Posts Tagged ‘food’

Having found an interesting note on KFC’s website, I decided to write to them.

Dear KFC,

I was recently browsing your website, when I found the following statement at the small print at the bottom of the page:

“Our research shows that UK customers don’t want genetically modified foods in KFC products; so naturally, we have ensured none of our products contain genetically modified ingredients.”

You seem to be pointing out that this is what we as consumers want, presumably rather than what is the sensible thing.

Therefore, I just wanted to write and let you know that I DO WANT genetically modified ingredients in KFC products.

Genetic modification is nothing new – we have been adapting plants to suit our needs in agriculture for thousands of years. Using GM crops allows us to reduce the amount of agricultural chemicals used, and is therefore be better for the environment. The EU maintains strict controls over GM foods to ensure they are safe.

For all these reasons, I wanted to inform you that some of your customers do want genetically modified ingredients in KFC products, and hope that you will re-consider your position.

Yours faithfully,
Chris Worfolk

Why not contact them about it too?

Earlier today, I wrote about best before dates, suggesting that one way to reduce food waste would be to ban them. It ended on a “why not?” question. But there is a reason why, which would have totally changed the tone of the blog post, so I’ve put it in a separate one.

The reason is, people actually like living in a nanny state when it comes to these things. I like the fact that it tells me on the packaging when I should throw something away and the reality is that it will probably be reasonably close to the actual time it will be past its best, so what is the harm?

Of course, you can argue that reducing food waste would be beneficial, but as Rob Lyons points out, reducing our own food waste doesn’t help feed the third world – people aren’t starving in Africa because we’re eating all their food. It’s economics that drives food production and if we weren’t buying their food, they simple wouldn’t grow it.

In fact, you can go even further to say that because we buy more food than we need and simply bin a lot of it, it actually increases the amount we buy from the third world and thereby helps to support their economy by essentially subsidising unrequired food production.

In recent years, there has been a lot made of food waste, and some of this has been attributed to supermarkets putting very conservative “best before” dates on products that result in people throwing perfectly editable food away.

This might be down to a combination of supermarkets protecting themselves from lawsuits if anyone gets food poisoning, and encouraging people to throw food away early so they will buy more. But I don’t know, maybe they have some other reason. Maybe they genuinely believe their best before dates are appropriate. In any case, it’s not important to this post.

As a solution, why don’t we just ban supermarkets putting best before dates on things?

Surely that would solve the problem, forcing people to use their own common sense. You could argue that relying on common sense is an issue, but any common sense people are lacking is almost certainly down to the nanny state situation of having too many best before dates to rely on in the first place. But even if you consider that a problem, which I don’t think it is, it’s pretty easy to work out when bread is past its best.

I often find that, on some occasions, the law works very well as a blunt instrument. Remember when they banned smoking in pubs, and lots of people said there should be lots of complicated rules and exceptions, but instead they just banned everything, and now everyone is much happier because it worked really well? To be clear, I’m not being sarcastic there, that is actually what happened. Clamping is another good example.

Just tell producers they’re not allowed, people use their common sense and food stops getting wasted. Problem solved.

For the June meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Rob Lyons, deputy editor of Spiked and author of Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder, joined us to discuss his book.

I had invited Rob up after seeing him give a similar talk at Leeds Salon and have previously blogged about it. It’s an excellent book and I highly recommend giving it a read – grab yourself a copy from Amazon.

Apparently, they’re the best steak you have ever tasted – or your money back.

Having been invited for a surprise dinner party by Chris & Cara, we headed over to The Greenhouse – a large apartment development located in Beeston.

If your not familiar with Leeds, you might have heard of Beeston anyway – after all, it’s where the 7-7 bombers came from. It’s also where the football team Leeds United are based, and their accompanying Leeds United Service Crew, often described as the most notorious football hooligans in English history. That explains the two metre high security fence that runs around the perimeter of the complex then.

The idea behind the development is that it is supposed to be eco friendly – which is basically an excuse not to provide any of the tenants with a dishwasher or even a microwave, or anything useful like that.

