I love to keep a well stocked fruit bowl at home. I like to get my 5 a day, and what I love is a good smoohie. I brought a smoothie maker from Tescos (£15) Its really briliant the blade screws onto the cup and is easy to clean, and it cuts through ice.
So my fruit bowl is bursting with fruity goodness but where does the fruit come from? We have ample apple trees in the UK. My mum has a pear tree in her garden, so how hard can it be to buy british? Well my fruit bowl is certainly a well traveled on. In just one visit to Asda I purchased:
pears from The Netherlands
kiwi from Italy
apples from France.
I noted that in various supermarkets, a lot of the veg is British which is fab. I did see a spanish cabbage in Morrisons though. (Ironicly the swedes are British, not Sweedish).
I wonder why we can't fill our supermarket shelves with tasty British produce? I'm no expert on this, but taking apples from a tree say in Sussex, doing the whole proccessing thing nearby has to be more efficient doesnt it? Lorries then do the whole distribution thing on home soil, not chugging along foreign auto highways in God knows which country , collecting food miles faster than Nectar points! How can that even be a viable option? Its a sad state of affairs that we can't be self sufficiant in the UK like we used to? Tastier ethichal and environmentaly friendly produce grown on our doorsteps. That's the way forward!
Then I had a thought regarding my Dutch Pears and French apples. When were they picked? are they fresh that day, from an orchard picked by a bloke called Jean Pirerre? Well; I have my doubts. Its a romantised view; but I suspect that the truth is they were picked months ago and have been sat chillaxing in some cool room since then (Thats the apples not Jean Pierre). Maybe thats one reason that farm shops are becoming so popular? Apple grows on farm, sold on, or near farm, no air miles, better apple! sorted. Makes sense doesnt it? Think about how many apple varieties are out there in this country. Hundreds I recon. How many do supermarkets sell? six? So we have all these lovely apples that are just being forgotten about thanks to the power the supermarkets have on our shopping habbits. If they dont sell it we don't buy. Yup we are very much like the rats in the Story of Pied Piper. The Piper of course being the Big Supermarkets, making us think we have choices, when actually they are taking choices away from us.
Supermarkets have scrapped seasons as far as produce goes. You seem to get everything at any time you want nowdays. Remember waiting for Wimbledon to start so you can tuck into strawberries and cream? well you can have fresh strawberries with your Christmas dinner, if you dont mind them being Egyptian and tasteless . Your mummy wont like that! Even the time they sell British strawberries is extended thanks to forced growing indoors. I think this has taken away our perception of what's in season, and maybe; as a result; we don't appreciate food as a much as we did in days gone by?
Away from produce. What about hot cross buns and Easter Eggs? They are on the shelves the week after Christmas, Christmas gear rocks up at the end of August. Crazy!! I remeber the so called supermarket 'seasonal aisle in January. A choice of cut price choclate santas or full price chocolate bunnies. The santa wins hands down. Reduced santa doesn't even go out of date until after Easter. No one buys Christmas gear in August. It sits on the shelf, goes out of date and gets binned. What a waste. Of course Supermarkets claim to be doing us a favour, alowing us to spread the cost of Christmas by bringing stuff in so early . How nice of them. Remind Great Auntie Mabel of that when she takes her teeth out on a stale mince pie.
I was reading about a family who just wanted to buy British products. With all this cheap foreign importing going on, imagine how hard and how expensive thats going to be? The family did find they couldn't buy certain items as there was no British version out there. I imagine British bananas are hard to come by? Talking of nannas, it amuses me somewhat that one of the big banana distibuters is called "Pratts Bananas".
So enjoy your apple a day to keep the doctor away, but make it a British one
Pic is off a Banana Spilt I enjoyed at Seasons Coffee Shop in St Johns (Woking) during Fair Trade Fortnight.
So my fruit bowl is bursting with fruity goodness but where does the fruit come from? We have ample apple trees in the UK. My mum has a pear tree in her garden, so how hard can it be to buy british? Well my fruit bowl is certainly a well traveled on. In just one visit to Asda I purchased:
pears from The Netherlands
kiwi from Italy
apples from France.
I noted that in various supermarkets, a lot of the veg is British which is fab. I did see a spanish cabbage in Morrisons though. (Ironicly the swedes are British, not Sweedish).
I wonder why we can't fill our supermarket shelves with tasty British produce? I'm no expert on this, but taking apples from a tree say in Sussex, doing the whole proccessing thing nearby has to be more efficient doesnt it? Lorries then do the whole distribution thing on home soil, not chugging along foreign auto highways in God knows which country , collecting food miles faster than Nectar points! How can that even be a viable option? Its a sad state of affairs that we can't be self sufficiant in the UK like we used to? Tastier ethichal and environmentaly friendly produce grown on our doorsteps. That's the way forward!
Then I had a thought regarding my Dutch Pears and French apples. When were they picked? are they fresh that day, from an orchard picked by a bloke called Jean Pirerre? Well; I have my doubts. Its a romantised view; but I suspect that the truth is they were picked months ago and have been sat chillaxing in some cool room since then (Thats the apples not Jean Pierre). Maybe thats one reason that farm shops are becoming so popular? Apple grows on farm, sold on, or near farm, no air miles, better apple! sorted. Makes sense doesnt it? Think about how many apple varieties are out there in this country. Hundreds I recon. How many do supermarkets sell? six? So we have all these lovely apples that are just being forgotten about thanks to the power the supermarkets have on our shopping habbits. If they dont sell it we don't buy. Yup we are very much like the rats in the Story of Pied Piper. The Piper of course being the Big Supermarkets, making us think we have choices, when actually they are taking choices away from us.
Supermarkets have scrapped seasons as far as produce goes. You seem to get everything at any time you want nowdays. Remember waiting for Wimbledon to start so you can tuck into strawberries and cream? well you can have fresh strawberries with your Christmas dinner, if you dont mind them being Egyptian and tasteless . Your mummy wont like that! Even the time they sell British strawberries is extended thanks to forced growing indoors. I think this has taken away our perception of what's in season, and maybe; as a result; we don't appreciate food as a much as we did in days gone by?
Away from produce. What about hot cross buns and Easter Eggs? They are on the shelves the week after Christmas, Christmas gear rocks up at the end of August. Crazy!! I remeber the so called supermarket 'seasonal aisle in January. A choice of cut price choclate santas or full price chocolate bunnies. The santa wins hands down. Reduced santa doesn't even go out of date until after Easter. No one buys Christmas gear in August. It sits on the shelf, goes out of date and gets binned. What a waste. Of course Supermarkets claim to be doing us a favour, alowing us to spread the cost of Christmas by bringing stuff in so early . How nice of them. Remind Great Auntie Mabel of that when she takes her teeth out on a stale mince pie.
I was reading about a family who just wanted to buy British products. With all this cheap foreign importing going on, imagine how hard and how expensive thats going to be? The family did find they couldn't buy certain items as there was no British version out there. I imagine British bananas are hard to come by? Talking of nannas, it amuses me somewhat that one of the big banana distibuters is called "Pratts Bananas".
So enjoy your apple a day to keep the doctor away, but make it a British one
Pic is off a Banana Spilt I enjoyed at Seasons Coffee Shop in St Johns (Woking) during Fair Trade Fortnight.