Antimicrobial Resistance. We Need A Massive Rethink.

One of my biggest fears is the fact that we are entering a post-antibiotic world. The brevity of this situation means that routine human infections will become untreatable and have the power to kill us. In the days before antibiotics the world was a much more hazardous place, people routinely died of common illnesses such as urinary tract infections, whooping cough, pneumonia and even paper cuts.

Unfortunately, even if (like me) you only take antibiotics as a last resort, unless you are eating higher-welfare meat, eggs and dairy products, you are already half way there to being antimicrobial resistant.

Over 70 billion animals are farmed for food worldwide and 70% of those animals are kept in intensive systems. Due to the emphasis on high productivity, animals are kept in cramped, filthy bacteria ridden conditions. Disease is so rife that factory farmers are mass medicating the animals, they are continuously dosed up with drugs via their feed and water, and then they go into the food chain.

Instead of looking at improving the horrific conditions these animals are living in and returning them to their natural environment, factory farmers are increasingly over-using drugs to prevent disease thus bringing us to the brink of a human health crisis.

By the age of twenty five most of us will have contracted some sort of infection that needed treating with antibiotics. Pre antibiotics, common infections had an extremely high likelihood of fatality or amputation and infant mortality was severe, yet we are buying and eating mass medicated animals and dairy products with impunity?

For generations, people survived eating much less meat than we do now, rather than eating vast amounts of intensely farmed, drugged animals, we should be thinking about higher welfare, organic and free-range. Yes they may cost more, yes you may have to eat less, but that has to be preferable to the formidable rise of antimicrobial resistance and a return to young children dying from an infected scrape on their knee!

Chicken is supposed to be a 'healthy' source of high-quality nutrition, however, it is impossible to mass produce them in a clean or safe environment at rock bottom prices. As a result of its cheapness our consumption has doubled since 1970 and many of us rarely give a thought for these diseased, drugged birds and the health implications, not only for the birds but for us. We shudder at the thought of eating something that is a couple of days past its expiry date for fear of bacteria, yet the animals we eat have been kept in squalid conditions where bacterial resistance is a devastating problem, kept at bay only by pumping the animals full of drugs........sounds yummy doesn't it!

                                              Battery hens living in cramped conditions.

Although I was a vegetarian for many years, I now eat meat, poultry and fish, however, I'm mindful of the terrible, distressing conditions animals are kept in and will only buy higher welfare. Many supermarkets now stock higher welfare and free-range goods that are only fractionally dearer and let's face it, it doesn't hurt to have a couple of meat-free meals a week.

In this next recipe I used free-range chicken thighs which I bought from my butcher, people tend to stick to chicken breasts as they require little imagination when cooking but thighs are economical and tasty and there is no excuse not to buy free-range.

Baked orange chicken

Recipe
Serves 4
8 skin on free-range chicken thighs
4 tablespoons orange marmalade
Juice of half an orange
1 teaspoon of English mustard
1 orange sliced
Salt and pepper

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper
Preheat oven 160c/gas mark 3
Mix the chicken with the marmalade, orange juice and mustard, season with salt and pepper

Scatter orange slices over chicken

Bake for 40 minutes

Set aside and cover loosely with foil
In a small pan add the marmalade juices to a tablespoon of plain flour and some boiled water stirring continuously until you have a thick glossy gravy

Serve with mashed potatoes and peas

'Some experts say we are moving back to a pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of a new replacement antibiotic, the pipeline is virtually dry. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill.'
- Margaret Chan.

Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Bullying, A National Epidemic.

A collage of photos I made along with the children (who each made their own) when I worked in special needs education.

Regular readers will be familiar with my going off on a completely un-food related tangent from time to time, well, I'm my own boss and I have the platform to write about anything I choose I guess, as to whether readers are interested is possibly a different matter.

But this next subject is close to my heart and worthy of a post I think, although minus a recipe.

Last week I came across a disturbing piece of footage, a two-year-old boy was in the care of an early learning centre (nursery, kindergarten) and video surveillance captured him being beaten more than 20 times with a plastic object by a 'care' employee. Another female employee witnessed the whole scene, but did nothing to stop the woman, this was obviously not an isolated incident.

We tend to allude to the idea that bullies are those evil people out there whom we would never associate with and whose behaviour we would never tolerate. Yet in every situation I have come across in life, (school, the workplace, social groups etc) there is always a bully who is supported by an entourage, thus perpetuating his/her behaviour.

