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Written by Tony Carson

Category: Latest News

Created: 09 April 2022

Now this how you do Food Journalism! Article from The Guardian (Opens in a new Tab)

This is a beautifully written article and it highlights many issues.

However I’d like to add to it a bit if I / We may?

If you can’t be bothered reading - “Cook From Scratch”……..

Why do we cook everything from scratch? There are various reasons:-

(1) Cost. Generally I buy the most costly ingredient first, usually the Meat or Fish (Protein Component). We then assess what ingredients we have available and the sort of dish we intend to create. I then nip off and get whatever additional items we need. This might seem like a very time intensive way to deal with cooking / shopping? Well it is probably inefficient, but we have a number of supermarkets and independent shops within walking distance, for which we are grateful.

(2) Ingredient Control. Sue has Celiac Disease and over the last year or so has developed a Lactose Intolerance. They unfortunately often go hand-in-hand. So anything with the slightest trace of Wheat is banished from the flat. Dairy can be mitigated by Sue taking a Lactase Enzyme tablet or two before eating anything which contains Lactose. But really, it’s much easier to just not eat something which you know is going to make you ill.

(3) Quality of Ingredients. Processed food in a plastic tub, frozen, with a film which you prick….. Come on guys “Food Warehouse” are not exactly marketing their food as healthy, now are they? There are frozen meal businesses which offer high quality food, but it’s generally out of our budget.

(4) Enjoyment. We actually enjoy cooking together. Sue can’t get out of the flat without assistance, however as a couple of foodie with histories including cheffing and butchery it’s no great surprise that we enjoy the process of cooking a good meal on a budget together.

(5) Personal Engagement. When I have gathered the ingredients for a meal and we have created a recipe and cooked it, it’s often fun for us to natter about how it tasted, what we could do next time to improve it etc.

You don’t get any of the above when you microwave frozen ‘stuff’ after bursting the film with a fork.


 

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Written by Tony Carson

Category: Latest News

Created: 20 February 2022

Facebook has it’s uses sometimes. The Memories reminder system for example. A couple of days ago it threw up this image from one year ago.

You remember the “Let’s get Brexit Done” dribble? The “Sun drenched Uplands”, the “Taking back our Sovereignty”, the “Reducing cost of British produce to the consumer”, the “Better deal of British Farmers”? I may well have misquoted some of those word-bites, but that’s almost certainly irrelevant. There was always a low level resentment of the EU from the far right of the political spectrum, but who listens to them anyway? However when the EU decided it was high time that the rich paid their dues and proposed measures to curb Tax Avoidance, things were ramped up a gear or 20. Conservatives and their shadowy funders don’t like that sort of thing. You don’t get super rich by hard work and you certainly don’t stay super rich by paying your taxes. It’s far easier to become wealthy by exploitation and retain that wealth by Tax avoidance.

How a very slight majority in the UK were hoodwinked by Brexit Boris and his merry bunch of criminals illudes me. But let’s look at the real cost for the families who are paying for this monumentally insane political debacle.

The humble Chicken. We’re very frugal here through necessity. So a Chicken, yellow sticker or not, will make at the very least two meals of us. Like most households we set ourselves budgets but without resorting to medieval Gruel as our staple diet, it’s becoming almost impossible to stick to the budget we managed reasonably well on just a year ago. Yesterday I bought this Chicken as a comparison.

If it was the same size that would represent an increase in cost of a little under 42%! But in fact this Chicken is considerably smaller than last years offering. A trend which is notable for all group priced produce – those item which are priced as ‘Small’, ‘Medium’, ‘Large’ etc. But that’s not the end of the story. Priced by weight staples have also increased in price by a similar margin. 500G of Rice was 60p a year ago, it’s now 90p, for example.

We’re told that inflation is presently 5.5%. So clearly if basic staple food items have increased in cost by more than 40% the cost of something, somewhere must have reduced considerably? Fuel costs? No it’s not that. They are about to rise by over 50% again. Healthcare and Prescriptions? No prescription prices have increased to £9.35. Also I’m not actually sure if NHS Doctors are now extinct, it’s that long since we were able to get a physical appointment. Clothing maybe? Who knows apart from socks and pants most items I’ve bought in the last year has been from Charity Shops.

So either the inflation index is grossly inaccurate from the point of view of working families, or it’s simply a pack of lies. I’ll let you decide which….

It may take decades to recover for this national self harming episode and in all honestly we don’t have too many decades left between us.

So what can be done? Who knows? Anybody for a bowl of Gruel?!!!

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Written by Tony Carson

Category: Latest News

Created: 29 October 2019

• News

The following was posted on Facebook a few days ago by a young chap who I’ve not actually met but who I know ‘On-line’ I have amended the language and grammar slightly but other than that it is word-for-word.

