Brown Bread

I am on a food rant. One becomes so ,on an empty stomach when the taste buds are keener, there is an edge to the appetite and expectations of sustenance, are that it should be immediate and satisfying.  In a train station, hungry with a capital H (the point must be emphasised), trailing with mounting irritability and haste, through (and dismissing) sundry retail outlets, I finally espy the only item that resembles something remotely edible and simultaneously ‘healthy’. ‘Healthy’ should come with a health warning nowadays, not just a sell by date.

Said item announces itself on proudly recyclable (but not recycled) carton in bold saffron on black as “British Egg and Mayonnaise with Salad Cress on Oatmeal Bread “, oh ..sandwich.

The Baker manufacturer is ‘Ginsters of Cornwall’, a byline, apparently,  the packaging info blurbs, for “real honest food”. So far, so good. My train glides up to platform one and I’m sold.

Smug , smug. Idly (after having munched/gulped/swallowed half said disappointingly –it turns out-bland sandwich), I glance at the small print. It must be mentioned, that post Xmas binge up, I am trying to eliminate sugar from my lifestyle diet.  Having been reminded that sugar is an evil poison by a ‘retro’ (70’s) book I’ve been PDF’d ,entitled ‘Sugar Blues’, I buy the connection between  New Year, lowered immunity (read bronchitis) sugar induced SAD and lethargic inertia. So purely for reasons of mental health and to entice clarity of vision I ditch the white opiate. However this is an insidious drug. It turns up everywhere from pesto sauce to Pringles.

Now, (aside, aside) back to my sandwich. There is nothing ‘honest’ about the ingredients. In turns, shocked and then angry, and then increasingly incensed as I scrutinise the very small, small print. My ‘brown’ oatmeal bread, seems to be a sham of treacle, vinegar, Muscovado sugar,  malted barley flour, sodium stearoyl – 2- lactylate (whatever that is),-and now I’m completely lost- Mono-and Di-Acetyltartaric Acid Esters of Mono -and Di-Glycerides of fatty acids.  

God, all I wanted was a sandwich. I feel cheated and mono di-glycerided. I turn the sandwich package over and pah humbug ,‘Packed full of flavour”. I almost choke on a glob of sugared (yes again) mayonnaise.  Don’t Gingsters have tasters?. Or buds?.  I read on and the entertainment ‘amps’ up; “To make sure you always get great tasting food from Ginsters, we take fresh quality ingredients and combine them in hearty, (Hearty!!!!) satisfying (SATISFYING…my left bum cheek!! Fume, fume) recipes. THEN we add a distinctive little twist (aka additives) to make sure our products are packed (yeah right) full of flavour. We wouldn’t have it any other way”. Gob smacked, how do they get away with it. How? Well because the science of nutrition should be on the primary and secondary school curriculum that’s how. Educated taste buds and minds won’t settle for this drizzle of marketing insipidness. ‘Wholesome, fresh, packed full of flavour ‘(once more..who are these guys kidding?), the side panel screams out.

I feel scammed, I purchased this innocuous looking sandwich on the basis of its supposedly inherent healthiness. Words such as wholesome should not be used so unabashedly arbitrarily, bandied about by the food industry without stringent, safeguarding guidelines. Where are the ‘health and safety people’ when you need them?  Oh yes, I forgot - inspecting some 1880 sturdy stool  for sturdiness and shuffling paper. They do that ever so well, must say. When I buy brown bread, I expect to eat brown bread, not trumped up, coloured and ‘enriched’ white refined and bleached flour. It just doesn’t make sense.  Brown bread should be cheaper than white and more economical to make, because white bread is further along, and another stage (and therefore supposedly more costly) in the manufacturing process.

My encounter with this poor (not the price) Ginster’s egg and cress, irked my bile, more because it is symptomatic  of a much larger (and widely infiltrated) ruse.  Basically, for example what makes cigarettes, alcohol and yes ‘white sugar’ legal drugs and OK whilst the other drugs are not?. Why is sugar in everything? Why do government’s panic , on one hand, about obesity and spend millions on medical care and health education and yet simultaneously encourage the proliferation of globalised, franchised, high street, fast food convenience stores. Most food bought in supermarkets and in these outlets is dead, containing no live enzymes, whatsoever. Why is organic, free range, fair trade, healthy and wholesome marketed as ‘exotic’..” oh wow, look even Tesco’s, has now said, such section in its stores. No NO NO..it should be a given..ALL food should be organic, fair trade, free range, additive and sugar free. What went wrong?. Well the answer is always, suitably because we are on the subject of food,  GREED. I’m ranted out.

Warren J & B (coz I need one after all that). If you are going to toxicate then do so knowingly and well.