When I was in senior school a girl in my class was bullied relentlessly on a daily basis for what seemed like an eternity. The bullying finally stopped when the girl was hit around the head with a bag full of heavy books, rendering her unconscious. The bully panicked and thereafter left the girl alone. But to my shame, I cowered in fear and horror as this vulnerable girl was picked on (as did the rest of the class) and it haunts me to this day. Why didn't I report it to a teacher? Or my parents? I know I would never have confronted the girl and her gang, I was too terrified, but I should have done something!

What that experience did teach me, was never to be complicit in a bullies behaviour ever again, there is no gesture more devastating or cowardly than the back turning away.

Bullies rely on the fear of others and I have witnessed backs turning away in many situations. People often choose to either ignore bullying or worse still, to close ranks with the bully in order to defend themselves. There has recently been a wave of concern regarding bullying/abuse within the care sector (care homes for the elderly, hospitals, nursery schools in the private sector, homes for people with learning disabilities) where the problem is endemic. Under qualified staff on poor wages are given responsibility caring for people with incredibly complex psychological and physical needs, many carers are out of their depth and rather like the dickensian workhouses, atrocities of abuse are prevalent.

Having worked in a 'caring' environment I have seen bullying at its worst. Much of it was subversive bullying amongst the staff, however, a member of senior management would regularly make condescending remarks about certain children's appearances, safe in the knowledge none of the children could respond or tell their parents. Ironically, when I gave the person a taste of their own medicine, she was incandescent with rage.

By ignoring bullies we enable them, whether we indulge in their gossip or wounding sarcasm, most bullies are cowards by nature and we have a moral obligation to our fellow human beings to stand up to them. Bullies can have the power to ostracise us (but who wants to be part of a group of abusers and cowards?) They can make us fear for our jobs, yet if we collectively stand up to them they lose their power. As Roosevelt said: 'Knowing what's right means nothing unless you do what's right.'

'In a world where you can be anything, be kind.'
-anonymous.

Love Donna xxxxx

The Wonky Vegetable Box Con.

So, the wonky vegetable debacle continues. Recently I wrote a post applauding supermarket giant Asda for selling a wonky veg box, however (as to be expected from any huge food corporation) all is not what it seems!

It transpires Asda aren't using their usual growers and suppliers but using a separate company, (who specifically have this produce available on site and far from being surplus or waste it is destined for other outlets.) Consequently, Asda's main suppliers are still working on their normal specifications with resultant out grading and wastage, Asda has done nothing to improve their levels of waste in their existing supply chain, but hey, it's a great marketing ploy raising misled customers like myself to pat them on the back.

Given that around a third of the planet's food goes to waste, often because of its looks (that's enough to feed over 2 billion people) marketing ploys such as this really infuriate me and should infuriate you.

Sometimes I wonder if I would be better off taking a leaf out of my auntie Betty's book? Auntie Betty was a simple soul (although not unintelligent) she was married to a concert pianist, widowed in her 50s, couldn't drive, rarely ventured further than the local shops and didn't own a TV or read newspapers. Her pleasures in life were her rose garden (the like of which I've never seen since) afternoon tea (which invariably included fresh cream cakes) served on her mother's fine bone china, and listening to classical music on her wireless. Betty didn't have a political bone in her body which by the time I was in my opinionated 20s, irritated me somewhat. I remember saying to my mother: 'how can she have lived for 80 years without having a strong opinion about anything?' But Betty was never ill (she died in her sleep aged 98) and was perpetually happy, she didn't carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, her world was 'Betty's world' and as long as she could prune her roses and the baker didn't run out of cream horns, she was at peace with the world.

I guess you could say Betty was fluffy, (something I've long aspired to be but unfortunately realised it's not my calling.) Initially, when I started writing a food blog, I thought it would be a nice, fluffy hobby, all pretty pictures of fairy cakes and jolly anecdotes, but I'm no Nigella Lawson unfortunately. The more research I do into the food chain, the angrier I get (not conducive to fluffiness.) The appalling welfare of the animals we eat....

                          Look at the urine soaked floor of this cramped, windowless cage.

The 15m tonnes of edible food thrown away in the UK each year, often as a result of misleading use by dates and the food corporations reliance on our ignorance......

