Sunday 10 February 2013

Horse Meat and Chemicals in Food.


        With the latest bit of greed driven fraud, the “horse meat” scandal, filling that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, we are all supposed to be shocked. Why should we be shocked at the continual corruption of big business as it merrily goes on driving up profits by whatever means possible. Over the years we have had cows ears, lips and eyes in burgers and labelled as “beef”. Well at least it came from a cow. The food industry has always shied away from plain and simple labelling on any of its products. They simply don't want you to know what really is in what you eat. When all the “meat” is taken off and sold, what they are left with, from cows lips and ears to chicken necks and feet to cows knee bones are all processed and mixed up with an array of chemicals and sold as “meat” products. They'll add chemicals to make it look good, chemicals to make it last longer, chemicals to make it cook quicker and of course chemicals to make it taste better. They will then spend more than the “food” in fancy packaging to make it more appealing and then there will be the very confusing ingredients labelling. Horse meat in our food is probably one of the lesser of the evils that find there way into our “food” Today, anyone who thinks that the food industry is somehow linked to agriculture, is living in a long gone era. For years now the food industry has been part of the chemical industry. We swallow chemicals by the dozens daily, more if you buy processed food. Even if you walk to the local home grown food store you are swallowing chemicals. The amount of antibiotics and other chemicals that are fed to animals and fish in fish farms, to make them grow faster and bigger and leaner would turn your beer blue. As for the vegetable and fruit side, it is much the same with fertilisers, pesticides and growth supplements thrown by the ton at the soil and the plants, to maximise the profit from every acre of land. There is no such thing as agriculture, there is factory food production as a branch of the chemical industry.
       There are those who may say that we need that sort of “agriculture” to feed us, it simply isn't true. There is an interesting fact that we perhaps should look at with a view of changing the way we get our food. During the second world war Britain had a food shortage, so a campaign called “dig for victory” was born. People were encouraged to grow food in allotments and gardens. The result was that by 1942 10% of Britain's total food production came from this campaign. Should we be looking at a return to that campaign with a slightly altered aim, in a “Dig for Freedom from Chemicals” campaign.

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