"This part" © The Guardian 2003 and "this part" © The Guardian 2003 have been linked for your delectation and enjoyment. The first link is a small critique of "factory fishing" and the second, is a precis of what some of the bastards will get upto, when they can't or won't pay a reasonable living wage. Admittedly, the reasons behind this may be more to do with those scumbags who own and run the major food retail chain's, but I'll leave it up to you to decide.

The main thrust of this particular post is to link "this" © The Guardian 2003.

It's quite a long article, but I think it's worth the read. It certainly gave me some idea of who is "skimming" what, from "who".

"This part" © The Guardian 2003 of my critiscm is a bit of "told you so". Now that's not to say that I have told YOU, but in my head, when I read this.

To be truthful, when I left school I was living in Wales, and went off to attend The Agricultural Department of the Tech & Agri' College in Carmarthen. I was to learn the basic's of milk, lamb, beef and pork production. I must say, I did enjoy my time there. It was a residential course and the other students on the course where a good bunch. From mixed backgrounds, i.e. some like me, involved in agriculture from an employment point of view (I worked part time on a "hill farm") to the sons and daughters of relatively major farming businesses.

I was eager, keen and conscientious (sorry if I've spelled it incorrectly). I was thirsting for information. As it turned out, after christmas of 1981, my grandmother died, leaving my parents her house in Hove. So when the course came to an end, we moved back to England. By the time we got "back", the season was coming to an end, so I had no choice but to register as unemployed. Though, I was already starting to doubt that my future was in the agricultural world.

Now, I will also admit, that as I get older, I find my personal and political views becoming more and more "left wing". This isn't for the politics "per se" and I certainly wouldn't consider myself any type of "communist", but this has more to do with the fact that my parents brought up the four of us, to have an honest and fair minded view of life. This results in a full and frank understanding that if the richest people in the world, had just a little "less", then the greater majority of poorer peoples would really have so much more!

I am lucky in many ways, that I never did return to the world of farming, mainly because it soon became apparent that the only ones who can make money from farming are the actual land owners (and in some cases, even they are struggling in the current "world climate"). So I would, in all truth, have ended up "on the dole", with "the square root of fuck all".

In my current capacity as a professional driver, I am a little disappointed that I have ended up working for a company, whose chairman is one of Britain's foodnazis, but that's mainly because openings for drivers in my area are limited. And however good my intentions may be, I have to earn a wage somewhere. "They can take your life, but they can't take your brains or your principals".

One of the reasons that I decided to compile this blog is because after reading the Guardian articles, I remembered my immediate, post school background, and the articles highlighted, for me at least the iniquitous nature of the "top management strata" with in the food industry.

I mean, it wouldn't seem so bad, if it wasn't for the apparent increase in certain "maladies" that I see around me. The eczema and so called "food allergies" that children seem to suffer from in increasing numbers, the cancers and heart disease. I am beginning to wonder how many more of these apparently "natural causes" of ill health could be laid at the door of the greedy bastards who run our food industries, through poor quality, high sugar, high fat and low fibre "cheap" foods, that they are convincing us to eat in larger and larger quantities.

Even, by reading every link that I have posted and will post, anyone can see that much much more needs to be done, so our "beloved leaders" of whichever "party" who happen to be in power, can see what is going on. They might even try to do something about it.

Proper funding for the UK food standard agency and appropriate information sharing between government departments would be an excellent start.

So, who exactly are these "foodnazis" that I have titled this blog after?

Well, "This" © The Guardian 2003 names names of the "top ten".

But, for your delectation, I shall include the names and what their share of the market is. there are actually 2 lists. Firstly, the retailers

1. Wal-Mart (US) = 199bn
2. Carrefour (Europe) = 86bn
3. Ahold (Europe) = 53bn
4. Kroger (US) = 51bn
5. Metro (Europe) = 47bn
6. Albertson's (US) = 39bn
7. Kmart (US) = 39bn
8. Rewe (Europe) = 36bn
9. Tesco (Europe) = 34bn
10. Aldi (Europe) = 33bn

Source: Cap Gemini Ernst & Young

Then there's the Manufacturers

1. Nestle = 46.6bn
2. Philip Morris(Kraft) = 38.1bn
3. ConAgra = 27.6bn
4. UniLever = 26.7bn
5. PepsiCo = 25.1bn
6. ADM (corn milling) = 23.5bn
7. Tyson (meat processing) = 23.4bn
8. Cargill = 21.5bn
9. Coca-Cola = 20.1bn
10. Mars = 15.3bn

Source: Global Food Markets
Leatherhead Food International

I am making the presumption that these figures are in US dollars. Though that is largely irrelevant. Which ever way you look at them, it's "one fuck of a lot of money"!

Now as far as I'm concerned, those of you from nations with "constitutions" (as in similar to the US constitution) have quite a leg up over us in the UK, because if you could prove that some sort of ingredient/additive/process has caused you harm/illness/whatever, then that should give you legal rights to challenge/sue. Not that I am under any illusions that this would be an easy course to take, the manufacturers and retailers would probably resort to the kind of bollocks that has been "stock in trade" for legal entities that have defended "Big Tobacco" for decades.

"This" © The Guardian 2003 article, is about food standards.

