Reply to: Welcome To McBritain

[Board Game Geek]

the birds have had during at least half their lifetime continuous daytime access to open-air runs...

which they can watch on CCTV from the comfort of their battery cages.

[expat]

Free range chickens/eggs. A bit of a bastard really; 24 hour access to the outside for the hens was the rule, ...
Things may have improved since, but the best eggs I have tasted in the UK came from a flock which were rounded up every night and locked away for safety, thus by the letter of the law not free range.

Defra now:

the birds have had during at least half their lifetime continuous daytime access to open-air runs...

[Board Game Geek]

Home-prepared and cooked food is always more nutrituous and better for you than a takeaway or fast food.

1. You have a choice of using better quality ingredients

2. You have a choice of knowing exactly what goes in to the dish

3. You know how hygienically it is prepared

Number 3 is probably one of the most important issues in takeaway food, because unless you demand to inspect the kitchens, which most people don't, you have no control of the hygiene of the food preparation area.

Some kitchens are just awful, and the staff hygiene is abysmal and this extends across race and culture, although it may be more likely in some, I don't know.

All I do know is that I went to an award-winning chipshop in my country, where the staff (all white) take great pride in their product.

Within 8 hours of eating a chicken drumstick, I was projectile vomiting and suffering diaorrhea SIMULTANEOUSLY. I was a complete wreck for 48 hours (and the bathroom was a mess). The episode was severe enough to trigger a replapse of my MS.

That's the gamble to take with dining out.

[Cyberman]

Another problem with fast-food is trans-fatty acids. These are very unhealthy and the more often the same cooking-oil is re-used for frying the worse it is. If you want clogged-up arteries this stuff is ideal !! Personally, I don't go for takeaways at all.

I never re-use the same cooking-oil at home, and seldom use it anyway.

[darmstadt]

Fast food is nutritionally shit, whether you eat it once a week or once a month.

It might be nutritionally shit (in most cases) but it ain't half good for purging the system. Half an hour after a MaccyD everything comes back out including all the rest of the crud that has been backed up.

I've started going here for my fix of fast food until it shuts down like all the healthy or veggie ones tend to do after a short period, shame.

[expat]

Crap, you go out and produce a 3 piece OR KFC meal in your kitchen and it is going to cost you twice maybe three times as much. You will have to buy half a chicken, cut it, powder it, deep fry it for 20 minutes, chip the potatoes, fry them. You have to buy more than the product, you will have to invest in the oil and fryer.

It is not the same result. The "fast food" is made from crap ingredients, and is therefore crap. No powder or herb mixture or professional fryer can make acceptable food out of crap. It may look good, and even taste good, but that is not good enough. Garbage in, garbage out, no matter how well disguised.

By contrast, my food is made from good ingredients. It is therefore food that I will eat.

It is a different point: the fast food could be made from acceptable ingredients, but it never is, because that would cost more.
Fast food = cheap food = junk food. Not = food as I know it.

[expat]

But what does organic mean? What is the difference between organic eggs, free range eggs, battery eggs and just eggs?

Do you want to know the answer, or are you just imagining that these terms are not defined? They are: I don't always like the definitions but they exist (Google yourself, I can't be arsed again). Tesco can't just call eggs "organic" if they're not; nor "free range" if they are not. And it does make a difference - not always what you might expect and not what I'd want, but those are other stories. Organic eggs are not just Value eggs in a prettier packaging.

I'm not banging the drum for organic food: I'm just saying in the first place that so-called fast food is usually junk; and secondly that food cooked at home I]is[/I] better because it is made from ingredients that are known, and are known to be better. Or at least in my home it is.

[ratewhore]

There is nothing wrong with fast food, the problem is with people always eating fast food.

Fast food is nutritionally shit, whether you eat it once a week or once a month.

With the exception of a shish kebab of course...

[minestrone]

Elf, you're talking rubbish, about as rubbish as the food you eat. I use to be a chef many moons ago so perhaps I have an advantage,

As I said I worked in an Aberdeen Angus butchers for 5 years, managed the shop for 2 years, you do not have an advantage.

but you cannot compare homemade cooking with some curry house. As for spending, don't forget a restaurant will times the price of ingredients by three (as a general rule of thumb). Buying your own ingredients is always cheaper and goes further.

