A decline in the quality of fresh produce. Discuss

Not eaten meat for years now.

Fresh fruit and veg is a lottery now, half the time theres not a lot of choice, and when stuff is there it doesn't look anywhere near as good as it should.
 
I have a question for the FOCs, as a kid did you have meat in every dinner and tea? And how much fish a week would you consume?

I'm going to take a guess that we now well over consume meat, and eat no where near enough fish and veg.

I took food tech in GCSE and what I was taught seemed shite compared to what my mother did at school when I spoke to her.
 
Two Gun Bob said:
Aldi don't always get it right, but then again neither do Tesco, Sainsburys or Lidl's. All a consumer can do is have a little nibble, and if it doesn't tastes right then don't buy again. Lots and lots of Lidl, Aldi, Tesco, Asda products please the palate, but a heck of a lot more in these current climes do not meet the basics.

Every corporate man and his dogs cutting corners, trying to fleece the general public, in order to maintain margins in a challenging marketplace by stealthily reducing their pack sizes, and also erring non favorably on the quality side of things.

I get that truly I do, but when they start pissing around with our fresh produce it really grates the auntie, as we are still paying the same or even more than we did before.

Many years ago we decided to only purchase free range eggs due to the abominable conditions battery hens were housed. Yes they cost a lot more, but everyone who's an eggy knows they also taste a better than a battery laid egg.

So concentrating on the fresh meats and animal produce how many of you are noticing a decline in quality?

We just did a combined Iceland Tuesday shop for their 10% OAP discount, combined with a Tesco Plus 10% off shop, with a quick nip into Aldi's for Tonic water, gin, their Aldi finest black pepper crackers and a few other incidentals that had escaped our immediate attention.

Whilst there we bought a 2kilo pack of chicken breast at £6 the kilo for use in our Coleman Big Night In Chicken Kebabs served up on Deli Kitchen Greek flat breads with crucial garlic mayonnaise.

So we get the gear back home and imagine our consternation when we started cutting up the Aldi chicken breast.

I know that plumping's used via water injection and I know that all birds are not treated equally in terms of animal husbandry, owing to the fast turnaround from egg to kill rate in under the month, but this was taking the proverbial.

From now on we will only use M and S Gold reared which using their Hubbard bird variety that is known for slower growth rates. The M and S chicken is not excessively priced compared to the usual market gear of £6 a kilo and can easily be bought in at £9 the kilo. I had some today for tea and they were beyond the delicious!


Based on our own portion sizes, using 250 g a person, the balance to pocket for an M and S Hubbard bird would only be 75 pence a portion more than mainstreams pumped up, plumped up, fast grown, run of the mill anomaly's.

Small price to pay considering the fibrous, woody, chewy, sinewy, vain riddled monstrosities below that we were sold.

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Look after your birds retailers. Its not that difficult
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Wow Bob, you have certainly opened a can of worms here. More later.
 
GOULDYBOBS said:
I've told the Mrs to stop ordering certain things as they are arriving off from sainsburys. Mushrooms, onions and carrots. All sweaty and rotten. Shite
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That is because it is kept in plastic bags. Gets my goat. I try to buy only loose fruit and veg and any that is in plastic I take out and put in mesh bags I take with me, leaving the plastic at the checkout. People keep their fresh stuff in the plastic and it goes off and rotten quicker.

I like to buy fresh stuff off the market but we have found that some of it is not as fresh as you think.

Incidentally, we go to NZ over the winter and very nearly ALL their fresh fruit and veg is loose.
 
Scottyboi said:
I have a question for the FOCs, as a kid did you have meat in every dinner and tea? And how much fish a week would you consume?

I'm going to take a guess that we now well over consume meat, and eat no where near enough fish and veg.

I took food tech in GCSE and what I was taught seemed shite compared to what my mother did at school when I spoke to her.
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The answer is No -we had stuff like Cheese and Egg (Baked in a dish type thing), Fish was probably a once a week thing, Liver & Onions, Plumrose Hotdogs (which I loved), potato pie (which meant just the filling -no crust normally), Corned Beef Hash -I’m struggling to remember but I reckon meat was a big part of it basically (though definitely not the best cuts)
 
Scottyboi said:
I have a question for the FOCs, as a kid did you have meat in every dinner and tea? And how much fish a week would you consume?

I'm going to take a guess that we now well over consume meat, and eat no where near enough fish and veg.

I took food tech in GCSE and what I was taught seemed shite compared to what my mother did at school when I spoke to her.
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Egg and chips, sausage and chips, beans and chips, chip butty, peas, chips and that boiled, salty yellow fish, tater ash, beans on toast, cheese on toast.
It's a wonder I'm alive.
 
Lowtower said:
Not eaten meat for years now.

Fresh fruit and veg is a lottery now, half the time theres not a lot of choice, and when stuff is there it doesn't look anywhere near as good as it should.
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I was chatting with a Radio 4 farmer programme presenter a few years back. She said to me that 4 supermarkets all use the same farmers, planting veg in order of quality was Asda best, M&S, Sainsburys then Tesco was worst. Morrison’s had their own farmers they used.

If that’s still the case or not I don’t know. M&S pride themselves on fruit so I suspect that was a bit different for domestic fruits.
 
Scottyboi said:
I have a question for the FOCs, as a kid did you have meat in every dinner and tea? And how much fish a week would you consume?

I'm going to take a guess that we now well over consume meat, and eat no where near enough fish and veg.

I took food tech in GCSE and what I was taught seemed shite compared to what my mother did at school when I spoke to her.
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Everything was eaten with lots of bread as a filler. Tater ash, egg and chips, beans egg on toast, mince and potatoes, the main fresh meat we ate was Lamb ( rack of Lamb) interspersed with luncheon meat and paste butties.
 
