'I can't get into the politics of food'
..quoted Delia Smith in today's Daily Mail.
'Fair enough' you might think, but that quote completly contradicts what she has said in the rest of the article. Today's headline on page 5 is 'Let them eat battery chickens'
I was completly shocked to see her picture alongside this headline, and I can only think that it is some sort of publicity stunt, to win/reclaim fans which she has recently lost to Gordon Ramsay, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver. Her comments will be music to the ears of people like Hayley (the single mum on HFW's programme, she was involved with the chicken project but refused to buy Free-Range chicken) and just about anyone who thinks they are hard done by, I quote 'access to cheap chicken is crucial for poor families and pensioners.' Did she watch Hugh's programme? Did she take anything on board? You can give a hen a happy life for a an extra pound or so and Hugh and Jamie have proved that a chicken can go further than a one off roast.
Delia's comments are disgraceful, how she can call herself a proffesional/celebrity chef and then condemn a battery chicken as nutritous food? Delia said 'We have got to make sure everybody gets enough nutritious food in the first place.' Cheap chicken is far from nutritious, it is fed so much rubbish and pumped with so much crap that there is surely no possible nutritional value to the consumer.
It is a shame to see such an influential person such as herself backing such a cruel and unruly practice. People tend to use Delia as a role model for their own home cooking, the Daily Mail reports that since her reccomendations in her column in Daily Mail's Weekend Magazine, Marks and Spencers have confirmed an astonishing 50 percent rise in sales of roasted yellow and red peppers. I am hoping that people give her latest ideas the boot, YOU vote with YOUR shopping trolley, buy Free Range or Organic chicken and eggs
Delia has got what she wanted, publicity.
On a positive note the Daily Mail also reveals that that 'sales of Organic Chickens have soared by 36 per cent since the airing of Jamie's Fowl Dinners and Hugh's Chicken Run.'
I went to Tesco's last night, and I was pleased to see only ONE Organic chicken left it was not because they were understocked but they were selling out! Tesco need to order in more stock!
Thankfully I do not have any Delia cookbooks, but if you do please put them out for recycling or even better, start a fire!
Martin
P.S Please feel free to cut out the image and stick to dart board.
P.P.S You can read the whole artical here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=514633&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490
Bloomin' Heck!
I never knew that quail could cause so much trouble!
My friend Lottie has just started in the quail keeping hobbie, and I made a comment about them which has spread like a rash over the quail keeping world. I stated that they were a mix of Italian and Japanese quail, which is what I and many others call them! However some people have decided that they no longer want to call them 'Italians' but 'Goldens' instead, this is because calling them Italians makes them sound like a seperate species to the Japanese when truthully they are just a colour mutation. However there are a few noticeable differences between them, but I have come in for a rollocking from the quail keeping world.
Here are a few of the comments that I have discovered on various forums:
What a dipstick he is!
Talks out of his (|) if you ask me
Wait till they let me join in, I'll be putting him straight too.pmpl
I went back reading all his quail related posts - hes an ass, does he want to put folk of keeping them???
I'm glad hes still sulking with me
Our DJ knows more about quail rearing/keeping than he does, and he's only 11
I wonder if he was just overcrowding
Poultry are only cannibalistic if there is a dying bird around, they will attack it and eat it, they do the same in the wild to
And then when I replied I got this:
Thats because your a pratt
Such a shame really! How such wiked people could be so aggresive over ones personal opinion, a comment which has been hugely taken out of all context! I had a peek on one forum today and the insults are still flying around!
This has nothing to do with Lottie, her birds look fantastic and I wish her all the best in her venture.
www.kooringa.com Is the place to find out all about them.
Today I went to Acocks Green near to Birmingham to collect 12 new quail for myself. They are 4 weeks old and I got 12 (8 hens and 4 cocks) for £10 a real bargain. They are in temporary accomodation at the moment, but I am hoping to get their new £250 estate this week so I shall post photos as and when they move in. These birds will be new breeding stock and hopefully they will provide an abundance of eggs to sell on for both eating and/or hatching.
On Friday, I managed to get an hour up the allotment and I emptied the compost bin and moved it to it's new location at the top of the allotment.
The plot is in OK condition, but I need to do some weeding, but not as much as I thought. I also bought my First and Second early potatoes, I might put a row in tomorrow. I also have some Garlic, I didn't plant it in November which is reccomended so that the frost can get to it, but I have put in the freezer and then it will go in the fridge, then the freezer for a week or so and that should do it just fine!
I have to clean out all the animals tomorrow, and I can take all the muck up to the allotment and put it on the compost heap.
Let's hope the weather is as good tomorrow as it has been today!
Martin
It's a times like this when you are so glad that you produce at least a proportion of your own food.
Due to the bad weather in July 2007 and the bad weather of recent weeks, the consumers purse strings are starting to feel the strain caused by such unpredictable and miserable weather. Vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and strawberries all witnessed price hikes after a predicted 20% of Britains fruit and veg was lost to flooding.
Now, once again, I am starting to notice the increasing prices on various products. At the farmers market on Saturday, free range organic eggs had shot up to £4.80 for a dozen, and people still complain that my £1.60 for 6 is too expensive.
I do not have a source of honey just yet but I bought some yesterday and the rate was £4.40 for 1lb, double the usual cost! The bad weather has caused the bees to 'stay in'. Very similar to people really.
Food prices are going up all the time, 1 leek = £1, but 250 leek seeds also equals a solitary pound coin.
Simple?
Not quite, just watch the prices, you might not notice it normally, but every time you go to the supermarket or farmers market you can see that the pennies are counting up.
Martin
A great piece of marketing by EDF energy. They are broadcasting their ' Big Green Promise ' to the nation via our television screens.
They promise to reduce the carbon emissions they produce by 60% by 2020. Isn't it about time that other big companies followed suit?
This song has been in my head all week....
Climate Change IS real.
