Thursday 14th February

The horse meat scandal is of course terribly funny; facebook is full of jokes about it, and in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t that important.  Except as a reminder of just how rotten Capitalism really is.  The Supermarkets with their lure of low prices have almost completely killed off honest competition from family butchers, bakers and greengrocers.  A fresh fish shop is almost impossible to find today, and now they are selling electricals and homeware and clothing too.

And the power of Supermarkets is in their buying power, and they relentlessly squeeze suppliers on both price and quality.  This forces those suppliers to be more automated, get bigger and mass-produce everything.  So, as well as us all ending up eating the same shit, the quality of that shit diminishes, just as the packaging gets more attractive.  And then someone has the bright idea of using a cheaper meat than beef….

Part of the attraction of France is the fresh market system.  They do have supermarkets in France, and the range of products is amazing, but it is on the markets that you find the best food. There are always butcher’s stalls where if you really want you can buy your horse-meat, fantastic fresh fish, cheeses of every variety, and great fruit and veg too.  And in France most people do their shopping in the markets.  And they buy their bread twice a day, so it is always fresh and lacks all those chemicals to make it last which may be killing us at the same time.

Part of the problem is that we are so time-poor, working long hours, both parents out of the house for hours that it is far easier to do the weekly shop than to buy fresh every day.  And the supermarkets know this and trade on it, hence the remarkable rise in ready meals.  And I am one of those who simply cannot face an hour of cooking after a hard day at the coal face, so I reach for a packet from the fridge of some pre-packaged, pre-cooked ready meal that you simply oven heat for 15 minutes.  But God knows what is in it.  I wouldn’t put it past them to adulterate my veggie soy sausages with donkey if it turns out to be cheaper.

Anything to make a quick buck. And the laugh is that the perpetual moan of the Tories and Capitalists is ‘too much regulation’; ‘scrap the layers of regulation and we can make more profit’ they say.  It is only regulation that has stopped them from poisoning us even quicker.