Unilever is hiring an army of influencers to help sell its products as its new chief executive claimed customers are “suspicious” about traditional advertising.
The Marmite and mayonnaise maker has announced plans to spend heavily on social media stars in the coming years, in the hope of winning over shoppers on sites such as TikTok.
Imagery of Timmy loving preparing Marmite things will not be available just as yet. Marmite and butter on toast. Marmite and butter on bread, Marmite and butter on a roll – the possibilities are endless!
Labour will order schools, hospitals and prisons to buy more British food in an olive branch to farmers angered by the inheritance tax raid.
Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, is overhauling the way in which public contracts are awarded to prioritise domestic produce over cheaper imports.
The public sector will be set the target of sourcing at least half of all food from the highest-welfare farms – which are typically in the UK – under the new rules.
It is expected the reforms will deliver a major financial boost, potentially running into the billions, for farmers who are still reeling from Labour’s so-called tractor tax.
Goats have previously escaped from Mr Armiger’s farm, according to Mr Smerdon, but the first pigs did not get loose until August, when five had to be rescued after straying on to the main road in the village.
Only in the past two weeks have they started digging up lawns, but villager Colin Williams, whose garden has been targeted four times, said they had already caused more than £1,000 of damage.
Mr Williams, who set up a CCTV system to record the pigs’ visits, said: “We came here to live in this lovely village but now the first thing you see when you cross the railway is mullered grass.
“Our garden is no longer a garden. It now looks like the Battle of the Somme.”
The worst offender, he said, was a large mottled pig that had visited his garden several times.
“We just want this to stop”, he said.
Pigs, like other animals, do learn. Also, like other animals, they only pass on their learnings thourgh direct demonstration. They have no libraries of past findings that new generations can catch up upon.
So, round up those who know how to escpae, know the way to the garden in question, and turn them into bacon. That’s the cure. Obviously.
Britain’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant risks being delayed yet again because of a row about fish, the project’s owner has said.
EDF Energy said it was struggling to agree protection measures for fish in the River Severn over fears thousands of them will be killed in its water cooling intakes. This has “the potential to delay the operation of the power station”, it said.
Now, people are allowed to fish in the Severn. Including for salmon.
So, why not put a fishing net over the intakes. Co9llect those fish that do get caught. Then reduce the fishing quotas on the rest of the Severn by the amount caught in those nets?
On Christmas Day 179 years ago, housewives across Britain were leafing impatiently through well-thumbed, sticky pages of Eliza Acton’s book Modern Cookery for Private Families in search of the author’s famous figgy pudding — it wouldn’t be Christmas without the heady steam of spices, brandy and candied fruit floating merrily through the hearth.
Rather something you prepare ahead of time, not on the day…..
Gregg Wallace’s MasterChef replacement is ‘part-time vegan’
I’ve been known to have a wholly vegan snack of beans on toast occassionally myself…..I also tend to be a part time vegan in those hours between meals….
Sweet treats are actually good for you, study finds
Treating yourself to a slice of cake or the odd biscuit may lower your risk of a heart attack and stroke, a study suggests.
Having a sweet tooth and eating goodies like pastries, chocolate and sweets twice a day was linked to a 25 per cent lower risk of stroke and a 22 per cent lower chance of a heart attack.
Now, obviously, eating loss of them and being the size of a barrage balloon is not going to reduce risks. But a bit of fancy seems to do so.
The scientists called for future studies to investigate the potential biological mechanism underpinning what may make sweet treats good for you. The study found a correlation but not causation.
Data show that people consuming more than 14 servings of sweet treats a week, a rate of two a day, had a 25 per cent lower risk of ischaemic strokes, a 24 per cent lower risk of hemorrhagic stroke, a 22 per cent lower risk of heart attack, a 30 per cent lower risk of heart failure, a 27 per cent lower risk of aortic stenosis, a 17 per cent lower risk of atrial fibrillation, and a half the risk of abdominal aortic aneurysm.
One possible explanation – not that it’s right, but – if you eat this much cake but do not blow up like a barrage balloon therefore you’re doing some exercise which is good for your heart health….