But enough of bashing where they live. The food itself was outstanding. Individual Beef Wellington’s are always going to work because however much pastry you wrap something up in, you’re still basically serving us steak and there is simply no bad way to do that. Add chocolate cake to the end of that and you have a winning combination. Thumbs up all round.

Having been quite impressed by the Leeds Salon event I attended, and I decided to head down to their next one – Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder at which Rob Lyons made the case that we all need to chill out about what we’re eating before being cross-examined by a panel of experts.

The key points in Rob’s talk were that people now eat a more varied, nutritious diet than ever before. One hundred years ago people didn’t have freezers, microwaves or even cookers, so the idea that until recently everyone had eaten warm home cooked meals is nonsense.

Supermarkets have only come round in the past 50 years, and before then you simply couldn’t get the variety you can access now. Let alone a thousand years ago, or ten thousand years ago as the species was evolving (not that it’s stopped). Only as far back as 1914, people simply couldn’t afford the fuel to run their cookers, so would often only cook hot food once a week for Sunday lunch. People would be eating junk food all the time – they would often by down the fish and chip shop three or four times a week.

In 1930, food made up 30% of your household budget, it now accounts for 10%. It was only in the 1970’s that freezers became affordable to everyone. In short, food today is cheaper, easier to store and easier to cook than ever before. The result is that people benefit from a more varied, more nutritious diet than ever before. Even if you’re eating takeaway every night, compared to what people were eating a hundred years ago, you’re doing pretty well.

While the panel didn’t buy into the talk wholesale, there was a lot more agreement than I expected. Generally, the consensus was that Rob was speaking a lot of sense – but there still was a healthier way to live, if only by ensuring you have different coloured foods on your plate each night.

Rebecca, being very well to do, had recently mentioned that she had been invited to the launch part of Rib Shakk, a new restaurant slash takeaway which was opening up in the basement of the Corn Exchange, alongside Piazza by Anthony.

So, when hungry one Sunday night, and being inspired by seeing Norm watching Man v Food, I decided to head down there to try out some of their ribs.

When I arrived there was only one group in the restaurant and with nobody else in sight they seemed to have more staff than customers. It’s no surprise really. There is no mention of the place on the Corn Exchange, nor any on the website for Anthony’s Restaurant (I’m not entirely sure if they are linked or not). Their website simply says “under construction” and there is no signage outside. I would have gone before, to be honest, but I didn’t believe it was really there.

Not to mention that googling their name doesn’t help because you put “rib shack” into a search engine and they are nowhere to be seen due to their unconventional choice of spelling. However, I eventually managed to stumble over their Facebook and Twitter pages.

I opted for their meatier rips with a classic BBQ sauce. They were excellent, they are some of the meatiest ribs I have ever had, though I was a little disappointed by the BBQ sauce which wasn’t quite as special as I was hoping for.

Overall, I would probably go back, as the price is comparable to Nando’s – around £10 for a half rack and two sides. That said though, for another £5 I could pick up a full rack from Cattle Grid next door, and their baby back rips really are amazing.

For my birthday, we headed out to Cattle Grid for some steak.

There was a total of fourteen of us, making us not only the biggest group in the restaurant, but also bigger than all the other groups put together lol. I was particularly honoured by the attendance of Katie Barr, Sarann and Moz, who attended despite their vegetarian and vegan lifestyles!

As with my first visit, I went for the ribs which were excellent, but overall I was a little disappointed – the food took a long time to arrive and it didn’t arrive all at once. Jonni also had to send his steak back. Never the less, I had an enjoyable meal and finished off with their strawberry ice cream, which is delicious though suggests I didn’t order enough meat.

A few weeks ago, myself and Elina headed up to York for the York Brights monthly meetup.

It was much nicer than last time as we weren’t in the middle of a torrential downpour, so I could actually see the road in front of me. The meetup itself is held at a pub called Ye Olde Starre Inn, which those in York will no doubt be familiar with.

Having missed my mixed grill the day before (all you can eat steak is subtly different), I decided to go for the mixed grill. While it was very enjoyable it was certainly a little unconventional – it was basically a mixed grill, crossed with an all day breakfast with egg and beans. Crazy, buy never the less enjoyable.