Lazy food

I read a hilarious article yesterday about lazy food. About the shock and horror of the supermarket filling up with prepackage prepared ingredients that are meant to reduce the time it takes to make a salad.

did making salad ever really take that long? I guess it did. The article talked about the dramatic growth in the lazy foods market value. About how as society follows its terminal course we find outselves more and more cash rich and more and more time poor, leaving us feeling we have no time to make a salad.

Several commented on how kids these days dont know carrots come from the earth, not Tescos; mangoes are oblong and multicoloured, not square; asparagus is...well asparagus since there isn't much you can do to make asparagus lazier so it gets left out of their diets...

I think it is pretty unfair to call the foods lazy. I contend there are no lazy foods, just as there are no stupid questions. Living in Japan, the land of lazy foods, I always find the only thing i get for buying the prepared ingredients is...more packaging and a sense of emptiness because I could have made it all myself for just as much time, less money, and way less garbage.

Some contend these foods are for people who live alone, because when you buy food you can't buy small amounts, and then you have all this food rotting in the fridge. Which is why we need to do away with bulk buying. Chicken cost what ever 59yen/100g whether you buy 50g or 500g. And that's how it should be. In Japan you are encouraged to only buy what you need and not feel like you are missing out on a deal by only buying a little bit for tonite and tomorrows dinner. The same for veggies. Veggies come in different sizes, thats just how the grow. Feel free to buy what you need, not what is the best deal. A huge daikon and a regular daikon cost the same, so you just buy the one that will provide YOU with what you need. Don't feel you are paying more for your daikon, maybe the cost per 100g is more, but you are getting what you need to feed yourself, for 79yen, and if you needed to feed 4 people you would get enough to feed 4 people for 79yen too.

Reassessing our relationship to money is going to be an important revolution in our lifetimes. If we continue to overvalue money and undervalue commodities, we will soon find ourself bought out, sold up creek to China. And while I like lots of things about China, the thing i like most is that it is China and not the whole world. I love the diversity of our planet; but if we value money more than diversity then soon we will have just that.

Food

Global food production must increase by 70% in the next 40 years...according to a report by the UN council for food. In the news report, as I haven't gone hunting up the original as UN pages are always so slow loading, there is a certain hysteria that nags me to say something about the state of food.

And I find it is now that I must say this because I have recently gained a house gremlin. That is a strange creature who likes to buy food and bring it to my house. And leave it there for me to eat. I like to buy food cook it and then eat it that day or maybe the next day for breakfast. I keep certain stock foods like salt sugar and rice. But most other things I pick up once or twice a week at the market. This is because if i buy more food it will end up in the garbage. As I tried to explain to my house gremlin.

And this is the point I want to make. It seems that 70%, presumably above the regular rate of increase in production is a lot. And I just wonder how much of it could be made up for by eating smarter not harder. In developed countries, so much food everyday gets used helping keep up the diversity of local landfills and incinerators. I wonder if merely learning to waste less food would be sufficient to account for food shortages in developed countries?

Obviously or well presumably a large part of the shortage trouble is and will be in densely populated, poorly developed countries and areas of countries, but seeing as cities are going to do nothing but grow, perhaps we need to help grow a culture of wasteless living in them. Before we go mowing down more forest, "reclaiming" more ocean for land, and irrigating desertland. Helping city dwellers be more conscious of wasted food, may also help us become more conscious of food issues around the world. And perhaps inspire some fabulous thinker to find more creative solutions than just uping production.

EU wants it specific

I just read an article about the debunking of the probiotic effects of yogurt drinks. The article was concerned with the EU's attempts to ensure that any "medical-sounding" claims made on food products be supported by facts. They want it verified by scientific observation that the probiots in many yogurt products are "good for you". And what is the percentage, what is the short and long term group mean distribution of effects, and how do these effects come about...perhaps.

This is all in their attempt to protect the public, (there it is my favourite phrase), from misleading or false advertising, and to ensure that all products are fairly represented. Personally, I think it is time to do away with advertising on foods. All food packaging (if any packaging at all) should just say what is in side. Maybe how to cook it. And even those instructions should read something like: add water or add fire or add both...go on experiment.

I don't get it. Or rather, I don't get what people don't get about food. Can't you just eat something and feel it was good for you, or feel, "hmm maybe i shouldn't eat too much of that." I mean, don't you just feel good after eating high quality bread, or a peach, versus when you eat dollar a zip-locked loaf bread and a tinned peach? Can't you feel after a yogurt...oh that was a lot of sugar, or that was a little tarte but my tummy feels calm...

Maybe some of the high fruit, high processed yogurts aren't as healthy as they claim, but eating yogurt is a good habit. Just take away a company's right to promote by claims...I think this is nicer. Instead of spending billions on questionable, arguable research let's spend it teaching people how to enjoy food, how to eat food and how to appreciate how food makes their bodies feel.

I have friends who I know are allergic to tomatoes or maybe cheese who don't know it. I see, we eat pizza or a nice lasgna, 10 minutes later they look lethargic and strained, not long after they are off to the loo. They enjoy the gustatory experience so much that they don't associate the coupled digestive experience with the ingredients their bodies don't like. I know I am probably mildly sensetive to bread. I eat it, especially when I eat a lot of it, and I get depressed, sleepy, groggy. And its a positive feedback cycle too, when I start getting depressed I crave more bread, I eat it, I feel more sick and sad, so I crave and eat more. But when I catch on and go for a bowl of soup or some rice instead of bread it is only a matter of time before my whole condition shifts again.

When we pay attention to our body, we can find out how wise it is. And then all the faulty health claims in the world don't matter a stitch and companies can tell you what you want, but you will say, "your words sound wise, but I know otherwise, my body whispers to me what it needs to keep fit and vital"

But I guess we need some lessons in the listening part. It isn't easy and it does take time. But i think if i could get funding for research I could demonstrate how much money would be saved by governments if food didn't need promoting.