There is no virtue in doing without things that are unavailable

Some time ago I wrote a blog about the ridiculousness of claims that the West is more materialistic and, therefore, somehow less virtuous than the old Communist system was.

Let us look at the argument: at least they are not obsessed with materialism and consumerism. To start with, what is the basis of Communism and Marxist Socialism but materialism, dialectic or otherwise? The whole political ideology, the whole basis on which state and society are to be built, purport to be materialistic, discarding religion, spiritual entities and "empty" intellectualism. Not only were the ideas discarded and banned, their proponents and practitioners were arrested, exiled, murdered or forced to convert to the worship of Materialism. Socialist Realism from which the artists in this exhibition fled one way or another is the glorification of materialism in art and its apotheosis heralded (or was meant to herald) the trampling down of all non-realist, non-materialist expression.

So much for the underlying ideological basis of Communism. The problem was that it could not provide the material goods that materialism promised to all. While theoretical materialism remained a good thing, its practical assumption had to become a bad thing since it did not exist in the workers' paradise. In particular, it had to be pronounced as bad by Western supporters (at a distance) of that non-materialistic materialist workers' paradise as they could not hide indefinitely behind the lie that consumer goods in the West were available to very few people. In fact, there is an odd correlation between growing contempt for consumerism and materialism and the wider spread of the actual goods.

Were people in Communist countries really not interested in consumer goods? Were they heck. No-one who has ever lived in those countries especially the Soviet Union and managed to communicate with the indigenous population can forget not just the queues for goods that might appear or might not but also the obsessive discussions of what might be available and where, what might be acquired at home or - blissful idea - abroad.

In Soviet cities directions were given by shops. Get off the bus at such and such a shop, turn right, walk to another shop, then right again and it's the second entrance. That sort of thing. Naturally, one had to ask the driver where such and such a shop was, which would cause great excitement on the bus: why were you going to that shop? Was there anything being sold there?

There is another aspect of the question that I recall explaining to a few people who talked rubbish about consumerism was one I recalled when reading a book entitled Medieval Tastes by the eminent Italian historian of food and food culture, Massimo Montanari. (One cannot spend one's entire time on the EU and Russia.)

In the chapter on monastic cooking (a fascinating subject) Professor Montanari discusses the question of fasting and ascetic rigour, explaining:

It should immediately be made clear that deprivation does not mean absence. On the contrary, one can only deprive oneself of that one has, of what one is accustomed to having: "privatio praesupponit habitum", Rabelais ironically remarks. On this, monastic culture is in agreement: there would be no value or merit in a renunciation that was obligatory in some way because of circumstances; it is necessary to renounce an available pleasure so that the choice acquires value and meaning. 

There is no virtue in eating nothing but cabbage and potatoes by way of vegetables with pickled cucumbers and tomatoes in the winter if the shops have no other vegetables.  This would be a virtue if people, say all those people who are advocating the consumption of nothing that is not local and seasonal, did it by choice. I have noticed that they do not ever do so; I have also noticed that as soon as it became possible in former Communist states to eat a more varied diet people immediately started doing so. Of course, they still pickle and salt cucumbers, tomatoes and mushrooms for winter but I do that quite often as well, adding jars of chutney and other home-made preserves. I happen to think they are better to eat than most shop-bought stuff but the important thing is that it is  my choice to do so.

Well now, which of all the economic systems that have existed throughout history in the world has made the making of those choices possible?

And who says there is no point to MEPs?

Well, I do, for one. However, it seems that I may be wrong. There is some point to them and not just in terms of them getting salaries and expenses as well as strutting round, producing unreadable articles in local newspapers. I can't wait for all that whining from UKIP MEPs (assuming they are still in that party and group by the end of the year) about them not being able to achieve anything in the European Parliament because .... well, really because there is not a great deal they can achieve, given the position of the Toy Parliament in the EU and its structure.

