Are supermarkets controlling what we eat?

Casdon

Monica the choice is only now in the hands of the better off. If you are bringing up a family in a high rise flat or in suburbia you don’t have those choices. Getting to a market isn’t an option if you’ve got young children in tow and it’s two or three miles away. Often the only choice is a supermarket or a very expensive corner shop.

Having worked in an area of high deprivation, I totally agree.

I live in the town, where I taught, no markets nor farm shops anywhere near here.
Sometimes, the only meal chidren had, was their free school dinner at lunchtime. I kept a supply of bread in the school freezer to feed those children, who came to school hungry.
Their parents were living hand to mouth.

Not everyone is well off and has the income or transport to shop around. Many rely on the local food bank.
There were times when I had to superglue the soles back on children's shoes or run to Tesco to buy underwear.
The local Farmfoods and Iceland are the go to places here, for they offer cheap and easy meals, which cost little to heat up in a microwave. Often people have little credit in their Pay as you go meters.

Some posters have absolutely no idea, what it is to live in poverty.

Well of course- in case of disability, it is another story.

I've always been time poor, but always found a couple of minutes to peel a few veg.

Fleurpepper

Well fair enough, but ready prepared is very expensive, and at the moment, with the cost of living crisis, not possible for so many.

From the environmental point of view, it is a disaster. But that is another story. I buy veg loose, no plastic, and all peelings go on compost. Or frozen. 'Virtue signalling' accusations thrown about all the time, are daft. If peeling a few carrots or potatoes, is 'virtue signalling' than no wonder we are in a mess.

If peeling a few carrots or potatoes, is 'virtue signalling' than no wonder we are in a mess.

No, I think it was the fact that some people who may be time poor and who might buy pre-prepared veg of any kind are considered lazy.

There are many other reasons too, some people may have arthritic hands or just not have the strength to tackle a swede or butternut squash and pre-prepared vegetables are surely better than no vegetables at all.

Well fair enough, but ready prepared is very expensive, and at the moment, with the cost of living crisis, not possible for so many.

From the environmental point of view, it is a disaster. But that is another story. I buy veg loose, no plastic, and all peelings go on compost. Or frozen. 'Virtue signalling' accusations thrown about all the time, are daft. If peeling a few carrots or potatoes, is 'virtue signalling' than no wonder we are in a mess.

This is silly. It’s the people who don’t eat vegetables at all that we need to be worrying about, not the people who make different, less virtue signalling lifestyle choices to others, and choose to buy ready prepared vegetables.

MawtheMerrier

A long and considered response M0nica, which does not entirely contradict OP’s original premise. However, statistics being theoretical (“lies, damn lies and statistics”) do not always reflect real life. TBH there is no denying the power and influence the supermarkets have on what is largely consumed in this country . Farmers markets and specialist shops represent a tiny % of the choice available in reality to the bulk of the population, especially outside the rarefied atmosphere of the more prosperous Home Counties and south of England.
The reasons behind the stranglehold of the supermarket giants are many and have been covered upthread.
As to the historical quality of our food I’m not at all sure 19th century British food was the “envy of the world”

During the nineteenth century, much of the food consumed by the working-class family was adulterated by foreign substances, contaminated by chemicals, or befouled by animal and human excrement. (😱😱)
The list of poisonous additives reads like the stock list of some mad and malevolent chemist: strychnine, cocculus inculus (both are hallucinogens) and copperas in rum and beer; sulphate of copper in pickles, bottled fruit, wine, and preserves; lead chromate in mustard and snuff; sulphate of iron in tea and beer; ferric ferrocynanide, lime sulphate, and turmeric in chinese tea; copper carbonate, lead sulphate, bisulphate of mercury, and Venetian lead in sugar confectionery and chocolate; lead in wine and cider; all were extensively used and were accumulative in effect, resulting, over a long period, in chronic gastritis, and, indeed, often fatal food poisoning.
Even that “healthiest” of farm produce, our cheeses! Red lead gave Gloucester cheese its 'healthy' red hue , flour and arrowroot a rich thickness to cream, and tea leaves were 'dried, dyed, and recycled again.'
As late as 1877 the Local Government Board found that approximately a quarter of the milk it examined contained excessive water, or chalk, and ten per cent of all the butter, over eight per cent of the bread, and 50 per cent of the gin had copper in them to heighten the colour.
Indeed, it seems even luxury items for the relatively well off were hardly any better. The London County Council Medical Officer discovered, for example, the following in samples of ice cream: cocci, bacilli, torulae, cotton fiber, lice, bed bugs, bug's legs, fleas, straw, human hair, and cat and dog hair. Such contaminated ice cream caused diphtheria, scarlet fever, diarrhoea, and enteric fever. "The Privy Council estimated in 1862 that one-fifth of butcher's meat in England and Wales came from animals which were 'considerably diseased' or had died of pleuro-pneumonia, and anthacid or anthracoid diseases.”
Not the good old days were they?

