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Eat Local
Read more about: Green Party
The Food Minister Trevor Sargent urges us to eat local produced food. Now I could make Darina Allen type jokes. Stuff about cookery shows like Cooking with Trevor , or Trevor’s meals for friends.
“I urge shoppers to watch out for new locally grown carrots, brussels sprouts, leeks, parsnips, swedes, potatoes as well as apples which are all coming into season alongside Irish strawberries, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, kale, lettuce, mushrooms, peppers, scallions, tomatoes and turnips”
Concluding, Minister Sargent said “fresh local food tastes good and with less transport is also better for the environment.
Now I will agree about the food, too many people eat ready meals and don’t bother to make decent food. But one thing I must point out was a recent study by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK report here. Showed that more CO2 emissions came from tomatoes grown in heated greenhouses in the UK then tomatoes shipped in from Spain. So the moral of the story is that local food is not automatically better for the environment then non-local. That less transport is better. The key message should be not so much local food but in season food. Think about it first. Local fresh tomatoes in December is not natural.
I eat local… that is I shop in M&S up the shopping centre, it’s only down the road and very convenient. Was that what he meant?
Seriously, do these people, who want us to ’shop around’ or ‘eat local’ have any idea about how people actually live in modern Ireland. Nobody has the time to get on their bike to buy local strawberries - and you’d think if the Greens were really radical they’d think about making working practices more healthy (e.g. working from home vs commuting, etc.).
But do we actually need to be told what to eat? Should they assume that we actually don’t know what to eat? I would think the convenience of food outweighs food lovely produced by pixies: the real issue about unhealthy eating is how people spend most of their lives commuting, working, child-transporting, etc. and people are ‘time poor’.
But it’s simply for the govt to be a Nanny State and to tell us what to do rather than change the world: are we gonna have a minister to make sure we wipe after we poop?
Can anyone out there remember Irish butter? The butter we ate before the advent of Kerrygold?
It tasted like butter, not margarine. It looked like butter, deep yellow. with a rich, delicious, salty flavour.
But somewhere, out in the wilderness we call the United States of America, scientists were
looking for a way to flog off their surplus soy production.
Eureka!
Problem solved!
Get the Federal FDA Food & Drug Administration) to analyse Irish butter and report that it causes all sorts of medical problems.
Solution!
An admixture of soya oil!
To hell with the extra cost; the loss of flavour.
Concentrate on the bottom line. Sell the soy. And back it up with a massive TV promotion.
Beware the soothsayers who want to move product and use such dubious health warnings to achieve their goal.
Man, by nature, develops resistance to bugs.
I live in South West France, where the natives eat deep yellow farmers’ butter that sweats when you cut it; they drink red wine, made from the Tannat grape, everyday; they consume vast quantities of foie gras; duck; beef, rabbit and poultry.
They have the longest life expectancy in France - and possibly in Europe.
They would be unlikely to swallow alarmist reports form the United States of America.
They would be aware that the FDA have refused to grant a licence for a life-saving cure for meningitis - for no better reason than the fact that it was developed in Cuba, by Cuban doctors. Purest spite - and no chance of turning a buck for Uncle Sam.
Be very aware of the soothsayers from the USA. They are after your cash.