I am glad to say that the Speciality Food Magazine has set me right on this subject. I don't mean they set me right on the notion that UKIP MEPs will whine but on the general pointlessness of MEP behaviour. It seems that some MEPs manage to find themselves entertainment employment by providing funds for British food products to be sold to various countries in the Far East.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am very happy with the idea of British food being sold in other countries and, indeed, I happen to know that much of it is, from luxury items like good marmalade to meat and dairy produce, such as cheese. Ever more American delis, for instance, stock cheese from the British Isles which they buy through Neal's Yard Dairy. Many of those cheeses are produced by smallish producers and the reason they are bought in this country and abroad is because they are good. That is apparently insufficient: we must have the European Parliament allocating funding to a few chosen producers, usually rather large ones and ensure that small ones are left out and innovation is not encouraged.

Graham Watson, South West Liberal Democrat MEP [well, actually, he has just lost his seat in the general massacre of the Lib-Dims] said, "This new scheme will give Westcountry farmers, fishermen and brewers the opportunity to bring a taste of the South West to the world. I was pleased to see last year an EU-funded trade mission to Japan and South Korea to promote our very own West Country Farmhouse Cheddar.

"The European Parliament has today ensured that traditional products with European protected status like Cornish pasties will be given extra funding to boost their exports and win over new customers abroad."

The West country products receiving the boost include West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, Cornish pasties, Somerset cider brandy, Gloucestershire perry, Cornish clotted cream, Gloucestershire old spot pork and Fal oysters.

 Though Sir Graham Watson is out others will step into his shoes or follow in his footsteps. There are many opportunities there for lobbying and wining and dining our representatives in the Toy Parliament.

The EHOs are back

Actually, they never went away but for some time little was heard about Environmental Health Officers in my neck of the woods. Now they are back in Westminster, whose Council seems absolutely determined to destroy the flourishing economy around retail, catering and entertainment. There are other things in the City of Westminster as well and why the Council has not tried to drive all the business out is incomprehensible. Perhaps, they will get round to it in 2013. (It is, incidentally, a Conservative led Council.)

Their latest wheeze is to ban the cooking and serving or rare hamburgers by restaurants and bars. No, I do not mean these are burgers that are hard to find or come from some rare kind of meat. It is the way they are cooked and the way many people, including me, like them. I also like steak tartare, which is probably next on the list of the Westminster EHOs, followed by rare or medium-rare steaks.

In today's Evening Standard the Council and its minions are defending themselves by saying that they have not banned rare hamburgers, merely made it clear that this was not something they approved of. Restaurant owners and managers know what that means: very soon the inspectors will be coming round and demanding that such things be taken off the menu. So, naturally and somewhat pusillanimously, a number of them have started taking those bloody (in the Shakespearian sense) burgers off the menu.

Inevitably, they are quoting a distinguished microbiologist, Professor Hugh Pennington:

James Armitage, Westminster city council’s food health and safety manager, said: “This is not about banning under-cooked burgers. This is about making sure customers are eating meat that is not a threat to their health. It is possible to produce burgers that can be eaten under-cooked but strict controls are necessary for this.

“We have enlisted the UK’s top expert on E.coli, Professor Hugh Pennington, to get this matter resolved and he has outlined that rare minced meat which is not correctly cooked and prepared can kill — we have to take that seriously and we believe the restaurant involved falls well below the standards required.”

I am not sure Professor Pennington likes the idea of being "enlisted" by some pipsqueak food health and safety manager but what he says is absolutely true: anything that is nor correctly cooked and prepared can kill. Come to think of it, things that are correctly prepared and cooked can kill. That is hardly the point. What is notable in this skirmish is that there is no reference of a single case of anybody becoming ill, let alone dying as a result of eating under-cooked hamburgers.

This is, in other words, our old friend, the precautionary principle, which says that all sorts of rules and regulations have to be imposed on businesses because it is within the bounds of possibility that something they do might harm somebody some time.

One chain of wine bars is fighting back.

It comes after council inspectors ordered Davy’s wine bar in St James’s to stop serving its £13.95 burgers underdone. The wine bar has challenged the authority’s decision at Westminster magistrates court in what is being seen as a test case when it resumes.

