People really don't know where food comes from

[Chickenlady]

I heard this report on the news today, and it just beggars belief. Lots of you have asked where can people think food comes from - the answer is that they just don't think at all!

If people did engage their brains occasionally we could have climate change sorted in a couple of weeks...

[Thomzo]

This not an entirely new phenomena though is it. Londoners, particularly during WWII, were known not to have known things like what the sea was and what and where eggs and meat came from etc...they had never seen the countryside. My mother didn't know what a banana was, something we take for granted now, and ate the skin first time she tried one.

Well I'm a Londoner and I've always known that bacon comes from pigs, steaks from cows etc. I think my mother told me all this sort of stuff when I was small but we also did it in home economics at school. I guess they don't do that sort of stuff these days.

The Government bangs on about how unhealthily everybody eats but then doesn't bother to teach basic cooking at school. It should be part of the national curriculum.

Zoe

[Stonehead]

I have to admit - where do lentils come from?
I've got sprouted lentils that came in the veg box, but how do they grow?

From lentil plants. They're drilled in much the same way as cereals but as the lentil is a short plant, the surface of the soil has to be free of stones and fairly level for ease of harvesting.


There are two main types of lentil, the Chilean (which has large, heavy seeds) and the Persian (which is about 10-15% smaller). The intact, lens-shaped lentil is the seed.

Almost all varieties can withstand light frosts, but harder frosts will kill all but a few hardy varieties - so yes, you could grow some varieties in the UK. They take about the same time to grow to harvest as peas.

I did a google and found a good piece on them at Recipe4us.

[ohareward]

Hi Fee. This is for you.

The lentil or masoor (Lens culinaris) is a brushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about 15 inches tall and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each.
The plant originated in the Near East, and has been part of the human diet since the aceramic Neolithic, being one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. With 26% protein, lentil is the vegetable with the highest level of protein other than soybeans, and because of this it is a very important part of the diet in many parts of the world, and especially South Asia which has a large vegetarian population.
A variety of lentils exist with colors that range from yellow to red-orange to green, brown and black. The colors of the seeds when removed from the pods also vary, and there are large and small varieties. They are sold in many forms, with or without the pods, whole or split.
Lentils are relatively tolerant to drought and are grown throughout the world. About half of the worldwide production of lentils is from India, most of which is consumed in the domestic market. Canada is the largest export producer of lentils in the world and Saskatchewan is the most important producing region in Canada. Eastern Washington, especially the Palouse Region, is the most important producing region in the United States. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that world production of lentils totalled 3.2 million metric tons (MT) in 2003. Canada produced 520,000 MT and, according to the market analysis company STAT Communications, will likely export 400,000 MT during the 2003-04 marketing year, which runs from August to July. The FAO estimates world trade in lentils totalled 1.2 million MT in 2002, with Canada exporting 382,000 MT during the calendar year.

Robin

[ina]

I've got sprouted lentils that came in the veg box, but how do they grow?

It's really easy to sprout them yourself, too - they are my main "sprout" during low-veg season: Just use the green or brown lentils (NOT the red ones!); rinse in jam jar twice daily (only a handful per jar - they grow!) until required length... Maybe soak them in water for the first day, particularly if they are a bit oldish.

[the.fee.fairy]

Thankyou!

i feel like one of those stupid people now...

i did try planting some of the sprouted things, but they all died/didn't sprout so i gave up on them.

Might have to stick some in the trusty jar on the radiator.

[Milims]

Maybe round here the kids are slightly more enlightened. When my son was wee his friend came back to school after going home for lunch with red sauce all around his mouth. The teacher asked what he had been eating and he replied "bacon sarnies - thats dead pig you know!!"

[Bonniegirl]

Maybe round here the kids are slightly more enlightened. When my son was wee his friend came back to school after going home for lunch with red sauce all around his mouth. The teacher asked what he had been eating and he replied "bacon sarnies - thats dead pig you know!!"

[contadino]

I think there are two factors at play.

Firstly, urban people generally do not want to know that the meat they are consuming is from an animal that had to get murdered and chopped up in order to get to their plate. There was a programme on the TV in the UK a while back called It's Not Easy Being Green, where the mother couldn't deal with eating the pigs that the family had raised. To her credit, I think she became a veggie, but what about the meat she'd been eating up to that point? Had she never thought about it's origins?

Secondly, how many sausage packets have pictures of pigs on? How many beefburger boxes have cows on? With people not being able to handle the responsibility of the origins of their meat, how would if affect sales if a pack of sausages had a photo of the pig from Babe on the front?