I do wonder if people live in their own 'auntie Betty' worlds? I know that prior to writing this blog, like a lot of working mum's living a hectic pace of family life, I would buy certain things with impunity, but a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and knowing what I know, I can't unknow it.

They say ignorance is bliss but surely if that were true people would be happier? I think that for many of us our need for illusion is deep, we don't want to acknowledge the fact that the pig we're eating never saw the light of day, or that supermarkets are throwing away 200,000 tonnes of waste whilst putting famers livelihoods at risk for not coming up to their (our) cosmetic standards. As John Lennon said: 'living is easy with your eyes closed.' Unfortunately, facts do not cease to exist because we choose to ignore them. I shan't be buying Asda's wonky veg box now because I don't like being duped!

What I will be doing is buying a selection of seasonal veg from my local grocer and making delicious stir frys such as this next recipe.

Veggie stir fry

Recipe
Seasonal vegetables such as carrots, kale, spinach, shredded red cabbage, mangetout
Sesame oil
1 piece of root ginger
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of fish sauce

Blend garlic, chopped ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce and a glug of sesame oil

Heat in a large frying pan
Add vegetables and over a high heat stir for 3-4 minutes

Serve immediately with some homemade chilli garlic bread (see previous post)

'Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.'
- Martin Luther King Jr

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx

There Is Nothing Convenient About Bad Food.

I have a huge sentimental attachment to the handful of cookbooks my mother bought me over the years. One of my favourites is The French Kitchen by Joanne Harris, I love that she associates so many of her happy childhood memories around cooking with her great-grandmother and other female relatives and that these memories can be evoked by the tastes and smells of cooking.

For me, cooking is a gesture of love and like Joanne I have many wonderful memories associated with food. Summers blackberrying at Rock Farm and the resulting summer puddings and blackberry jam, going to the allotment with my father and coming home with the first crop of runner beans, my nonna's famous apple pies, mum's steamy kitchen on a Sunday as she prepared a delicious roast......our kitchen wasn't just a place to cook and eat, it was somewhere we gathered to talk, to learn and most importantly, to be together without distractions.

Joanne writes: 'Much of our past and culture is secretly defined by food. Our earliest sensations are to do with tastes and smells; as infants we experience food as comfort and an expression of love.'

Sadly these have become hollow words, far from being an expression of love, nurture and comfort, food has become about convenience. Forget creating memories or seeing cooking as a social activity, parent's are feeding their children on chicken nuggets and pizza, and many children are lucky if they get to sit at a table with their parents, often their only dining companion is the TV.

The French believe teaching children to eat is as important as teaching them to read, from the age of three they spend lunchtimes at school eating at the table. In the UK it has become fashionable (and convenient) to allow children to graze, rather than being involved in preparing, cooking and sharing food, children are given finger food which they eat whilst walking around, watching TV or playing on their computers.

Joanne writes: 'Cooking is as close to magic as modern society allows, a sensual, whole-body experience which allows us to take a set of basic ingredients and transform them into something wonderful. It takes less time to make a fabulous sandwich, salad or pasta dish than it does to defrost an overpriced, processed tray of mush, there is nothing convenient about bad food!'

This next recipe is Joanne's daughter, Anouchka's chilli garlic bread. Anouchka loved making this when she was little (the cookbook was published in 2002) as it was easy enough for her to make without too much help and at the same time allowed her to create plenty of enjoyable mess. I love this because the bread is soft and doughy on the inside with a nice crust and the butter is rich and creamy, comparatively, shop bought garlic bread is always hard and crunchy, synthetic tasting and greasy.

Chilli garlic bread

Recipe
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
4 cloves of garlic, crushed, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt
175g soft butter
1 baguette

Heat the oven to 180c/gas 4
Put the chilli flakes garlic, and salt in a pestle and mortar, pound until it forms a paste ( if you aren't doing this with children you can pulse these in a blender)
Add the butter to the paste and mix well

Almost slice the bread to the bottom every 3cm, divide the butter mix among each incision, spreading it over the inner surfaces
Place on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes
Eat while warm

'You never forget a beautiful thing you have made' (chef Bugnard) said, 'even after you eat it, it stays with you - always.'

Love Donna xxxxxxxx

Quick Fix Meals.