Looks like we shall have to support Davy's in their fight against the EHOs.

Why hasn't the problem been solved yet?

Tesco has agreed to have "traffic light" labelling on its food, informing idiots their customers which foods are healthier or have less salt or more of whatever happens to be the fashionably good or bad ingredient. I seem to recall this being tried in other stores in the past and then quietly dropped as being too expensive and of no use whatsoever. Apparently, my memory is slightly at fault.

The retailer has for years resisted using the colour-coded system on its products. The on-the-packet traffic light label grades food as red, amber or green depending on how nutritious it is, with red being the most unhealthy.

Instead, Tesco has since 2005 used a ‘guideline daily amounts’ (GDA) system which shows the percentage of salt, sugar and fat in a product but does not involve colours.

However the chain, which has annual sales of £47 billion in the UK, said that following new customer research it will now develop a “hybrid” labeling system incorporating traffic lights and GDA.

The move will bring it in line with rivals Sainsbury’s, Asda and Marks & Spencer who have used hybrid labeling for years.

(Incidentally, why is the Telegraph using American spelling?)

Naturally all the so-called charities, lobbying organizations and quangos who deal with health, diet, obesity and other related matters rushed in there joyfully, acclaiming this latest move against something that does not seem to go away.

Given the number of these organizations and the extent to which food manufacturers and retailers have been bullied into providing perfectly pointless information (knowing how much salt there is in something is one thing, being told how much is red, amber or green is something else) surely by now we should have no disorders, syndromes or illnesses caused by the "wrong" kind of food, let alone obesity.

Missed my chance

I was going to blog about the girl who had been successfully blogging about her and her friends' school dinners until the council banned her from taking photographs of the food but I missed my chance. Her cause has become the fashionable cause of the twitterati and Jamie Oliver has weighed in. I understand the council has now backed down and the unfortunate girl has become a celebrity herself. May she survive it and may she continue her interest in food, something that is sadly lacking in many parts of this country. We already have too many campaigners, said I to someone who was praising Martha Payne as one such member of that group, but not nearly enough people genuinely interested in food.

Just for fun

A former colleague at the Countryside Alliance has reminded me that we have officially started British Pie Week. Yippee! I am planning what sort of pies to make and, of course, eat. Furthermore, making your own pastry is very easy.

But you see, it is the EU that decides on food labelling

Periodically we get Conservative politicians and the Coalition government promising to do such things about food labelling though what they are they know not. For the sad fact is that food labelling has been EU competence for many years and a long unrolling "consolidation", which has produced, is producing and will produce many far-reaching EU Regulations has been negotiated for years by the Food Standards Agency (an unaccountable quango), which is also in charge of implementing those Regulations. And being Regulations they are directly applicable and do not require Parliamentary legislation.

It so happens that as the negotiations for the Food Standards Agency went on (history detailed here on the Agency's site) I was working with various small food producers, cheese makers and, especially, small and medium-sized slaughter houses and meat processors. The work, which resulted in a report on the meat industry and the threats it faced, published in 2000 by the Countryside Alliance, was two-fold: we aimed to clarify the problems and make people aware of them and to save small(ish) food producers. Our success rate on both counts was variable.

In the midst of it all the Food Standards Agency was being set up, ostensibly in response to various food safety crises in Britain but, more importantly, because it was known that the EU was setting up its own institution, the European Food Safety Authority.

EFSA’s remit covers food and feed safety, nutrition, animal health and welfare, plant protection and plant health. In all these fields, EFSA’s most critical commitment is to provide objective and independent science-based advice and clear communication grounded in the most up-to-date scientific information and knowledge.

EFSA’s goal is to become globally recognized as the European reference body for risk assessment on food and feed safety, animal health and welfare, nutrition, plant protection and plant health.

EFSA’s independent scientific advice underpins the European food safety system. Thanks to this system, European consumers are among the best protected and best informed in the world as regards risks in the food chain.

