“What about our free will?” the anti-nanny-staters will cry at the idea of forcing manufacturers to act. But we don’t see people with placards in the street protesting against the thwarting of our right to eat a slice of bread with as much salt as a packet of crisps.These Nannystaters take an absence of people waving banners and marching as a green light. But what about the fact that most people (who are too busy for this) simply shift their buying habits?
I am, after all, quite capable of making my own bread.
The beauty of food reformulation is that because it happens gradually, our palates adjust and we simply don’t notice that certain foods are 30% less salty than a decade ago.I call bollocks on this. I've lost count of the things I no longer buy because they don't taste the same as they used to. How about you, reader?
8 comments:
For me, the rot set in when they took the chloroform out of Victory V Lozenges.
Seems to me that HP Sauce and any brand of baked beans you care to mention are either tasteless or vile. Mind you that description fits the Guardian - and most of its minuscule readership - down to a tee.
Contrary to popular belief, Walkers cheese and onion crisps contain only 0.4g of salt, so a packet with lunch each day doesn't contribute much to the 6g recommendation. A slice of Warburtons bread contains 0.6g of salt - about the same as the bread I make in my bread-maker.
From what I can gather, a bit of salt is necessary. Two slices of bread for lunch adds up to a fifth of the 6g recommendation. Since lunch is a "meal" - one of three a day, I don't see what the problem is.
we simply don’t notice that certain foods are 30% less salty than a decade ago
Oh yes we do!
We simply add more salt.
But it's a real pain: even cup-a-soups are inedible now, without a catering sachet of salt added.
There's a really big market opportunity for the first manufacturer to call time on this bullshit and return to traditional seasoning, fat levels, etc.
Campaign for Real Food!
Another angle might be to go after them on the medical malpractice/practicing medicine without a licence/insurance angle.
Who says I dont need the salt? Have you read my medical record? etc
I used to be prescribed salt tablets, and only stopped by salting my food to levels these prodnoses would call illegal.
I bake my own bread now in the oven, and I add extra salt. (But you're still not talking that much per slice).
I call bollocks too. Baked beans don't taste like they used to. Half a teaspoon of sugar mixed in while heating them does the trick. Likewise, I put salt into a bag of crisps.
So much stuff bought in supermarkets (not especially, but that's where a lot of people do most of their shopping, including me) is bland and tasteless. While size and flavouring is reduced--though a small bite of something tasteless might be regarded as way better than big mouthful of nothing--the fact that so much 'fresh' vegetables and fruit is tasteless is amazing. Maybe it is grown too far away from the shop ("does the chewing gum lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight?" the song asked) or sits on the shelves too long. Dunno, but apples for example have become dull and nowadays resemble chewing wet cardboard.
The advertising people profess 'exciting new tastes' to traditionally acceptable flavours and products, but we all know this means reduced this and reduced that. The NHS is scared of the obesity epidemic but there is real pressure on manufacturers to cut salt, fat and sugar to ease the threat of landwhales overwhelming those nice little Vietnamese nurses and Nigerian doctors now working in Spiffingham-on-Dumpside.
But, at risk of causing the Gubmint's internet watchdogs to explode when they see this, we need salt, we need fat and we need sugar. What we don't need is tons of mysterious chemicals poured in to try to put taste back into things.
"For me, the rot set in when they took the chloroform out of Victory V Lozenges."
LOL!
"Mind you that description fits the Guardian - and most of its minuscule readership - down to a tee."
Very good point.
"From what I can gather, a bit of salt is necessary. "
Avoid salt altogether, and the consequences are severe!
"There's a really big market opportunity for the first manufacturer to call time on this bullshit and return to traditional seasoning, fat levels, etc.
Campaign for Real Food!"
It's a sign of how cowed they are that they don't.
"...the fact that so much 'fresh' vegetables and fruit is tasteless is amazing. "
Eat locally, and in season. A lot of foreign fruit & veg is forced and tasteless. The big exceptions being Spanish peppers and Moroccan raspberries.
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