17 October 2010

HOW TO SHOP FOR GOOD FOOD

We just finished lunch. The orchard laid organic fresh eggs I had bought at Matakana Farmers’ Market inspired me to make simple omelets; salmon, onion, parsley and capers in my husband’s and Kaimai feta, parsley and fresh tomatoes in mine. Sound delicious? Mine was. But Murray’s was distinctly disappointing as I used the leftovers from some canned salmon he’d bought and opened the day before. It had a very artificial smoke aroma, and sure enough, the can was labelled “Added Smoke Flavour.” He didn’t like it but had not noticed this when he’d bought it. (The hot naturally smoked salmon I had purchased at the market would have been 1000% tastier and far better for him. Of course.)

So what is this obsession with added flavours, added preservatives, added stabilisers and all the other junk that comes with brand extension and the need for marketing managers to dream up new unnatural products to suck the consumer in? There’s even a competition running to find a new series of flavours for potato chips. As I saw on the web somewhere, “Imagine if you were the genius who dreamt up Lettuce and Liquorice potato chips for the next generation.” Personally I would dig a hole deeper than a Chilean mine and disappear forever if that was my idea! What ever happened to the concept that chips could actually taste of potato?

We live in a country with amazing fresh food, and no-one lives more than 20 kms from a farm. Even in the city our stores are filled with freshly grown, harvested and delivered produce. There’s absolutely no need to add junk to the food when the natural stuff is so fantastic.

What we need to do to avoid these intrusions to our diets is to wake up to our shopping habits. (I am presuming here that we all have basic cooking skills, which I know is a bit of a pipe dream.) Most of us, even when we are close to farms which are the source of our food, buy our supplies in a supermarket. Nothing wrong with that if we think about how to use a supermarket.

Supermarkets are arranged with all the fresh food a human could need stacked and stored on the perimeter. Vegetables and fruits, meat, poultry, dairy products, fish, delicatessen specialties and bread are all perishable. So the obvious place to service and keep this stock refreshed is not in the aisles but on the edges of the supermarket with its easier access, refrigeration and proximity to the storeroom.

So what goes on all those shelves in the aisles? Dry goods, household cleaning and health products, paper, processed food and drink, and all the foods that are shelf stable. In other words, this is where you find food that is not fresh and perishable, and despite “use by” dates, a lot of this stuff will last indefinitely due to the numerous additives and stabilisers added. If it can remain on the supermarket shelves without rotation and refrigeration, it could last in your cupboards and drawers at home.

To ensure fresh healthy eating, shoppers should think about doing the aisles only once a month. All that paper, cleaning goods, dry goods and supplies etc can be gathered up and stored at home. That done, a visit to the supermarket will mean whizzing around only the perimeter each week, gathering REAL food that’s fresh and healthy. Shopping will only take half the time or less, and impulse buying of the nasty shelf stable stuff won’t happen.

Imagine a house hold that does that. Lovely fresh meals every day, and no packaged and processed food with its possible threats to health and good nutrition. And forays to farmers markets, along with the new genre of urban fresh food stores like Nosh and Farro, will only prove to reinforce fresh healthy eating and provide even more lovely fresh artisan-inspired treats. Stay away from those aisles as much as you can!