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| Winter night |
Breakfast: Rolled oats with kiwifruit, almonds and flax seeds
Lunch: Pasta with lentil spinach sauce
Dinner: Pan seared cured arctic char and potatoes with salad
Baking/sweets: Crème brûlée
The pasta I had for lunch was very delicious. It looked really green, it looked really great. I took a photo. But when I saw the photos on my computer, I was shocked. Its best if I don''t describe what I saw. I am usually not too fussed about the quality of my photos but this one was exceptional. How could something look so great to our eyes but the camera has other ideas? Without any photos to post, I decided to take an outdoor photo at night without a flash, to stop the camera from seeing things that I did not want it to see.
The ever so generous ping from ping’s pickings has given me two awards in one day. I am honored. And I in turn give the award to you. If you are reading this, you deserve this award.
Today's Favourite Photo
Luxury Donuts
Today’s Favourite Blog
Supermarkets have been fooling us. While this article describes what is happening in the UK, the practice is widespread.
Marks & Spencer sells 11,000 tonnes of 'Lochmuir' salmon a year. 'Lochmuir' salmon sounds pretty special. However Lochmuir does not exist. The location was invented as part of branding. 'Oakham' chickens don’t come from Oakham, they come from farms across East Anglia, Scotland and Northern Ireland. And there is no Willow Farm where Willow Farm chicken comes from. Feeling cheated? There’s more.
"Quaker Oats Oat so Simple Raspberry and Pomegranate flavour porridge" contains no raspberry or pomegranate, only flavourings. "Homepride Beef in Ale" cooking sauce has no beef stock and only 4 per cent ale. "Covent Garden Wild Mushroom soup" contains only 0.6 per cent dried wild mushrooms. And here’s a funny one. "Tesco Mango & Passion Fruit Smoothie" contains 47 per cent apple juice, 23 per cent mango purée, and 4 per cent passion fruit purée. Looks like a big deliberate typo happened.
This is not illegal. Locations can be invented for branding purposes, unless a product is protected geographically such as cognac and champagne. But I’ve drank Kyrgyz cognac, which is nice, and Russian champagne, which we won’t talk about. I guess it is not a crime unless you get caught! Don’t quote me on this.
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I've had those kind of photos, too!
ReplyDeleteI guess we have to read the labels...on everything. This sort of dishonesty just doesn't seem right.
Love your favorite photo...now I'm craving donuts :)
And hope that the label is accurate!
DeleteAww ... you're very welcome and very well deserved. Very generous of you to share them awards out.
ReplyDeleteHaha! You're right about what the eyes see ain't what the camera sees. I'd have more posts more often if I could see what my camera sees.
I learnt at a young age never to trust what the branding tells me. One of my aunts neighbors was supplying the local market shelves with, get this ... "Hollywood Ketchup fr the US of A", made in her very messy backyard. I asked her if she's even been to Hollywood and she said no. So I then asked how she'd know what hollywood ketchup tastes like, she said little kids should get smacked for asking too many questions. Don't know what happened to her since. :)
Thats really funny. I thought Hollywood was famous for their movies not ketchup.I wonder if we can find Hollywood Ketchup in Hollywood? Maybe we can now, thanks to a Malaysian entrepreneur:)
DeleteSad about the fooling, but true here as well. Most juice in America, regardless of what is claims to be, is apple juice with added flavoring. Congrats on your awards.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise apple juice was used so much, I guess apple juice is not such a bad alternative, better than sugar and water
DeleteSome of the labelling can be very misleading indeed.
ReplyDeleteExactly
DeleteLove that photo too! On the matter of labelling, I have a big issue with Nutella being called the "hazelnut spread" and marketing on their website saying that it contains hazelnuts as the first ingredient on the list. In fact, it's a sugar and oil spread and contains only 13% hazelnuts - http://foodwatch.com.au/additives-labels/nutella-the-full-correct-list-of-ingredients.html
ReplyDeleteThats one of the reasons I am not a fan of Nutella. There's a Swedish brand (Nöt-Crème) that has 20% hazelnuts. Thats an improvement. Still, peanut butter contains far more peanuts.
DeleteCongrats on the two awards!
ReplyDeleteThank you
DeleteYour story about supermarkets remind me of a brand before that our marketing team made, its a tea product and it comes from Nepal, they named it Lepan Grimley to sound posh and Lepan is just Nepal read the other way around and Grimley was the surname of the one who had that idea
ReplyDeleteLepan Grimley does sound posh - Grimley was very creative:)
DeleteI totally imagine what you felt with the photo. It happens to me all the time. I think the dish is appetising, it looks really ok on the camera screen and then when I download it it's absolutely not publishable. It happens most of the time with artificial light photos.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised by the supermarkets tricks. I always read the ingredients' list and where it is produced etc..
In France for example there is a very famous brand of cured ham and it's called Jambon d'Aoste. Aoste is the French name of the Italian city or valley (Aosta) and since Italians are famous for cured ham, most French customers think this is imported Italian ham because they never bother to check the producer's address. In fact (this is a work of genius!) a French producer had an excellent idea to build a factory in a small French village called... Aoste! So everything is legal and true: this is ham (jambon) from Aoste (d'Aoste). He has made a fortune since then and his ham is sold in every single supermarket in France.
I took the photo under natural light, and still it was pretty bad. I can imagine it being worse under artificial light, or maybe better in this case!
DeleteThat Jambon d'Aoste story is really interesting. Thats brilliant business strategy. The company did absolutely nothing wrong. Caveat emptor - buyer beware.
oh man! i just bought some Oakham chicken thighs yesterday so now i really feel cheated! :(
ReplyDeleteOops, pure coincidence with the article and your purchase! Send the chicken back to Oakham:)
DeleteI definitely have those days with my camera...it's like we're seeing two different dishes. Hopefully next time is better!
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to the camera, sometimes they see better than us:)
DeleteI'm so distracted... I have forgotten to say a big thank you for the kind awards!!! I feel honoured if you think I deserve them :-)
ReplyDeleteOf course you deserve them
DeleteI feel sad that some of the most delicious food are not photogenic, and it's so hard to prove it's good because we have some sense that tells us what looks good in a way....
ReplyDeleteI think more we know about where the food comes from and how it gets to us, we get freaked out more. It's important to be educated but sometimes knowing too much might lead to no food on table unless you grow on your own... I hope somehow laws will protect us from not being cheated and the companies are honest with the customers. Maybe I'm very naive.
Exactly, on blogs we only see photos, we can tell how tasty it is.
DeleteAnd you are right, knowing too much is sometimes bad.
This all so crazy and yes it is all legal. I remember reading that the spray PAM says it is fat free per serving...true if you spray 1/3 of your pan for 1 second. Companies love to find loopholes in the laws.
ReplyDeleteThat would be fat free but with no little spray the food will stick
Delete