Do you pay much attention to the country of origin of food from a quality perspective?

[snadge]

Oh this some long-held grudge? How many years ago did I criticise your car? Is it an Audi?

I have never held a grudge, you are missing the point, it doesn't matter what car I have, what matters is you are a hypocrite, you are willing to pamper to your needs yet demonise the car driver, your carbon footprint is greater than mine.

 

[newbie]

It's long been claimed that eg the carbon footprint of New Zealand apples consumed here in the off season is lower than that of stored English apples. However R4 are currently running a trail claiming, I think, that leaves from Spain can have a lower cf than those grown here even in summer, which is very surprising.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Bananas don't grow here, nor do oranges/tea/coffee.

Bananas can grow here, as can pineapples and tea. Not sure about coffee though.

 

[bi0boy]

I have never held a grudge, you are missing the point, it doesn't matter what car I have, what matters is you are a hypocrite, you are willing to pamper to your needs yet demonise the car driver, your carbon footprint is greater than mine.

You must have me confused with someone else.

 

[Athos]

I try to minimise food miles by only using local produce. I even buy Yorkshire tea, instead of the stuff from India.

 

[Celyn]

Well, quite! Wouldn't want any of that foreign stuff.

 

[NoXion]

I barely pay any attention to country of origin when it comes to food. I don't earn enough to really give a fuck about that.

 

[Thimble Queen]

I barely pay any attention to country of origin when it comes to food. I don't earn enough to really give a fuck about that.

This. I get my shopping from a mixture of Aldi, the big super market (Rewe) and go to the Indian shops once every few months for spices and treats such as frozen samosas or parathas. I buy what I can afford and can't afford to be picky.

 

[miss direct]

You could all just move to Turkey, where you really have no choice other than to buy local. Everything is grown in the country, even bananas. Impossible to find certain items out of season, or excessively highly priced. Tomatoes taste gross all winter. I try to grate and bottle them when they taste good (end of summer). For any exotic ingredients you have to go to a special shop and pay insane prices. We are so spoiled in the UK...

 

[bluescreen]

<snip> Tomatoes taste gross all winter. I try to grate and bottle them when they taste good (end of summer)./<snip>

The second time in two days I've heard of this. Had to look up how to do it. Still sceptical: they'd have to be very firm, surely?

 

[bi0boy]

I barely pay any attention to country of origin when it comes to food. I don't earn enough to really give a fuck about that.

Not sure what money has to do with it. Whatever you buy will have a country of origin, and this may change from one week or season to the next.

I suppose if you just don't have any curiosity about where your food comes from you might not care.

I didn't start this thread to talk about food miles and middle class angst about paying 40 quid a kilo for locally weaved organic yurt cows murdered in the farmer's own kitchen.

 

[miss direct]

The second time in two days I've heard of this. Had to look up how to do it. Still sceptical: they'd have to be very firm, surely?

Grating? No, I always grate my tomatoes to make tomato sauce as canned tomatoes are expensive here. Cut tomato in half, hold the skin bit and grate. Chuck the skin bit. Best done in one of those ikea style graters that catches the grated bits into a container.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I barely pay any attention to country of origin when it comes to food. I don't earn enough to really give a fuck about that.

This is why our food systems are fucked.

Seasonally grown veg should be cheaper then imported stuff. Which they are if you are lucky enough to have the right places early you, but many many people don't.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I live in a region of the UK that grows delicious tomatoes, so once the local season is over, I don't buy tomatoes. Dutch tomatoes taste of nowt and Spanish tomatoes seem to have skins made of leather, Moroccan ones aren't too bad, but I don't often see them. So now, I have made the decision not to buy imported tomatoes and just gorge myself on the local ones, in season.

Aside from cherry tomatoes most supermarket toms are fairly shit.

 

[bi0boy]

This is why our food systems are fucked.

Seasonally grown veg should be cheaper then imported stuff. Which they are if you are lucky enough to have the right places early you, but many many people don't.

Why should it be cheaper? If the local soil, weather etc is not suitable, or the labour scarce, surely it would be a more efficient use of land, fertiliser etc to source from further afield where conditions are optimum.

 

[newbie]

Why should it be cheaper? If the local soil, weather etc is not suitable, or the labour scarce, surely it would be a more efficient use of land, fertiliser etc to source from further afield where conditions are optimum.

yes. At this time of year some imported fresh food is incredibly cheap. I've been buying 12-16 very good oranges (between 2.5 and 3kg) for two quid for some weeks now.

 

[bi0boy]

There's storage to take into account too. I bet British apples stored through winter into next summer in sealed nitrogen-atmosphere warehouses use up quite a lot of resources even though they may be very local.

 

[NoXion]

Not sure what money has to do with it. Whatever you buy will have a country of origin, and this may change from one week or season to the next.

I suppose if you just don't have any curiosity about where your food comes from you might not care.

I didn't start this thread to talk about food miles and middle class angst about paying 40 quid a kilo for locally weaved organic yurt cows murdered in the farmer's own kitchen.

I don't think there's much seasonality involved in packets of ramen and tinned goods.

 

[NoXion]

This is why our food systems are fucked.

Seasonally grown veg should be cheaper then imported stuff. Which they are if you are lucky enough to have the right places early you, but many many people don't.

Would stuff grown in this country really be cheaper, if the people harvesting it were paid non-shit wages?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

As opposed to paying people somewhere else shit wages?

 

[DotCommunist]

you'd never get the agribusiness people to give up their endless rape fields to provide enough space for seasonal homegrown for all. They'd make less money. Plus, I don't think we can grow enough toms to sort out 50 mill plus, daily. No space

 

[IC3D]

I don't buy Chinese garlic, it tastes shit and is full of poisons. Spanish is fine, french is best but hard to find.

Actually any food from China that doesn't have a visible use by date. I nearly died after eating some 1000 year old tofu.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

you'd never get the agribusiness people to give up their endless rape fields to provide enough space for seasonal homegrown for all. They'd make less money. Plus, I don't think we can grow enough toms to sort out 50 mill plus, daily. No space

We have loads of space for growing vegetables, but lots of agricultural land is massively under used. More use of things like poly tunnels would mean you could grow a lot more things like tomatoes, but you wouldnt have them in winter.

As oil prices inevitably rise, it's something we're going to have to learn to do again.

 

[NoXion]

As opposed to paying people somewhere else shit wages?

You miss my point. The cost of living in the UK is quite high, so it's possible that stuff grown elsewhere would still be cheaper even if they were also being paid decently.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

You miss my point. The cost of living in the UK is quite high, so it's possible that stuff grown elsewhere would still be cheaper even if they were also being paid decently.

Granted. I don't know if that is actually the case I must confess.

I wonder what happens when the pound keeps dropping and it makes sense to flog it to China instead. And we find there are few people to pick up the slack as the supermarkets have fucked the farming system. Or we end up having to do a Cuba when all their support from the USSR disappeared.