good food

We have been working to eat better food. It seems strange to think that there was ever a time when we didn't. This includes more cake.

For a long time I wasn't particularly bothered about organic food, it seemed a little bit silly to be worrying about the harm that pesticides etc might be doing, as pretty much everyone gets by with no ill effects. Eco-ness hyped up, batty relatives insisting that they must have it as everything else is evil, despite the cost to the people actually buying the food. To a certain extent I'd still agree with that. The thing that I can't ignore is the waste and bad practice that is regular farming and food production.

We long ago stopped eating cheap chickens, "sad chickens" as we call them, the kind you see in heaps and hanging in all the local butchers around our part of town. Look at chickenout and compassion in world farming (it's not just chickens). The value and basic chicken, the chicken that goes to make anything that is prepared. And the eggs, I feel sad any time I see someone pick up the basics eggs. Nasty people. I really can't see how people feel that their brief satisfaction gnomming down a jerk chicken thigh justifies the disgusting life that bird had to live. The same is happening to the soil and wildlife as things are grown badly so that we can have it cheaply.

Here are ralph's friend rachel in alaska's lovely chickens. Happy good chickens...

It's waste and pain and destruction that I believe is bad.

The extra packaging, the factory needed solely to mash potatoes for people to lazy to do it themselves, the extra chemicals that are needed to make a soggy thing in a jar appear to be vaguely wholesome. It's unnecessary. A pineapple coming from the other side of the world should be a thing you save up for, if you really have to have it, as it is a huge expense to the planet to bring it to us here, where we cannot grow them. They should come once a year if at all. We could maybe learn to appreciate more of the food we can grow. I'm sorry, lamb from new zealand? Do we not have sheep here?

Anyway, you get my drift. With this in mind I bought some bits and pieces from goodnessdirect. I was on the search for some japanese foods like seaweed (here we go, I'm now going against everything I just said. As far as I'm aware we don't have alternatives and I was specifically looking for some foods with umami taste for my mum who is ill and pretty much refuses to eat anything as "nothing tastes") and I started looking around online, lots of japanese places to order from but most were pretty strongly laced with unhealthies and unnecessaries. Goodnessdirect has the clearspring brand foods. Lots of nice things that are wholesome.

It was only after I put my order through that I realised that goodness foods is based where I grew up, "ahhhh" I said. I had friends mothers that used to get pulses and herbs from there. They are a good company with lots of information on the site and a wonderful service. Even if they do apparently have some ready prepared stuff, hmmm, I say no to bought pizza.

I was thinking yesterday, when we had to go to holland and barrett in a cat medicine emergency, about how much I dislike going out onto the high street, if it wasn't so close to us we'd probably never go. It's all just rubbish, literally things that will be going to landfill nigh on immediately. And if it's not rubbish it's disappointing service and stock range and expensive and I feel like I'm getting done over. It really is luck if you happen to have a decent shop with a genuine storekeeper that has really good produce. Even at our local farmers market many of the stallholders can barely bring themselves to tolerate talking to you like you have a brain let alone providing actually better products, they are so very surly. The honey man and the cheese man are notable exclusions, they are great. The pesto lady looked at ralph like he was a lunatic when he actually asked her about her goods (out of curiosity as to why something so simple to make and inexpensive if done in quantity was seemingly so special and precious) I used to like sainsbury's a lot, I though they were ok and trying a bit harder than the others but no, they are just as bad. The day we happened to be in when the 'grated hard italian cheese' changed to 'basics grated hard cheese', both on the shelf at the same time, same tub but with a new label and slightly different proportions in the ingredients list. For the same price. You feel you are getting a better deal 'in these straightened times' if it's in a basics wrapper. Nonsense, it's a trick and it's mean.

So we are looking for alternatives, we already get our vegetables elsewhere, but meat is tricky. Our butchers and small shops are really only catering for the people who buy sad chickens and we don't want to buy anything from people who even remotely think that's a good idea. So online it is, be nice not to get everything from ocado so places such as goodness is what I'm going to be trying.