Thank you for that Maw, so interesting…

Use a large tray, sorted!

Fleurpepper

You can peel a few veg watching Vera- no prob.

😂😂😂

Sprout and carrot peelings all over the settee and sitting room carpet.
Not to mention turnip tops!

You can peel a few veg watching Vera- no prob.

I am really happy for you. I would rather spend an hour a week doing an internet shop, and lie and watch Vera.

My main memory of shopping with my mother was her ability to add up the shopkeeper’s list upside down and point out their mistakes 🙄

Fleurpepper

Not sure who that reply is for Galaxy. We had a very active life with kids, but it was their job to help with peeling potatoes and other veg. Takes minutes. And I've never trailed the shops with my kids for hours, and certainly not at the weekend.

This is what I was alluding to in my apparently ‘judgemental’ post. I’ve work full time throughout raising two children and whilst married to a farmer who couldn’t bd counted on to bd there. I always worked a day ahead for the main course, knowing what vegetables we were to have and preparing them - often with the kids- in minutes before the meal.
Whilst maintaining a large garden, working as a volunteer and keeping on top of household chores. Not a hero. Just someone that put their back into it.

Back to my original point. How can I buy English russet apples when all the orchards are pulled down. Very unreasonable of me to want something that I can’t grow in Scotland. Even if 50% of the population in the south bought their apples from farm shops it is too late to revive our apples farms.

All that passed me by, I was usually wandering around or deep in thought. Once I reached school age, my mother mostly shopped during school hours. Strangely after the age of about 8, when my mother went back to work I have no memory of how or when shopping was done. It rarely included me.

Actually it was educational - food quality and selection, weights and measures, money calculating prices and getting change, social interaction,even reading practice- tin labels and so on.
Especially the social interaction.

An experience of childhood, but not formative. I just found it boring.

Nah Maw, Peter stayed with daddy in the garage to mend the car.

There have been a number of posts about shopping in the lunch hour or for people to go around a range of shops at the weekend. It's just not how I would ever want to shop.

Surely “shopping with mother” was one of the formative experiences of childhood?

Not sure who that reply is for Galaxy. We had a very active life with kids, but it was their job to help with peeling potatoes and other veg. Takes minutes. And I've never trailed the shops with my kids for hours, and certainly not at the weekend.

Or just that people make different choices and that's fine. I didnt want to be trailing my children around shops at the weekends, I wanted to do other things with them. I couldnt think of anything more boring for myself but I am very happy if people make different decisions on how to spend their time.

Frozen veg are quick and healthy. The packaging of prepared veg is a disaster.

Back to the question, yes they do to some extent. But they are also limited but what they can buy and from where, and to what extent customers are prepared to pay the price. Waitrose and Sainsburys are already feeling the huge pinch from Lidl and Aldi.

But they are also vere limited by Government decisions, support for farmers and energy costs. And also what they can import, or not, and at what price.

