Whoops.
Lord Jamie Oliver has launched a pasta sauce which is very high in salt. One jar contains nearly five times more than the recommended daily allowance of salt for a child.
I shouldn't, what with him being a saint and all, but I can't help but take a little delight in this story. After all, Jamie cost the Bernard Matthews business a packet when he criticised their Turkey Twizzlers. He deserves to receive exactly the same scrutiny that he has placed others under.
Yummy. What could be wrong with them? I don't particularly enjoying defending crap food but I'm not at all outraged by cheap protein meals like Turkey Twizzlers or intensive chicken. I do object to the crusades and the preaching of attention junkies like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstalled-Tesco-Challenge (btw, I bet his Tesco shares are worth way more than he paid for them by now - he'll probably buy a load more).
Bernard Matthews grew up during a time of food shortages. The fact that he was able to make cheap, convenient food available for millions of people should mark him out as a champion among his generation. The fact that he made those tasty, affordable meals out of turkey bumholes rather than more turkeys should make him the turkeys' hero too.
We are all products of the zeitgeist in which we grow up. It is possible that the problem with Bernard Matthews is that he responded too well to what was asked of him by his customers. His company grew too big and beyond his control.
In the article behind the link at the top, the Oliver PR machine actually puts a very credible spin on the story. I'm sure that J.O. is a perfectly decent guy. He is only tapping into current demands to make a huge amount of money in the same way that Bernard Matthews did. They both have a lot in common and both use the media to sell huge volumes of mass-produced food.
People can eat what the hell they like as far as I'm concerned. But I would suggest that if we actually want decent food, then there is much to be said in favour of decentralisation. It doesn't worry me either way but I am not convinced that the population of the UK would be happy to see us return to 30% of their income and 30% of our workforce expended on food production.
But we're supposed to be eating like it was 1949 with a bit of austerity and the rest of it.
And when the Times printed an update on the badger situation, I offered a comment to point out as much. It was a badger recipe. I reminded the author that the food miles reciept and carbon foot print of noshing on such a thing ought to put one in good stead, especially if it was snared from a victory garden.
They chose not to print it. Discrimination against gauche Americans is my guess.