The products fall into a category of unhealthy foods developed as part of The Food (Promotion and Placement) Regulations 2021 which are being repurposed for the new legislation.
Food prices soar in Gaza after looting of almost 100 aid trucks worsens shortages
WHO says hijacking by armed men has aggravated already severe scarcity of food, medicine and other aid
Presumably the food is still there, in the place. Doubt anyone’s nicked it to sell in Israel.
#So, that the food is still there, feeding the same population – even if a different part of it – shouldn;t have that much effect on food prices overall.
It might well, however, reduce food prices to Hamas and increae them to those not in Hamas.
The world’s biggest olive oil producer has said prices of so-called “liquid gold” are set to halve, bringing relief for families who have faced years of soaring food costs.
Spanish olive oil maker Deoleo said the worst of the weather-fuelled crisis gripping the industry appeared to be over.
The company predicts prices will halve from an all-time high in coming months, with the harvest for this season on track to be significantly better than last year.
Sitting in the middle of, as I do, thousands of acres of olive plantations this does seem to be true. Those harvesting machines are off and doing their thing.
Those machines are actually rather fun too.
You can see one in action here:
That imagery we all have, of gnarly thousand year old trees spread around a grove. That’s not how industrial production is done at all. You’ve got to have rows and rows of much smaller trees these machines can deal with.
To harvest the old plantations it used to be a net laid on the ground around the tree then hit it with a stick. Or, more modern, one of these:
Sorta tickle them out. V labour intensive.
Which does lead to oddity. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of old trees around. There are 50 in a field a block away. Roadside verges have them. There’s one in the corner of my garden. Which simply don’t get harvested at all. Maybe Gramps takes the kids out to show how it used to be done. There are still collective mills – the things that Thales cornered the market in in 450 BC -ish which gave us the first commodity corner in all history and perhaps the last one that made a profit – all over the place. Take your prepared olives in, get the juice back minus a chunk for the miller.
But it’s a dying activity. These past couple of decades in fact. Those machines, those new plantations, that’s where the stuff on your shelves comes from.
Downing Street was forced to apologise to British Hindus after serving meat and alcohol at its annual Diwali celebration.
No 10 said there had been a “mistake” in the organisation of the event and reassured the community “it will not happen again”.
Whilst Hinduism does not have a clear ban on alcohol or meat consumption, many Hindus, including several who attended the event, choose not to drink and some are also vegetarian.
The celebration prompted complaints from British Hindu MPs, including Shivani Raja, Conservative MP for Leicester East, who, in a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, said that she was “greatly concerned” to hear about the gaffe.
Some of the people – even some of the Hindoos – who attended will sup booze and chomp meat. Therefore a host will – should even – cater to the tastes of his guests.
Dozens of health and children’s groups have urged ministers to tackle obesity by imposing taxes on foods containing too much salt or sugar.
New levies based on the sugar tax on soft drinks would make it easier for consumers to eat more healthily by forcing food manufacturers to reformulate their products, they claim.
So, what was the effect of the sugar tax? Anyone? Has obesity decreased? Sugar consumption fallen? Health improved? No? Ah, well then….
We have actually tested the idea, see?
And sorry, no:
The health groups believe taxing unhealthy foods such as cakes, sweets, biscuits, crisps and savoury snacks would generate billions of pounds for the Treasury and cut the number of people becoming ill as a result of a bad diet.
You only get one of those two, not both. Either Lossa lots of people eat less bad food and are healthier, or you raise lossa lots in tax because people don’t stop eating the taxed food.. But not both.
A mass outbreak of suspected food poisoning has caused “carnage” across two university halls in New Zealand, with reports of early morning queues for toilets, vomit dripping down building windows and students abandoning exams to dash to the loo.
More than 100 students reported being struck down with vomiting and diarrhoea at two University of Canterbury student residences on Sunday night, the university confirmed on Tuesday.
The cause of the illness was yet to be determined, but students at University Hall and Ilam Apartments – both run by UniLodge – said they began feeling sick on Sunday evening, after eating the catered chicken souvlakia dinner, local news outlet Stuff reported.