What I would have liked to have done is include the photographs from the article that might actually be on the guardian site, but I couldn't find them and I don't have the facility to post "scan's" of them at the time of writing this, so I will describe them:-

The "strawberry flavoured yoghurt", a nice, enticing view of a "tub" of the yoghurt. Underneath, the caption reads :- Yoghurt with added indredients: strawberry, oligofructose, gelling agents: pectin, locust bean gum; flavouring, thickner: modified starch; citric acid, artificial sweeteners: aspartame, acesulfame K.

Yum fucking yum. Doesn't that sound, "just absolutely scrummy" eh!

Next is the "ready meal" of chicken casserole with dumplings. The caption reads :- Ingredients: water, chicken(20%), wheat flour, onion(8%), potato(7%), vegetable suet (hydrogenated palm oil, wheat flour) carrot(4%), swede(4%), leek(2%), chicken stock (chicken fat, duck fat, concentrated chicken broth, salt, flavouring, yeast extract, dextrin, lactose, vegetable concentrate, milk protein, glucose syrup), margarine, modified maize starch, roat chicken stock (concentrated chicken broth, salt, lactose, flavouring, duck fat, chicken fat, dextrin, glucose syrup, yeast extract, concentrated duck broth, milk protein, sunflower oil), salt, raining agent: baking powder; rapeseed oil, beef gelatin, dextrose, tomato puree, roasted barley, malt extract, milk protein, stabiliser; sodium phosphate; black pepper

Now ain't that just "lip smacking good" - NOT!

Finally, is the beautiful view of a "Melton Mowbray pork pie" - the caption reads:- Ingredients: pork(35%), wheat flour, water, modified maize starch, egg, salt, rusk, wheat gluten, gelling agent: pork gelatine; pepper, yeast extract, sugar, soya flour, mace, ginger.

At least I understand what about half of the "ingredients" of the pork pie actually are! whereas I haven't got a clue in the case of the other two products (oh how I wish I could show you the pictures - the products look sooooooo nice and edible!).

Though when you read the "ingredient" lists, of these "average" products, then multiply it by the number of products in you trolley basket/shopping cart every week, it's hardly suprising that the rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, various food allergies, etc etc etc, are on a steady increase.

Not only do we in "the west" seem to be poisoning ourselves, but our children as well. And to make it worse, we are allowing the fuckers who own the supermarkets who stock such products and the food "manufacturers" who produce these products, poison us, and in most cases, they don't have to tell what the "strangest" of ingredients are actually there for! The linked article gives you some idea.

Now, obviously, I can't say about other countries, but in the UK, it seems that most people "eat with their eyes"!

What a stupid statement, you might say. Well, to put it another way, it appears that if we see something that we think "looks" nice, then we correlate that with it tasting nice.

We don't seem to be eating with the two senses given to us by nature - taste and smell. After all those beautiful looking "golden delicious" apples on the fruit and veg counter look so marvellous don't they? It's true, they "look excellent", shame then, that they have little or no fucking taste. More bland "pap" churned out by Europe's apple farmers at the behest of the EU, but desired by the supermarkets and advertising agencies.

Maybe now you can see why I am starting to understand the point of view, as voiced by the "anti-capitalist" lobby, well certainly, from the food "angle" anyway!

TTFN, more later

"This" © The Guardian 2003 article explains just a little of "the number's" of British supermarketing. I would imagine that it could be easily transposed to any of the main european nations or in an even more aggresively marketed terms, the United States (after all, the US is arguably the most aggressive trading market in the world). Personally, I find some of the figures quite alarming. For example, the 46 million doughnuts sold by Adsa each year. That might only seem to equate to 3 doughnuts to every 4 people in the UK, but when you think that quite a lot of people won't eat doughnuts (for various reasons), that's enough doughnuts to entomb most small towns in the UK.

Then the article also makes reference to the environmental aspect "It is estimated that a kilogramme of blueberries imported by plane from New Zealand produces the same quantity of carbon dioxide emissions as boiling a kettle 268 times". Now I find that little nugget alarming.

There are those around the world who go so far as to deny that there is an environmental problem (President Bush Jr and cohorts), and while not wanting to give their points of view credence, it is concieveable that the "greenhouse gases" problem, is, in fact, a natural cycle of mammoth proportions - that will correct it's self in it's own time.

Too that, I say that as we can't, conclusively tell, then why should we carry on as we are? why not try and reduce emissions of "greenhouse gases" so we don't make the situation any worse, at least we would be slowing down the "natural cycle" and not filling the pockets of the already "ultra rich"! (whereas in truth, we would be developing new markets for "them" to manage, control and profit from!). - sounds just a little "catch 22" doesn't it.

The scene. Me (6'4", balding, late thirties, dressed slightly scruffily having just finished work) standing in a pulpit with a monitor as a lectern.

[sermon]

I still find it weird, I have always been a middle of the road sort of person, but when I stop to look at one of the links in my blog, strange thoughts, alien too me, start popping into my head.

Instead of looking at the news, every 1st May and thinking "scruffy lay about bastards, haven't you got anything better too do" with the scene's of vandalism, general unrest and sometimes violence. I now seem to feel that I am starting to understand why these "people" organise and execute such large scale "anti-capitalism" demonstrations, aimed at large industrial concerns, or maybe macdonalds, or the world bank and world trade organisation.

I can't work out whether I sympathise with them, I can't condone them (but that could be because I don't know enough about their "cause"), but now I can't find it in me to condemn them!

[/sermon]

(sorry, it just amused me to put this post in the form of some type of priest, sermonising bastardised HTML or VB)!!!