have added about £40 to my annual budget, and they strike as tasteless at first, so we'll see if I get used to them. By comparison, if I had just cut down on bread and made up the calories with a cheap (but tasty) fruit such as apples it would have cost me an extra £140 a year. That's why I think people on a budget tend to eat unhealthily.

Fire_Fox

jack_pott wrote: »

The points of my post were:
1) The NYT are not comparing like with like. (Cooked prepared food vs. prepare yourself.)
2) Their 'cheap' option isn't really cheap.
3) It is possible to eat healthily on a budget, but such diets tend to be bland, which is why I think many people don't do it. Out of cheap, healthy, tasty and convenient, I think you can have any three, but not all four.

The NYT article was about eating healthily on a budget, therefore the points at issue are cost and nutrition. The way to establish whether a diet is healthy is to compare its nutrients against published nutrition data, and the way to determine cost is by looking at how much food you get for your money. That means you need a means to quantify the amount of food you're buying.

Since the primary purpose of food is to provide the body with a source of energy, the total amount of food any individual needs is specified in terms of its energy content in calories. It therefore follows that the primary way to establish whether you're meeting that need is by measuring the amount of food you buy also in calories. Of course you could calculate the unit cost of all the other nutrients, but what would you do with all the data? Some people need to lose weight, but if they're on a budget the sensible way to do that is by cutting what they eat, not by switching to more expensive foodstuffs.

Checking my healthy eating guide I see that I'm eating almost exactly the amount of bread they advise, with the proviso that they have a footnote at the bottom of the page recommending that you can eat plenty more if you wish. I don't know why you seem to think that wheat or bread is my only source of carbs, 15% of all my calories are coming from potatoes, rice and oats. I don't know why you think I eat little variety, there are over a hundred foodstuffs in my diet, out of which 32 are fruit and veg. For every kilogram of bread I eat I'm getting nearly 2kg of fruit and veg. (I said in my previous post that I'm meeting all the main nutritional standards, and that includes fruit and veg.)

On the subject of cheap and bland vs. expensive and tasty here's a good example:
I've just switched the loaf I buy to reduce my salt intake. The lower salt loaves have added about £40 to my annual budget, and they strike as tasteless at first, so we'll see if I get used to them. By comparison, if I had just cut down on bread and made up the calories with a cheap (but tasty) fruit such as apples it would have cost me an extra £140 a year. That's why I think people on a budget tend to eat unhealthily.

Your Diet
My comment about the lack of variety/ balance was "if you are eating 24% calories as bread plus flour and pasta you might want to work towards a better variety of carbs (beans, lentils, barley) instead of so much wheat.". These are not three foodstuffs they are one, wheat, comprising a quarter to a third of your entire diet by calories which is huge: presumably you eat ~ twice as much wheat as all the other starchy carbs put together. Variety IS one of the healthy eating guidelines, really to achieve that we should not eat more than one serving of any foodstuff a day.

Bread is not a food group it is within the starchy carbs group, there is no minimum requirement, so I'm not sure why you think the healthy eating guidelines 'advise' eating a minimum amount. I wonder if you have one of the dumbed down leaflets which suggest ways of meeting the guidelines for those who are struggling? Bear in mind some tips are sneaky: the powers-that-be are aiming to get families to cut back on sugary refined breakfast cereals, wholegrain toast is the obvious healthier substitution.

Again I think it's disingenuous to replace bread calories with apples in your example: replace some with dried lentils, beans, sweet potato or purple potato all of which could count towards five to nine a day. The beans and lentils are a particularly good substitute because they are a good source of starchy carbs, minerals and fibre, exactly as wheat is. Fruit is richer in sugars and vitamins so is not a like-for-like switch nutritionally.

Flavour v Cost
A huge part of the problem is the erroneous assumption that healthy eating means salads, platefuls of plain steamed vegetables, dry potatoes, dry bread, chicken breast. That would indeed be quite pricey and bland to boot and doesn't even include many of the most nutrient dense foods. Few starches are innately tasty and neither are many lean proteins, it's the added ingredients that make them so as you say including salt. Canned oily fish (mackerel or pilchards in tomato sauce) and organ meats like chicken liver are far more flavoursome and nutritious than a boring plain chicken breast.

For flavouring starchy carbs and veggies: frozen garlic and ginger, dried red chilli flakes, dried spice blends, dried mixed herbs, coconut milk powder, block creamed coconut, unsweetened dessicated coconut, are all reasonably priced if bought from an Asian grocery store or the World Foods section of a supermarket. I also recommend low salt yeast extract and homemade meat stock which are inexpensive per serving, and encourage clients to make meals like curries and stir fries which are a million miles from being bland.

Weight Management
I deal with weight management clients on a budget as part of my job (lifestyle healthcare). Sorry but you are wrong: the vast majority of people don't need to just reduce the amount they eat they need to change what they eat and often that involves eating a larger volume of food. Telling people who are overweight to eat less by volume simply does not work, often these people are already skipping meals or not having much protein or fat until the evening, and already struggling with cravings and late night snacking as a result.

As a nation we average three servings of fruit and veg a day and just a third of a serving of oily fish a week, I almost never see anyone meeting let alone exceeding all the healthy eating guidelines. The sensible way to lose excess body fat is actually to look at the research - protein, fibre, water and fat confer satiety, micronutrients like omega-3s from oily fish and calcium from dairy are linked to lower body fat, certain carbs spike and trough the blood sugar especially when eaten alone, certain fats are far more likely to burned as fuel, some far more likely to be laid down as fat.

Macros v Micros
Our healthy eating guidelines are not standards or optimal or aspirational, they are minimums and maximums based on what is deemed manageable or realistic for a sedentary population based on the standard UK diet. The micros are just as important as the macros, that is why there are food groups, not jut protein/ fat/ carb splits. There are researched links between micronutrient deficiencies and various common lifestyle health conditions such as insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. As a nation we are both "overweight and undernourished".

The UK is stuck on 'at least five a day' - which often gets diluted to just or ideally five a day and was plumped for partly because we average three. Most other Western countries advocate seven to ten servings of fruit and veg a day in the full rainbow of colours, and that is what is supported by the research. For those on a budget this is where dried lentils, beans and fresh root vegetables (white potatoes don't count) come into their own, as well as frozen vegetables, canned tomatoes and some dried fruits.

Edwardia

Bread, IMO is really only useful as a carrier for food eg butter, peanut butter, cottage cheese, cheese etc. It's really salty and carby and I don't think it provides good nutrition for the amount of carbs and salt. I have Swedish crispbread from this lot from Ocado. Svengst Sigill certified, crunchy, no additives and cheaper than Ryvita.

http://www.leksands.se/1014.php

As someone with Type II diabetes, my experience of the blood sugar highs is that it's not just the carby food which makes the difference but the frm in which they ar eaten. I can eat raw carrots, a smaller quantity of cooked carrots but carrot juice or soup not at all.