My partner Glenn can make no claims about being a food connoisseur, he'd happily eat a Fray Bentos pie if I'd let him. When we recently sampled a tasting menu at a fine dining restaurant and were given lengthy descriptions of each dish, I could see his eyes glaze over and knew he was probably thinking about the football match he was missing.

Don't get me wrong, he'll happily wolf down everything I cook, but therein lies the problem, sometimes I'll spend a whole afternoon peeling, chopping, blending and marinating, for the meal to be eaten within a blink of an eye.

So, I get why people can't be bothered to cook from scratch, all that preparation for something that takes minutes to eat, it just doesn't equate. Recently, for one reason or another, I've been pushed for time in the kitchen and literally rustled up some very quick meals (one was the very delicious chicken fried rice I posted a couple of days ago.) Last night I cooked a very simple pasta dish which took literally half an hour from pan to plate, it was so good that Glenn actually asked how I had made it (usually you can spare him the details!)

Cooking from scratch doesn't have to be a long laborious exercise and the end result sure beats anything you might ping in the microwave. I was shopping today and the cashier remarked on some of my purchases, we started talking about cooking when her fellow cashier piped up 'I wouldn't know about any of that, I only use my microwave.' I don't think people are deliberately stupid but there is enough information out there telling us how detrimental to our health processed ready meals are! I give up sometimes, trying to tell some people is like chewing water....anyway, I digress, the point is this next dish is quick, nutritious and delicious and takes just as long as it would to cook frozen pizza and oven chips.

Gnocchi and tomato sauce

Recipe
15 cherry tomatoes, halved
Glug of olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large glass of red wine
2 tablespoons tomato puree, diluted in a mug of warm water
1 teaspoon dried chillies (optional but does give a nice kick)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 packet gnocchi
Parmesan or gorgonzola cheese (whenever my mother made a tomato sauce or ragu, she would always put a chunk of Parmesan in and let it slowly melt while the sauce simmered, to add flavour. I like to use a stronger blue cheese)
Salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan
Add tomatoes and sprinkle with sugar, let tomatoes slowly caramelise (be careful the sugar doesn't burn)

Add red wine, reduce liquid by half

Add garlic, chillies and diluted tomato puree and simmer for 10 minutes

Add your chosen cheese and simmer for a further 10 minutes

Boil a kettle, pour water into a saucepan, add gnocchi and wait for it to rise to the surface, roughly 2-3 minutes, drain
Add gnocchi to sauce

Combine sauce with gnocchi, season and serve

'We do not learn for the benefit of anyone, we learn to unlearn ignorance.'
- Michael Bassey Johnson.

Love Donna xxxx

Banning Junk Food Adverts.

So, the proposed 20 per cent 'sugar tax' has been shelved by the government and now Cameron has triggered a new cabinet row by drawing up plans to ban junk food adverts during popular programmes such as The X Factor.

The government is grasping at all kinds of straws trying to address the childhood obesity epidemic which has swept the UK. According to projections, three out of four British adults will be obese by 2035 unless there is a real long term commitment to turn around the way we eat and drink.

Cameron has proposed to stop food giants advertising junk food during peak television slots, for example, ITV's The X Factor reaches an audience of more than 1.2 million children aged 4 to 15. A single episode of the show was surrounded by no less than 13 adverts for unhealthy foods.

Unfortunately, the government (whoever they are) are in the pockets of huge corporations. Already, the culture secretary has stated he will back commercial channels because huge amounts of money are at stake! Industry sources say the BBC's rivals could lose up to £200 million a year if Cameron goes ahead with his plan (given his record of back peddling I doubt he will) but this serves as a prime example of government ministers priorities, public health or huge corporations making money!

The elite aren't affected by these adverts, I doubt Whittingdale and his ilk are slumped in front of the box on a Saturday evening watching The X Factor and drooling through adverts of Domino's pizza. However, I have to say, the time has come for us to take responsibility for ourselves and our children's welfare and stop passing the buck. It's perfectly clear that food corporations, advertisers and successive governments don't have our interests at heart (although they all pay lip service to fact that they do.)

I have visited so many friends recently who endlessly pass their children 'snacks' from the cupboard, a bag of crisps here, a yoghurt there....the old fashioned concept of not eating between meals doesn't even apply because quite often children are drip fed snacks all day without a real meal in sight.

I'm not suggesting we don't indulge in the odd treat, but nutritious homemade meals should be our mainstay. This next recipe is adaptable, you could replace the black beans for kidney beans or even baked beans (especially if that's what your children prefer.) It's also a good meal for using various vegetables, the more colourful the better (children love lots of colour.)