Listen to Liz Webster, Chair of Save British Food, and on the Ferrari programme- he is a staunch Brexiter .

twitter.com/almcf/status/1628830043559395329?s=46&t=kG-Ij8BV6pqEmyAE-9zGYg

A long and considered response M0nica, which does not entirely contradict OP’s original premise. However, statistics being theoretical (“lies, damn lies and statistics”) do not always reflect real life. TBH there is no denying the power and influence the supermarkets have on what is largely consumed in this country . Farmers markets and specialist shops represent a tiny % of the choice available in reality to the bulk of the population, especially outside the rarefied atmosphere of the more prosperous Home Counties and south of England.
The reasons behind the stranglehold of the supermarket giants are many and have been covered upthread.
As to the historical quality of our food I’m not at all sure 19th century British food was the “envy of the world”

During the nineteenth century, much of the food consumed by the working-class family was adulterated by foreign substances, contaminated by chemicals, or befouled by animal and human excrement. (😱😱)
The list of poisonous additives reads like the stock list of some mad and malevolent chemist: strychnine, cocculus inculus (both are hallucinogens) and copperas in rum and beer; sulphate of copper in pickles, bottled fruit, wine, and preserves; lead chromate in mustard and snuff; sulphate of iron in tea and beer; ferric ferrocynanide, lime sulphate, and turmeric in chinese tea; copper carbonate, lead sulphate, bisulphate of mercury, and Venetian lead in sugar confectionery and chocolate; lead in wine and cider; all were extensively used and were accumulative in effect, resulting, over a long period, in chronic gastritis, and, indeed, often fatal food poisoning.
Even that “healthiest” of farm produce, our cheeses! Red lead gave Gloucester cheese its 'healthy' red hue , flour and arrowroot a rich thickness to cream, and tea leaves were 'dried, dyed, and recycled again.'
As late as 1877 the Local Government Board found that approximately a quarter of the milk it examined contained excessive water, or chalk, and ten per cent of all the butter, over eight per cent of the bread, and 50 per cent of the gin had copper in them to heighten the colour.
Indeed, it seems even luxury items for the relatively well off were hardly any better. The London County Council Medical Officer discovered, for example, the following in samples of ice cream: cocci, bacilli, torulae, cotton fiber, lice, bed bugs, bug's legs, fleas, straw, human hair, and cat and dog hair. Such contaminated ice cream caused diphtheria, scarlet fever, diarrhoea, and enteric fever. "The Privy Council estimated in 1862 that one-fifth of butcher's meat in England and Wales came from animals which were 'considerably diseased' or had died of pleuro-pneumonia, and anthacid or anthracoid diseases.”
Not the good old days were they?

MOnica, does it occur to you that the 50% who are earning over £32,200 are time poor and therefore don’t have the time to traipse around different shops and markets? I was just such a person for most of my working life and the supermarket was a godsend.

ExperiencedNotOld

Callistemon21

Casdon

ExperiencedNotOld

Casdon

ExperiencedNotOld

Supermarkets only sell the less-than-wholesome because lazy people will buy it. Pre-sliced runner beans is an example. Open the pack, dump in the pain, let’s not worry about the leach of vitamins occurring since it was packed - all for something that’d take minutes. However, few receive a proper food education nowadays. I did cookery, I was taught nutrition and learnt meal planning, all before O level. Now you’re lucky to bake a few fairy cakes! My daughter did GCSE 12 years ago and cooked little and didn’t seem to learn much worthwhile. But she eats very well, as both her and her partner have made the effort to learn about producing nutritious food. If a policeman and a paramedic often on opposite shifts can do it, I’m sure anyone can.

Sorry, but you’re wrong about runner beans ExperiencedNotOld. Frozen vegetables are at least as nutritious as fresh ones, there’s no waste and they don’t need preparation before use. They don’t taste as nice, and can be more expensive depending on what they are, but they are not unhealthy.

Not frozen - fresh vegetables ‘prepared’ for convenience. Available in all large supermarkets.

People with little money aren’t the ones buying fresh, ready prepared vegetable though, are they - those are for the cash rich, time poor. What’s most important is that people actually choose to eat vegetables instead of rubbish, surely?

What’s most important is that people actually choose to eat vegetables instead of rubbish, surely?

Yes!

So many judgemental posts on this thread.

So eat vitamin leached veg? When it takes a few minutes to prepare from whole?
Not judgmental, just a demonstration of people not understanding anything about the nutrition in food.

But it is judgmental, implying that everybody should prepare all their vegetables from scratch. Don’t you see that for time poor people choosing and eating ready prepared vegetables is still a better option than eating no vegetables at all? Yes, their nutritional value reduces over time but they are still healthier than the BOGOFs etc. (and I think you’d find that the majority of people who make these choices do so in the knowledge that their nutritional value is less than freshly preparing everything).