Not just a decline in fresh produce , everything about this Country is in decline
 
Bought some raspberries from Tesco yesterday. Absolutely tasteless. Not even a hint of raspberry. Almost all soft fruit is now grown in massive greenhouses in the UK or abroad. I wish I lived in a Mediterranean country where fruit and veg is grown outside and is sold at the local food markets.
 
Brexit has added around 30% of the food inflation since we left the EU. It has disrupted supply lines, increased import costs and food regulations are increasingly divergent. Our own farmers and fishermen still struggle to replace temporary labour that used to come from the EU.

Sometimes we buy fruit from the Supermarket and it comes from Peru. Bloody hell no wonder it tastes like it was picked a year ago. As someone that loves cooking and is particular about food sourcing it is increasingly expensive to buy food that is ethically sourced or climate friendly. The rearing of poultry and salmon are particular concerns.
I think we are on the road of cheaper and cheaper production while food prices continue to rise and standards fall.
 
Chickens over there is fast growing as well?
In salmon here Norway they have small parts of heavy metals in the pellets and much more. Many people think that is the worst food industry here in Norway. As well they cheat on exporting lower grade fish.

As much as 60 million salmon did die last year, Salmon lice,

Farmed salmon is by far Norway's most numerous production animal. In 2023, 307 million fish were released in around 700 farms along the coast and in the fjords.

Fish are like other animals and covered by the Animal Welfare Act, which states that animals must not be exposed to danger or to unnecessary stresses and strains. Around 63 million farmed salmon died in the marine phase last year. This corresponds to 16.7 percent.

Both in number and percentage, it is the highest on record, writes the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. The cause of poor welfare and high mortality is primarily infectious diseases and handling during salmon lice treatment. The number of lice treatments is still high, but the total number has been reduced from 4,176 in 2022, to 3,583 in 2023. The decrease may be due to the increased effect of preventive methods and earlier culling.

- The farming industry must change operations from treatment to prevention, and develop technology and methods that better look after the fish. There are large geographical differences in mortality, and there is a difference between individual actors in the same production area, says Godal.
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he amount has decreased in recent years; from 61 million in the "peak year" 2019 to just under 34 million in 2023. More and more breeders stop using cleaner fish because they are unable to safeguard health and welfare, and because the effect is low, writes the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.
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Below the limit values
Recently, different limit values were introduced for four different per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in fish. PFAS are environmental toxins that are found in varying amounts in the environment, and it is difficult to completely avoid them getting into our food. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority will nevertheless keep the level of the substances in food and drink as low as possible:
- Intake of PFAS via food and drinking water does not cause acute negative health effects, but certain PFAS substances are stored in the body for a long time. If you ingest PFAS over a long period of time, it can affect your health, says Sletta.
Only two of these substances, PFNA and PFOS, were found in measurable quantities in 2023, in 0.3 percent and 4 percent of the samples respectively. The levels were well below the set limit values.
Lice agent residues
In 2023, some discoveries were also made of other environmental toxins, and residues of two agents used against salmon lice (emamectin and imidacloprid), but the levels here were also below the limit value.
In addition, residues of two other substances that are used against salmon lice were found; cypermethrin and deltamethrin. These substances are also used as pesticides, and may have ended up in the fish through the feed. The levels were below the limit value, writes the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.
Residues of lice remedies have also previously been found in some samples, but all findings have been far below the limit values. Testosterone was detected in one sample, but this turned out to be due to contamination during sampling.
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Diffrent sources from ilaks.no

People have died in Sweden from listeria from salmon.

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Wound
A close reason for the unusually low export of salmon is the extraordinarily high proportion of production fish that has characterized the fish for slaughter in recent weeks. Production fish are fish with injuries, wounds and deformities, which are not allowed to be exported without this being corrected.

Flaw correction normally means that the skin is cut off and the meat is filleted. This error correction can basically only be done in Norway. One company has been granted a dispensation to do this abroad. It is Hav Line, the shipping company that owns the slaughter boat "Norwegian Gannet".
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HaalandEffect said:
Chickens over there is fast growing as well?
In salmon here Norway they have small parts of heavy metals in the pellets and much more. Many people think that is the worst food industry here in Norway. As well they cheat on exporting lower grade fish.

As much as 60 million salmon did die last year, Salmon lice,




Diffrent sources from ilaks.no

People have died in Sweden from listeria from salmon.
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I refuse to eat farmed salmon. I wish more people would as it is the only thing that will drive change in that industry.
+ its responsible for decimating the wild population of salmon and sea trout because of sea lice infestations around the farms.
 
jrb said:
Bought some raspberries from Tesco yesterday. Absolutely tasteless. Not even a hint of raspberry. Almost all soft fruit is now grown in massive greenhouses in the UK or abroad. I wish I lived in a Mediterranean country where fruit and veg is grown outside and is sold at the local food markets.
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... or supplies of Mediterranean fruit wasn't retarded by Brexit
 
Blue Mist said:
I refuse to buy Aldi meat. You cannot sell it at such a cheap price without willing the chicken with growth hormones, keeping it in shit conditions and then, when dead, filling it full of water.
M&S are dearer but if you want to eat decent meat, a local butcher or M&S is the only way.
Don't forget Tescos sold beef that turned out to be donkey. They'd approached a supplier in Ireland, he contacted Spain who in turn contacted someone else, eventually a Bulgarian (I think) slaughterhouse sent them donkey ..... and Tescos sold it.
They said they didn't know
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You'll be telling me that buffalos don't have wings next.
 
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