Just recently there was a good deal of rejoicing because the Coalition has announced that it might abolish the Food Standards Agency. There was an article in the Guardian that caused all that excitement and rejoicing and the subject came up in the House of Lords during a Starred Question asked by Lord Krebs, erstwhile Chairman of said organization, despite the fact that he is actually an ornithologist.

One can make several interesting comments in connection with both the article and the breif debate in the Lords. Firstly, there is no certainty that the FSA will be abolished; secondly, if it is the people who work in it will simply be parcelled out between various departments and will then, almost certainly, be seconded to a special unit, which will probably find itself in the already existing offices. This pattern, one suspects will be repeated in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Thirdly, there is an assumption that as we have problems with people eating unhealthy food and, perhaps, with obesity, the existence of the Food Standards Agency is vital though, as it happens, no evidence is produced that the situation has, in any way, improved during that body's existence.

Fourthly, there is still a body of opinion out there that is convinced that the main purpose of all food producers is to poison its customers and only the wise and all-seeing government can prevent that dire outcome. Fifthly, and most importantly, no discussion of the FSA mentions the words European and Union, though everything it deals with is EU competence and, as long as we are in the EU there will have to be a body that will negotiate those laws and regulations and implement them. Incidentally, the FSA makes no secret of this and any journalist could have found out the truth by looking on the website.

The European Commission issued a proposal for a new Food Information Regulation on 4 February 2008. This proposal follows an EU-wide review of both general food and nutrition labelling legislation, which began in 2004.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been representing the UK at Experts' Group meetings during the development of this proposal. Interested parties letters providing summaries of these meetings can be found at the links below.

The proposal will bring EU rules on general and nutrition labelling together into a single regulation which will simplify and consolidate existing labelling legislation. Eventually the regulation will be directly applicable in all Member States, and replace current UK law.

The adoption and publication of the proposal is the first step in the development of the regulation. Not only does the regulation have to be agreed between the 27 members of the Council but the European Parliament has to approve the text.

The FSA will represent the UK during the negotiations in the European Council, which are expected to start later this year, and will be actively engaging with stakeholders across the UK.

The FSA Board will consider the proposal in May 2008 and the UK position will then be agreed in discussion between Government Departments in Westminster and between the FSA and departments in the devolved administrations.

This is a complex process and we will be using this webpage to update stakeholders as progress is made in the negotiations on the proposal.

That seems to me to be clear enough to be understood by all but somehow this clearly explained state of affairs remains hidden from most politicians and journalists.

One of the pleasant after effects of my work with food producers and retailers is that I still receive the bi-monthly Speciality Food Magazine. I read it and sigh for the days spent working with the food industry. Then I recall the many meetings I had to attend as a stake-holder at DEFRA and smile with the thought that I no longer have to do so.

The July-August issue has a couple of short notes about the decision by the European Parliament to get rid of the so-called "traffic light" system of telling consumers about the dangers inherent in the particular item of food they are buying. As these notes are not on the website, I shall copy them out:

EU Favours GDA Labelling

Following a multimillion-pound lobbying campaign by manufacturers, MEPs have rejected plans for the compulsory introduction of 'traffic light' nutrition labels. The European Union has instead opted for the rival Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) scheme, which expresses nutritional content as a percentage of recommended daily intake. This will be introduced on a mandatory basis. The rejection has caused some controversy because independent research previously revealed that consumers found the system the simplest and most informative way to make healthier choices about the foods they buy.

Further on in the magazine there are comments from small retailers who give various opinions on the subject.

Setting aside the "multimillion-pound campaign", which so horrifies readers of the Grauniad who clearly do not bother to find out whether it was put together by small or large producers. After all, any new regulation hits small producers much harder and they tend to campaign against them through various organizations.

Let us also set aside those "independent" researchers who were almost certainly funded by various consumer organizations who usually have an agenda of their own and the welfare of consumers is not it.

The important thing to remember is that the decision on what kind of labelling to use is made by the EU, in this case one of the Toy European Parliament's committees and that decision will be mandatory for British firms. No if, no buts.