Smoked Salmond - Guest Post

I noticed the following in Private Eye and thought Rosie’s readers may find it interesting.

Edward Spalton

As Scottish salmon producers struggle to keep up with the demands of Alex Salmond's deal to supply China with fish (Eyes passim), shoppers buying products such as Macrae's Scottish Quality-branded "Scottish Smoked Salmon" who checked the small print on the packaging recently, would have found their fish was actually farmed ... In Norway.

When wildlife campaigner John Robins queried this with Tesco the supermarket told him "We are reliant on Norwegian supply to help us meet our customers' demands". When  he then asked trading standards whether the labelling was acceptable, they confirmed that, so long as the smoking takes place in Scotland, it was legal because it describes the product as "Scottish smoked salmon" and not as "smoked Scottish salmon". Very little of the fish farmed in Norway can be sold to China since a diplomatic row between these countries over the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.....

It was reported last November that the largely Norwegian-owned farmed salmon industry in Scotland was way behind its schedule of increasing production by 60,000 tonnes by 2020, as agreed in the Scottish government's deal as preferred salmon supplier to China ( in return for two panda bears plus investment in the Grangemouth refinery)......,"

The best-laid schemes of mice and men ... and a' that!

Environmental organisations, including the World  Wildlife Fund and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, have repeatedly warned that such rapid  expansion of fish farming could make the already highly polluting business even less sustainable.

PS : Sainsbury's  was given a slap on the wrist by the Advertising Standards Authority last summer for selling salmon labelled as coming from Skye, Lewis and Uist , when it was actually from the more intensively farmed Loch Fyne.

PPS: Cumbrian fish-smoking firm Grants got into bother last year for using Chilean salmon in products it was supplying to Morrisons as Scottish.

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GM: Yes Or No

Last week the PM's personal scientific adviser said he wants to relax rules on crops because the rise of GM foods is 'inexorable'.

Sir Mark Walport (pictured), says the food is proving its worth its worth and production is increasing globally.  Sir Mark said it was his "job to advise on the science and it is then the politician's job to decide how to use that."

I'm sceptical about the safety of GM and part of that is a result of the secrecy surrounding the science. Politicians having secret meetings with GM lobby groups doesn't help my concern and political determination not to label food GM doesn't help their case either.  What have they to hide by not ensuring out food is labelled GM and Halal?

 Earlier this month four major supermarkets ended bans on farm suppliers giving GM feed to animals producing meat, milk and eggs.  The vast majority of those foods sold in Britain will now come from animals raised on a GM diet.

Biotech firms such as Monsanto have ensured that 80% of the soya grown in the US and Brazil is GM and that is one of the reasons why British supermarkets have now been forced to allow GM-fed produce into the food chain.

The first GM meat and fish could also go on sale this summer.  Authorities in the US are expected to grant approval to Aquabounty salmon, which has been modified to grow twice as fast as normal.  For us shoppers who refuse to buy meat, milk and eggs from animals fed on GM, the only alternative may be to buy more expensive organic produce.

Trying to add more complex traits, like improved nutrition, seems to lead to lower yields and other problems.  This is why none has been commercialised after 30 years of effort.  GM crops are either resistant to weedkillers or they are designed to kill pests.  In the US superweeds are rapidly developing so that even more toxic weedkillers have to be used and pests are becoming resistant to the pest-resistant crop.

The US anti-GM lobby appears to be far stronger than the one here in the UK.  There's an interesting video on Dr Mercola's site which examines trends in both food and politics over the last 30 years in California.

These days I eat a simple diet most of the time and I'm sure I do eat genetically modified foods, but I would prefer to know the truth.

Of course there are always the converted.  Strange story. 

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The Food Of Gods

This is an image of one of my favourite meats.  Yes it's venison. Although not a cheap meat it's rich texture means it fills you much quicker than chicken.

Nick Collins of the Telegraph is suggesting more of us ought to eat venison because more than half of Britain's deer population needs to be culled every year because of the damage they do to the environment.

The problem is its cost. Suppliers keep the price high and thus consumption is low. Around here is usually easy to find venison because farmers want rid of the results of their share of culling, but the problem arises with the butchering.  The old-fashioned butchers who would prepare a carcass are long gone and modern butchers refuse to accept carcasses with no provenance.  A catch 22 situation.