Crap, you go out and produce a 3 piece OR KFC meal in your kitchen and it is going to cost you twice maybe three times as much. You will have to buy half a chicken, cut it, powder it, deep fry it for 20 minutes, chip the potatoes, fry them. You have to buy more than the product, you will have to invest in the oil and fryer.

And referring to another comment you've left here. I make dinner every week night for me and the Mrs, perhaps not three courses but I prepare and cook a main course with a side dish and a desert in half an hour. Tops would be forty five minutes.

IF you want to do that then that is fine.

[Jubber]

Things may have improved since, but the best eggs I have tasted in the UK came from a flock which were rounded up every night and locked away for safety, thus by the letter of the law not free range.

My other half has chickens. Two little ladies who do lay, but not at this time of year. They're pets really. They live in an eglu but she lets them roam free during the day. They have to be put away at night otherwise they roost in bushes and boyfriends who forget they promised to put the chickens away nearly break their backs in the dark and snow trying to get the b@astards out of a bush.

Nice eggs mind.

[bogeyman]

Elf, you're talking rubbish, about as rubbish as the food you eat. I use to be a chef many moons ago so perhaps I have an advantage, but you cannot compare homemade cooking with some curry house. As for spending, don't forget a restaurant will times the price of ingredients by three (as a general rule of thumb). Buying your own ingredients is always cheaper and goes further.

And referring to another comment you've left here. I make dinner every week night for me and the Mrs, perhaps not three courses but I prepare and cook a main course with a side dish and a desert in half an hour. Tops would be forty five minutes.

Agree.

My wife never cooks, but I'm a very enthusiastic cook. As you say, 35-50 minutes tops and you have a great meal which is healthier, tastier and more 'animal welfare friendly' (or whatever you want to call it) than you can get from a takeaway or the ready-meals section of Tesco, or whoever.

Spend a couple of years doing this, then you will find you can't actually eat takeaways and ready-meals because they are too sweet, salty and taste like chemical crap.

[SantaClaus]

This morning I started a thread on cheap jobs in McBritain.

I really didnt expect anyone to read it. And now it's changed to a debate over organic food.

Can't anyone start a thread without it being hijacked and the subject changed

[Scotchpie]

Cook a chicken curry at home and you will spend as much and get similar/less quality to something cooked from a curry house.

Is there any point?

Elf, you're talking rubbish, about as rubbish as the food you eat. I use to be a chef many moons ago so perhaps I have an advantage, but you cannot compare homemade cooking with some curry house. As for spending, don't forget a restaurant will times the price of ingredients by three (as a general rule of thumb). Buying your own ingredients is always cheaper and goes further.

And referring to another comment you've left here. I make dinner every week night for me and the Mrs, perhaps not three courses but I prepare and cook a main course with a side dish and a desert in half an hour. Tops would be forty five minutes.

[Sysman]

But what does organic mean? What is the difference between organic eggs, free range eggs, battery eggs and just eggs?

I went into this about 20 years ago. For organic crops (grown on farmland as opposed to in a greenhouse environment), no pesticides/fertilisers belonging to the "nasty" list for x years. In other words, it can be a long term investment to do that x+1 years before you can sell stuff at the premium organic crops can command.

Free range chickens/eggs. A bit of a bastard really; 24 hour access to the outside for the hens was the rule, which was fine if you didn't mind losing 'em to foxes. An allowable alternative was to give the hen hut such a small door that only one bird can exit at a time and stuff the hut so full of birds that only a small percentage could actually get out at any one time.

Things may have improved since, but the best eggs I have tasted in the UK came from a flock which were rounded up every night and locked away for safety, thus by the letter of the law not free range.

[bogeyman]

Yes, that is what I am telling you. I refer you to what I said about organic, free-range, vs "value". Yes, if the supermarket is lying about it being organic, then I am fooled; but they are breaking the law. OTOH I have seen a local fast-food vendor stocking up on Tesco Value Chicken, so I know what they use, and I do not want to eat that.

Tesco Value Chicken is way too expensive for local curry houses - they use the absolute wholesale dregs - "barely legal chicken" as an acquaintance of mine who used to do health inspections for West Oxon district council used to call it.

That's why hot spicy food was invented in the first place - to conceal rank, rotten meat. I never eat curries out.