If they’d just had mince* on toast instead then this wouldn’t have happened. Proper New Zealand food, not this imported Greek muck.
*I sorta, vaguely, know that mince on toast is something NZ. Kiddie comfort food sorta stuff apparently? But is it lamb mince or beef mince that is usually referred to?
Food companies must be completely banned from advertising highly calorific or unhealthy food to combat a “public health emergency”, a House of Lords report has concluded.
Peers said that instead of relying on weight-loss jabs to solve the obesity crisis, the government should “fix the broken food system” through radical measures including taxes on junk foods.
People enjoying themselves leads to bad outcomes. We can now cure those bad outcomes but we’re not going to, instead we must stop people enjoying themselves.
Now apply that logic rigorously. We can now prevent people from getting HIV as a result of being promiscuous bum chums. But we must not allow anyone to use PrEP, instead we must insist they either stop shagging around or they die. Har Har.
What is the worst thing in the world? There was a time when, for Britons, it was strange Chinese delicacies such as sea slugs.
The converse was also true, and while Chinese food is now universally accepted in the West, the British packed lunch with its essential ingredient, the sandwich, still provokes horror from Beijing to Hong Kong.
So much so that when a Chinese woman began to post videos online of her British husband carefully preparing his daily ham and tomato sandwich, they attracted millions of horrified viewers.
….
After its years of explosive growth, the Chinese economy has hit a wall in the past two years, which along with the pandemic and lockdowns has given rise to an internet vogue for a sort of amused acceptance of a fate beyond our control.
Old Dry Keith’s struggles with his sandwich became an ideal topic, as Zhou observed when — to general shock — Brown was unable to find avocados to go with his smoked salmon.
Zhou wrote: “We watch him struggling to saw apart two slices of dry bread, as hard as weapons-grade steel, slicing off a few thin streaks of yellow from a block of hardened butter that has not yet completely thawed, and then placing two slices of pre-smoked salmon on top.
“This vision is enough to make ordinary people think of the lunch they just hurriedly swallowed, and feel empathy and sadness.
“He is just like all those of us who have to pay our credit card bill but our salary hasn’t arrived, or have to go to a meeting but find that their mobile phone battery is at 10 per cent. He bravely faces all of life’s blows.”
It’s difficult to say whether alcoholic drinks count as UPFs, Monteiro and colleagues wrote in 2019. But they provide some general guidance: fermented drinks like beer, cider and wine are considered “processed” and “ultra-processed” if they are fermented and then the resulting alcohol is distilled – like whiskey, gin, rum and vodka.
So all spirits are UPF and must be abjured etc. Which does rather go against their other definition, what you wouldn’t find in Granny’s kitchen. Depends upon the Granny really, doesn’t it? Mine, well……
My own belief here is that they’re all just making it up as they go along. The real definition that they’re not quite using yet is “anything made by capitalism”.
Animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of climate breakdown and the destruction of natural habitats, but European leaders have made little effort to steer diets heavy in meat and milk to whole grains and plant-based sources of protein. The report did not set targets for meat production, such as culling herds, but called for support to help shift dietary habits, such as free school meals, more detailed labels, and tax reductions on healthy and sustainable food products.
The Olympics should sever its ties with Coca-Cola as it is using the Games as a “gold medal opportunity to sportswash unhealthy products”, public health experts have said.
…
experts from Vital Strategies, the international public health organisation, have written in a BMJ journal.
The tell here?
The pair warned that “by continuing its association with Coca-Cola, the Olympic movement risks being complicit in intensifying a global epidemic of poor nutrition, environmental degradation and climate change”.
Nice opted to block the new treatment for English patients in March after ruling that metastatic breast cancer, also known as stage IV breast cancer, was a “moderately severe disease”. Because of this, it decided that AstraZeneca’s breast cancer drug did not offer value for money.
At the time, the spending watchdog said the cost-effectiveness was “above the upper end of the range Nice considers an acceptable use of NHS resources”.
Sir Pascal called on Sir Keir Starmer to investigate how these decisions are made, arguing that Nice had made an error in classifying stage IV breast cancer as “moderately severe”. He added: “Everybody would tell you it is a severe disease.”