However, a small portion of venison from a reputable dealer is rapidly becoming far more appealing to me in comparison with chicken which has, until recently, been a firm favourite.  I'm more aware that when I buy chicken I have little or no idea in which country it started its life.  Labelling conveys little because the EU refuses to allow retailers to state whether the meat is halal or not.  Now I approach it from the angle that all chicken is halal, except the organic free range ones I can order locally.  A four pound chicken from that source costs in the region of £10-£11 and provides a meal for four.  For £11 I can buy a couple of venison steaks, a pound of cubed meat to use in a casserole and a couple of venison burgers - and know which hills the beasts roved before being culled.

However, more informative labelling is also needed with regard to genetically engineered foods.  Some Americans appear to be far more ahead of the game in this matter and we need to start questioning too.

Ask your butcher if he can supply you with venison. A steak, grilled 3 minutes either side, with a crispy baked potato and some mashed turnip and lightly sautéd greens is the food of gods. 

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We Need A Change In Food Culture

One of the surprising developments in recent years has been the amount of fast food businesses which now seem to decorate town centres.  Even in small towns there are chinese, kebab, curry, sandwich takeaways and few of the old Scottish favourite, the chip shop. Many chip shops now provide Thai, Indian or Chinese food as a takeaway service.

I've never been a regular user of takeaway establishments.  Even when chip shops were the only takeaway in town, somehow I thought it a treat to have a fish supper now and again.  Perhaps that's from my childhood when money was tight and people actually cooked meals from scratch.  About once a month my mother would send me to the chip shop for two bags of chips to be divided between the four of us for a special tea.  A fried egg would accompany the chips (two eggs for my Dad) and I can still recall the 'this is special' feeling I experienced with egg and chip teas.  Fish suppers from the chip shop were out of the question for us then. My mother used to fry the fish and make her own chips because locally caught fish was in abundance in the 50s and 60s. 

When I was in secondary school we did have the occasional fish supper because our neighbours owned the local chip and ice cream shops and their fish suppers - and ice cream - were mouth-watering.  Needless to say they were Italians.

But the chip shop fell out of fashion when the multitude of international takeaways arrive on the scene, along with the American chicken and burger supremos.  'Fish and chips is too expensive' was a statement I heard often in the 80s and 90s as a reason to frequent BurgerKing or McDonalds.

For years I've wondered about the content of 'fast foods'.  When I was younger baked beans on toast was my chosen fast food because I've always felt a little concerned about the content of a burger roll, a ham sandwich or a piece of chicken encrusted in batter.  The present crisis in our 'convenience' food wasn't too much of a surprise to me and the 'discoveries' continue, showing that lamb kebabs can contain cheaper beef and/or chicken. 

Does this mean weekend party-goers will forsake kebab and curry shops and return in their droves to the local chippy?

Sadly, around here there's not a good chip shop left.  Other types of takeaways undercut them and the better one closed as a result.  During his many years in business the owner used fresh fish direct from Scottish waters and, apart from the splendid taste, you could smell the sea when you bit into the hot, crispy fish. He refused to buy inferior fish in order to reduce his prices and closed a few years ago.

There needs to be a change in the way we regard food. These days too many folk think quantity is value and of course that's untrue. 

Bring back the chip shop!  A chippy which uses only local fresh fish and doesn't diversify into international cuisine.

Come to think of it, what happened to the red pudding? I suspect it doesn't pass the food safety laws these days.  It's a funny old world.

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Eggs Ban-edict

It's some years ago, 1988 to be exact, since Edwina Currie provoked outrage by saying most of Britain's egg production was infected with the salmonella bacteria.  She angered farmers, politicians and egg producers and eventually resigned over the issue.

Throughout the western world eggs are regularly recalled because they have been shown to contain the salmonella bacteria.

Now German consumers have been warned to avoid eggs since a highly toxic substance was found in the feed of poultry and pigs last week.  The toxin is dioxin and if you thought salmonella was nasty, dioxin is nastier.

The origin of the feed contamination has been traced to a distributor of oils for animal feed production in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, where oils meant for industrial use in biofuels were distributed for animal feed.

Newspaper websites quoted consumer protections groups saying that people should avoid eating fresh eggs until further information was available, while it was unclear how other products such as poultry and pork meat could be affected.  Some media said organic products were not affected.

Thousands of chicken have had to be culled while 1,000 farms were ordered to stop selling their products.

In my grandparents' days there was little or no testing on eggs or any other staple food.  It's only with continuing improvements in science that we have the choice nowadays whether to eat a certain food which has been found to contain elements not suitable for human consumption.  I'm not suggesting in Scotland we should stop eating eggs at present, but this may just make us pause at the egg counter and check the labelling before we buy.

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