Oh yes, many of us eat what can only be described as ‘unhealthy food’ these days. It didn’t always used to be like that though. Those were the days before the money spinning and grabbing supermarkets, which now rip you off with all their false ‘buy one get one free’ or ‘half price’ or ‘special’ and the like offers. Those were the days when we had big real shops, small real shops, and real shopkeepers, who sold you decent unadulterated food at a reasonable mark up, and when customer service was personal and meant – you knew their first name and they knew yours (so there was no abuse on either side was there?). The younger generation won’t know what I am talking about will they because none of us have seen that for donkey years have we?

Our governments used to look after us about our food didn’t they? They used to enforce basic regulations to make sure the food was wholesome, safe, and natural. All that has been blown away and replaced with overcomplicated regulations that food suppliers can (and do) drive a coach & horses through.

OK then, take the simplest of things like the humble sausage. Fifty years ago your local butcher wouldn’t dream of trying to offload a pound of his best sausages to customers that weren’t exactly that. Nowadays suppliers can call sausages anything they like – say butcher’s specials, premium, top grade, farmer selected, pork sizzler quality, guaranteed selected, best finest, farm speciality, and the like. You see names and descriptions are totally unregulated nowadays, so they can get away with murder. The rubbish you buy these days can actually contain a minimally small percentage of meat, despite their enticing name descriptions, and even then may ‘technically’ be described as say ‘pork’, but may not be real meat as you and I know it, instead perhaps ‘mechanically recovered’ meat obtained from bones and gristle etc – nice eh? [don’t buy sausages without checking the meat content and ingredients, but that isn’t foolproof – best to go to a local butcher who actually makes real sausages (be vigilant though because most simply buy-in them or the filling from factories, as indeed they do their other meat, so check by asking the butcher if they have any bones for your dog – the giveaway is that they don’t because all their meat comes in from factories in vacuum packs!

The advertising & labelling is oppressive and misleading (if not strictly speaking ‘lying’), so that is why it says ‘No Fat’ on products that never contain fat anyway (gets you fooled into thinking it is a superior product doesn’t it? Butter is a natural product made from milk; it used to be preserved by adding salt but these days we have fridges so we keep it there – the low temperature makes it hard (and difficult to spread). So nowadays the public are bamboozled into buying adulterated butter that spreads easily – why not simply buy the proper stuff and take it out of the fridge a few minutes before you want to spread it?

You can guarantee that when a product is sold as low this or high that it has been adulterated, often in a most disgusting way that would make you physically sick if you actually knew the details! That is why we should simply buy the right thing and not try smart arsed shortcuts to healthy food. What we all need to do is simply eat in moderation proper foods, including butter & milk and the like – problems arise because in our modern affluent world we can afford, and do buy and consume, too much dairy products and meat. We have been conned into even buying plastic bags of salad leaves (and throwing most of it away because it doesn’t keep in that form) instead of buying a fresh lettuce, spring onions, carrots & the like, WHY?

Oh yes, most of us have been conned into buying ‘processed foods’, which has been contaminated in some form or other to make it look good, preserve it for unnatural lengths of time, or make it taste fulsome (salt and sugar by the bucketful which will kill us off). In times gone by we all drank water, and water out of a tap at that, but now we indulge our kids with untold quantities of bottled fizzy or fruit drinks full of sugar (and salt) that will destroy them instead (we are even conned into buying bottled tap water in supermarkets – how mad is that?). You can’t even buy real meat most places these days because the suppliers are allowed to pump everything full of water, so you pay top whack for water instead of meat. In days long gone by Mums used to cook their family Sunday roast with their potatoes in the same roasting tin – juices came out of the meat and gave the roast potatoes great flavour – not any more, as out of the meat comes water, so unless you want ‘boiled potatoes’ with your dinner you have to roast your potatoes in fat or oil separately!

What about buying some tinned nourishing, wholesome, healthy soup then? Well many cans of processed soups contain too little of the main ‘real’ ingredients, whoppingly too much salt, as well as sugar, and are full of a lot of additives, artificial preservatives, flavour enhancers such as monosodium glutamate, oil, & other ingredients that won’t be listed on the label. Of course you might buy a more expensive but high carbohydrate soup and still head off for illness. Therefore there are massive health benefits of simple homemade soups – it only takes a little time, little cooking skill, and little cost to make your own soup, and only YOU alone control what goes in it! [Why not try the easy-peasy recipe at the foot of this post for a start?].

Well surely you can still buy a health yogurt though these days? Dream on – that would be a real challenge wouldn’t it? It has all gone over the past 50 years as it as a product has become a commercial massive money spinner for the big boys. Forget the conning ‘low fat’ labels and the like –it has become another ‘unhealthy’ food which is heavily promoted. You thought it was real yogurt with a touch of fruit? Well sugar comes before any small amount of real fruit and perhaps some added fruit juice (from concentrate of course), and you couldn’t possibly do without the rice starch, stabilisers, pectin, flavourings and other things not listed, could you?

Making your own food at home instead of buying supermarket processed crap isn’t as hard or as time-consuming as you might think. All you have to do is to keep it simple – you don’t have to try to be a masterchef do you? Most of us could for instance take half an hour to boil a bit of best mince with some onions and flavourings, some potatoes, and some fresh veg, to make a homemade proper meal, couldn’t we? [Done of course in the same times as heating up another garbage ‘ready-meal’!].

The manufacturers, suppliers and retailers have been allowed to get away with it all by our governments so the unsuspecting of us go about their daily lives unknowingly making themselves fat & ill. Fifty years ago we never had all such crap in the food chain, but we can’t turn the clock back, so we must just become more aware & sensible, don’t we?

Easy Pea Soup [for 4]
You need a deep pan of course, and a liquidiser, hand blender, or food processor (or even perhaps a masher!)
and these ingredients:
Frozen Peas – 500g/1lb
Onion – medium 1
Potato – medium 1
Carrot – medium 1
Vegetable stock cube – 1
Garlic – clove 1 or paste
Mint – 2 tablespoons fresh leaves or 2 teaspoons dried
Salt – dash
Pepper – dash
Butter – a knob
Olive /Vegetable oil – 1 dessertspoon
Water – 500ml/1 pint

What to do:
Make the Stock with water & stock cube/Dice the raw potato & carrot /Chop the raw onion & garlic
1. In the pan fry the onion, potato, garlic in the oil and butter for 2 MINUTES
2. Add the stock, mint, salt & pepper bring to the boil & cover and simmer for 10 MINUTES
3. Add the frozen peas, bring to the boil & cover and simmer for 10 MINUTES
4. Cool a little and liquidize until as smooth as you like it
5. Add a little extra hot water if soup preferred more runny
6. Refrigerate if soup is to be used later and then reheat & serve when required
YOU CAN MAKE MORE THAN YOU NEED IMMEDIATELY, AND FREEZE IT FOR ANOTHER TIME! Good plan eh?