Sweet potato pie

Recipe
8 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 red pepper/1 orange pepper, de-seeded and cut into strips
6 cherry tomatoes
Half a bag of red lentils, rinsed
1 tin of black beans
1 small tin of sweet corn
Spices of your choice (optional) I like to add cayenne pepper for a bit of a kick
A glug of olive oil
A knob of butter
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven 180c/gas mark 4
Boil potatoes until soft, mash with butter

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add onions and sweat gently

Add tomatoes

Add peppers, beans, sweetcorn and season

Transfer to ovenproof dish and cover with mashed potatoes

Bake for 40 minutes
Serve in warm bowls

'We have these weapons of mass destruction on every street corner, they are called cheeseburgers, donuts, french fries, ice creams.,,..junk food. Our children are living on a diet of junk food.'
- Joel Fuhrman

Love donna xxxxxxx

Chicken Carnage.

Apparently we Brits are a nation of animal lovers, in 2014 it was estimated that 13 million households (46%) have pets.

For the most part people love and nuture their animals, providing warmth, food, company and medical treatment where necessary. The thought of subjecting our pets to terrible living conditions, cruelty and torture, would be beyond most normal peoples imagination. Yet when it comes to eating animals very few people consider the animals welfare. We have a belief system that enables us to eat some animals and not others?

I wonder, as we rush to buy our bargain priced chickens, how many of us have any concerns about where these birds are coming from? Our desire for cheap chickens is pushing some producers to erode higher welfare standards in the UK, consequently, millions of chickens live their (on average) 33 -38 days of life in overcrowded metal sheds, (google intensively farmed chickens and watch: live fast die young, if that doesn't make you weep it should at least raise your concerns!

We have recently had scandalous levels of contamination in supermarket chickens. 8 out of 10 fresh chickens bought from UK supermarkets last summer were contaminated with the potentially lethal food poisoning bug campylobacter! Asda's chickens, (3 for £10) contained the highest levels of campylobacter. This contamination is hardly surprising given the number of birds crammed into each shed which thwarts all efforts to reduce disease.

Chickens are by nature gregarious birds, they like to live together as a flock and would naturally spend the day foraging for food. Meanwhile dairy cows are being housed all year round, never seeing the light of day until they are culled aged four or five years old, again this is due to economic pressure, the supermarkets are demanding cheaper milk, which we in turn are buying, giving no thought to the cows being denied their natural behaviour.

Beef cattle and their calves, permanently housed, generally stand up to their bellies in excrement, unable to lie down, freezing cold, their feet rotting, until they are led to slaughter!

I'm not trying to use shock tactics, although we like to pretend that intensive farming goes on behind closed doors, we're all big enough and ugly enough to know full well what's going on! Jamie Oliver has exposed the horrors of factory farming and urged us shoppers to boycott intensively reared animals for years.

                  These beautiful cows have the same emotions as our pet dogs and cats.

For the record, I don't buy the 'I can't afford free-range/outdoor reared or organic.' Argument. Greed is what pushes us, we are as a society consuming more and more. We would rather bulk buy economy burgers and budget chickens, not because we have more mouths to feed, but because we have bigger appetites and why eat one ethically sourced burger when you can have a triple economy burger for less money!

Many of my recipes include meat and chicken, but my family have come to understand it's not about quantity but quality. One small free-range chicken will serve as a roast one day, with leftovers for the next. A very simple and delicious meal is mixed rice, all sorts of vegetables could be added to this dish to bulk it out, therefore very little chicken is needed.

Chicken fried rice

Recipe
A small handful of shredded chicken per person (leftovers from your roast chicken)
3 cups cooked rice
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 cup frozen diced carrots, thawed
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
4 spring onions, chopped

Heat a large frying pan or wok to medium heat
Add oil and fry peas, carrots, onion and garlic until tender
Scramble eggs into the veg mixture, add chicken and rice and combine thoroughly
Add soy sauce and when everything is piping hot, place in warm bowls and garnish with spring onions, serve immediately

'Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in filthy, excrement filled sheds is not very healthy. Beyond deformities and bacterial infections are suffering animals with tortured flesh - that tortured flesh is becoming our own.'
- Safran Foer

Love Donna xxxxxxx