Please read it and then read my personal views on this situation:-


“Every second of every day is a pure battle to stay alive. Fighting my own mind on a daily basis is getting to me but trying to fight everyday life seems to be more impossible. Regardless {of} how hard I've worked over the past couple of years turns out it really was a waste of time. From next week on { I } am gunna be back on the streets {and} this is a case of facing my worst fear. I cant do this shit again I promised myself I wouldn't sleep another night on the streets but hey doesn't matter how hard I try or what I do for other people fact of the matter is my life has been made impossible from day 1. Growing up was met with addiction my father a drinker { and } my ma a smack head so what { xxxxxx } chance did I have?? Ideally I woulda loved to be a paramedic lifelong dream but people like me aren't privileged enough to have an education so my childhood dream got further n further from reach. I lowered my expectations to wanting to be a social worker { and } again I was turned down a college place because I was { in } a hostel. my life has been in and out of supported housing with people trying to dictate my life and steer me away from my dreams and potential. well here well done cos now am beat n don't know where to turn. Again my future is in the hands of a  charity that are about to make me homeless again regardless to how hard I've tried to put my life back together. A hostel trying to charge me £760 a month for a room and charging for support costs when they don't actually support me in getting where I want my life to go. I want to work with people that are facing homelessness and mental health and help practically but I find the people that are working in this sector haven't got a { xxxxxx } clue. Not saying { I’m } better qualified by any means but I do know what the homeless and less fortunate need and I know how to help but being in my position I don't have the capitol to do anything about it. Am about to lose my home for about the 10th time because I went back to work. What kinda society gives you a room in a hostel for free when your not working but then rape the { xxxx } out of you as soon as you start working again the whole system is backwards n that's coming from an Irishman. £760 for a { xxxxxx } room and { xxxx }all support never ever trust a { Charity } that's all I'll say.”

Clearly a very angry and embittered man. For obvious reasons.

My thoughts:-

(1) The system of support for those who are most in need in our country is disjointed at best and in some locations designed to be repellent. If for whatever reason you find yourself homeless the local authorities will do whatever is in their powers to wash their hands of you. In our case they used the all encompassing phrase ‘Intentionally Homeless’ because we left a self employed position with accommodation where I had been threatened with physical violence and evicted, leaving Sue to fulfil a two person role alone with serious health issues. In the most honest terms Sue would have died if she had remained.

(2) Charities have to attempt to fill in the gaps. However their hands are tied. They don’t have endless fiscal resources and have an ever increasing number of people who desperately need their assistance. In our case it was The Salvation Army who had the ability to force the local authority to reverse their ‘Intentionally Homeless’ ruling. This triggered a ‘One time offer’ system. As it happened we love our little flat and will do everything possible to remain here for the rest of our lives. But other people in this situation are offered housing which is grossly unsuitable. One example was a single man and his young son who were forced to take a four bedroom house in a village which is ten miles from his place of work. The additional Council Tax cost and travel expense meant that this was possibly the beginning of another route to homelessness as it was inviable for him to feed them both and pay their household bills.

(3) Homeless hostels are run in a similar way to an open prison. The presumption is that their inmates are addicts, criminals and mentally inept. In our experience the hostel was unfit for human habitation due to failure to maintain the property. The staff offered no advice whatsoever towards finding suitable long term accommodation and actively prevented access to a list of available properties which they were provided with on a weekly basis. They offered no advice about the various local organisations who could have assisted us and as we were not brought up in this city we had no prior knowledge of these services. The overwhelming feel of homeless hostels is that you are the one in the wrong – you created your own demise. In addition they impose structures which most people in settle accommodation would not accept and which further dehumanise you. Weekly ‘Room Checks’, ‘No visitors including family’ etc. We were even told we were not allowed a fryer as we might cause a fire! Strangely Sue has worked in commercial kitchens for the greater part of her working life and not once has she incinerated her place of work…..

(4) Universal Credit is a death sentence to people who are trying to escape homelessness. The cost of hostel accommodation far outweighs the amount provided by Universal Credit. Which means that you effectively have to use money which should feed and clothe you to top up the rent and service charges. If you take a job your life is thrown into even greater disarray. All housing cost support is withdrawn immediately as soon as you declare you have worked a single day. In a hostel situation the conflicting systems make it almost impossible to retain a roof over your head. Universal Credit insist that you take any work possible and the hostel costs if you do so are crippling and leave you unable to feed yourself.

Whilst Eat Well as an entity doesn’t have any political stance. I do. I know which political party is to blame for this situation. But that, I guess, is for another day…..

I have personally contacted the author of this Facebook Post and provided contact details for people and services which I hope will assist him. We can’t provided a home, but we can provide information and support if he chooses to take it.

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Written by Tony Carson

Category: Latest News

Created: 31 July 2019

Greenwashing is a phrase I’ve because increasingly aware of in the last month or so. I my mind it is a cynical consequence of the interaction of big business and ecological concerns. I visit various Supermarkets on occasions often to check our prices are competitive. I’ve seen quite a few examples of Greenwashing. This is just one. I’ll not name the Supermarket as that would be underhanded and counterproductive. But they are all in on the act.

Mixed Peppers are a relatively light weight product used frequently in our recipes. They are commercially grown throughout the country with YFS (Yorkshire Farm Salads) near Selby being the nearest grower to my knowledge. In the Supermarket in question a plastic packed selection of three mixed Pepper is £1 while an individual unpacked Pepper taken from the cardboard delivery try is £0.55. So you are paying £0.65 extra for the privileged of not having plastic packaging. I can see no logistics reason why it would be so much more costly for them to handle trays of Pepper without the packaging as opposed to trays which have been packaged. Indeed there must be a cost element in running them through the packing process. So why are they so much more expensive?

I gut instinct is that the additional cost is simply because there is a growing demand for unpackaged goods and the big supermarkets are just cashing in. In my experience the wholesale cost is about 10% higher for the packaged version, so in this case I don’t think I am unnecessarily creating conspiracy theories. I’m not a great fan of the Supermarkets but we all use them on occasions I guess. So perhaps a little consumer pressure may do the trick. I have heard of a lady who unpacks everything she can at the checkout and leaves the plastic for the cashier to deal with. Perhaps a little extreme, but it will certainly slow things down and make a very visible point. I’m not advocating such direct action but I’m pretty sure if public pressure is directed at the Supermarkets this underhanded practise will cease given time.