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Ok but not everyone buys convenience food from supermarkets do they? I bet the Ishers who use supermarkets don't! I know what you mean about British meat being pumped with water - well as far as bacon is concerned anyway (don't know about anything else). Our bacon here in France is cut so finely and only streaky is available and it cooks in about 1 minute each side before it is rock hard and crisp. However as a treat I bought some back bacon from an English shop and loads of revolting liquid came oozing out which I had to pour out of the frying pan then add oil to it. After that it didn't taste nice and the French skinny bacon is much nicer and has natural fat that comes out, good for fried bread!
At supermarkets I go once every 10 days to save on petrol as the nearest is 16km away, only buy what's on my list and on the rare occasion we have a BOGOHP (buy one get one half price) for say free range chickens they go in the freezer, never impulse buy and never buy convenience food. Partly because there's very little choice in convenience food and what there is is revolting! I very rarely eat between meals either. Two meals a day does me fine!
However put me in Tescos or any other supermarket in England and I'm like a kid in a sweetie shop. I spent about 2 hours in there going up and down every single aisle squealing with excitement about the lovely interesting and wonderful things that I can't buy in France - and the things that I can get here, but they cost double or even quadruple the price in France! So I still save money in supermarkets!
Get most of my food from farm shops and / or a local delivery service called Northern Harvest who deliver from many local shops and businesses. It costs a bit more but is good quality and saves me getting very annoyed at having to use the dreaded supermarkets. Get milk delivered every day, it was a revelation when we started as I thought it'd be a pain but acutally much easier as we don't have to store several days worth in the fridge and if I want an extra pinta I just leave a note to the nice man who comes round when I'm still asleep.
We get milk delivered too. It is in glass bottles but it comes from a processing dairy thingy (local) where they homogenise and bottle in plastic for the local shops. I guess that is just how things are done these days.
I know it is illegal to sell un-pasturised milk and I bet it is all just part of the same processing system these days.
Ann Pan
"Some days you're the dog,
some days you're the lamp-post"
Davy stephenson wrote:Please could anyone tell us how much you use your local butcher or bakers shop etc, this doesn't include
any of the larger conglomerates, how many still get their milk delivered
Always use my local butcher, if i run out of meat and he's closed we don't have meat that day - easy enough. He also sells veg and eggs.
The butcher used to sell bread and cakes from the baker 12 miles away but the baker has expanded to a second shop and now doesn't have the time to deliver so it's 12 miles if i want to buy bread and his yummy lardy cakes.
Farm shops four miles one way or seven another
Milkmen don't deliver goat milk it seems
Say what you mean and be who you are, Those who mind don't matter, and those that matter don't mind
I live not far away from a small village, although I live on the edge of a city myself. I have seen exactly what you are talking about, Davy. The butcher sells a small selection of tins and jars of food, cans of fizzy drinks, cleaning products, etc. The greengrocer also sells these things, as does the newsagent. The local bakeries have all closed down and been taken over by national companies. There are three of them in this small village, all selling the same stuff - sticky buns and 'sausage' rolls, plus sandwiches. They have a few loaves of bread which are over-priced and under-nice. On the corner of the main street is a small Sainsburps, and a short drive away on the outskirts of the village is a Morri$ons.
Back in our parents' days, one adult would work for money, while the other worked in the home, raising the children, looking after the house, doing the shopping, etc., so buying locally was easy. I remember as a child going in all the different shops for the different things, and although we also went to the supermarket, it was only open during the day. It wasn't until I was in my teens that they started opening late nights on a Friday (till 9pm), then also a Thursday. Many years later, they opened on Sundays, too, and before we knew it, many of them were 24-hour stores.
Now to draw things together, in our society these days, what is considered 'normal' is to send your children to nurseries so that both adults can go out earning money (and there are more single-parent households with the only adult of the home being forced to work for money). That means they are usually at work when the small shops are open, and are forced to do their shopping in supermarkets because they are the only shops open in an evening.
I find it quite hard to shop locally... not due to a lack of shops surprisingly!
Both OH and I work full time. This means that the only time we can shop locally is a Saturday. Our local village has a butchers, fishmonger, cheese shop, 2 greengrocers, bakery, Co-op and Spar-shop
However, some of these shops are only open in the morning (the fishmonger shuts at 9.30am, when his fish is gone), their prices aren't fantastic, and it's hard to get some of the things I want/need from the village. I can't buy bread flour in the village, nor any spices for making my own curries etc. I can't buy large packs of loo-roll, or any of the Ecover cleaning products.
The butcher is very good, but heaving on a Saturday, I've queued for 30 minutes to get in to buy what I want.
Unfortunately, Saturday is also the only day we can get to the agri-store for chicken and dog food, straw, hay etc; and they are only open in a morning too!
Most of the time it's a lottery as to what we end up getting, depending on how busy places are and what we need.
I've started to do an online shop from Sainsburps, once a month - loads of loo-roll etc - the stuff I can't get locally, and try and get the rest from the village. I'd hate for the village shops to disappear, as they are first rate (when they're open!)
"Its not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you" - Bruce Wayne
Broad Bean wrote:Get milk delivered every day, it was a revelation when we started as I thought it'd be a pain but acutally much easier as we don't have to store several days worth in the fridge and if I want an extra pinta I just leave a note to the nice man who comes round when I'm still asleep.
Is your milk the proper freshly farm bottled stuff which comes in glass bottles and the cream is sitting at the top or is it the homogenised stuff in plastic bottles ?.
It's glass bottled stuff from an independant delivery man, not 100% sure where he gets it from though (must ask).
Some friends of ours who farm just into Yorkshire sell unpasturised stuff quite legally to the local villagers, he made the comment that people pay a fortune for those little yoghurt drinks which only do the same thing as what we take out the milk. As far as a health risk, so long as the cattle are healthy then the milk is fine.
I very rarely eat between meals either. Two meals a day does me fine! 
(thanks)
