to think that the amounymt of junk food in the supermarkets is f*cking RIDICULOUS

[sallyseton]

whole AISLES dedicated to sweets, chocolate, crisps, cakes, biscuits etc!!! is sthere something wrong here or is it just me?

no wonder half the country's fat if every time we go shopping we're bombarded with all this. packaging is often designed to be most appealing to children, too.

there's an argument that supermarkets promote this food as unlike say, a potato, these foods do not go off quickly. so it is more profitable for them.

i am not a food nazi, i like chocolate etc as much as anyone else, i just think the choice on display is ridiculous and we all as a country probably eat too much of it.

there's a very good argument that says that if you want cake or something, you should make it yourself. that way you can see what goes into it (and no additives or preservatives) but because of the hassle involved it really will be a treat. i might try it.

oh, and nefore anyone flames me over using the word "junk" food, yes i do believe that the kind of preservative filled crisps etc you find at the supermarket are junk food, almost no nutritional value, unlikely to fill even the smallest
child up, abd the packaging will be thrown away and fester away in the earth, certainly not biodegradable.

i do feed my child crisps btw, but the
slightly healthier "baked" ones, and i am certainly not
judging anyone, feed your child anything you damn well please i just dont think we should have such a surfeit of crap in the supermarket!

ps i bought some light mayonnaise yesterday, it had a little sticker on it saying it was a good source of omega 3 and 6. MAYONNAISE!!! you have to be f*cking kidding me. these food companies are all damn immoral liars.

YANBU it is embarressing when there are prople in other countries struggling to survive.
Thats not to say I don't buy it and frequently overindulge myself and I'm not sure \I'd be too happy to have that choice taken away from me.

prople?! should be people

haha - you should have seen the amount of junk foods in the supermarkets (in the days when they actually had food in then) in Zimbabwe......I've never had so much difficulty finding stuff that wasn't junk or alochol

apologies also for spelling, writing this on my phone.

yanbu

I don't supermarket shop any more (ocado) and I don't take dd.

It's much easier to model healthy food if there's only a limited amount in the house - then she can see that the chocolate/cakes/crisps take up one half of a shelf in the house and the rest of the food including lots of ingredients take up much more.

There's no way that 8/9 aisles should be dedicated to what should only be 10% of your diet.

It is incredibly easy to have a poor diet in this country - these foods are cheap and easy to produce. A packet of custard creams is cheaper than one apple meaning the poorer in the country cannot easily afford a better diet. There are many books written on this subject so I'll shut the fuck up.

Supermarkets have changed. They used to be places where you bought the ingredients to cook food. They are now almost nothing more than takeaway restaurants.

I clearly recall going to my first supermarket in UK (Sainsburys Alperton). It was huge but outside of the fruit/vege section I couldn't find anything to buy - it was all packaged processed food & I remember just feeling utterly confused by it all. Where were the ingredients? I'd always shopped for ingredients & then MADE food at home (OK so they were there but finding them among all the processed stuff took some learning) . And this is in 1994 so well before ready meals etc all took off big time.

Just holidayed in Portugal and in the supermarkets there they did have crisps & biscuits, and I couldn't find any pure juice, but they had no ready meal culture at all - not even hummous or jars of pesto (all good holiday eating staples in my book). It seems apart from snacks & unhealthy fruit/sugar drinks, they still prepare meals from scratch there.

I'm not a food purist but do aim to make healthy choices more often than not, balanced with some convenience foods. But only about half the aisles in the supermarket are relevent to me. The others I ignore/very rarely go down. I'm finding myself doing less & less food shopping in supermarkets these days - leaning towards markets & local shops for taste, variety & convenience. It can appear a more expensive way to shop, but I always spend more in the supermarket if I do all my shopping there.

I usually shop online too so manage to avoid junk food and random impulse buys, and then top up with fresh fruit/veg/meat from local shops during the week as required.

But yep, our local tesco has about 4/5 aisles of crap - Finest 'restaurant collection', ready made Italian/Indian/Chinese/Tex Mex that are all full of salt, fat, preservatives and taste like nothing. Yuck.

Nothing against convenience food per se, but does it all have to be both bad for you AND bad quality???

YABU. We live in a free (market) country - supermarkets can sell whatever the hell they like, in whatever proportions they desire. Ultimately it is all driven by the consumers and what they actually buy.

Until and unless supermarkets start pointing a gun to customers heads and force them to buy and then eat junk food, it's not unreasonable. It's called personal responsibility.

what about responsible marketing? supermarkets sell GUNS in the US, does that make them absolved of responsibility? i dont think so!

YABU, people can buy what they want, why should everyone eat what you decide they should be eating?

I bake and cook my own stuff (never had any problems getting ingredients from the shop) and I buy 'junk' food.

I also buy full fat Hellman's mayonnaise and have the gall to enjoy it and not feel guilty

Well I suppose yabu - freedom of choice is a wonderful thing and we probably do take it for granted.

Having said that I do find the amount of choice overwhelming. Not just luxury goodies; everything.

There is almost too much choice to be made. It blows my mind and I dither over decisions which makes shopping exhausting and longwinded.

I do wonder what older people with experience of rationing during the war make of it.

Junk food isn't illegal, and no one is forced to buy it or eat. Just as in the US guns are not illegal and no one is forced to buy them. Or indeed to shoot people with them.

As a general rule a bit more taking responsibility for our own actions and not blaming others wouldn't do any harm.

I know nothing about mayonnaise, except that i don't like the taste of it. What was the issue with it claiming that it is a "good source of omega 3 and 6"? Was it factually incorrect?

What have supermarkets selling guns in America got to do with junk food being sold in UK supermarkets?

Unless your suggesting Americans are eating guns, which I agree would not be a healthy option.

agent zigzag

you didn't read my post properly- eat whatever you want.

i think it is irresponsible for supermarkets to dedicate half their space to sh*te and are partly responsible for the obesity epidemic.

and btw, obviously i eat mayonnaise too, would just rather the manufacturers didnt try and convince me it was good for me!

just don't buy it

Download the documentary Food Inc and you'll be shocked to see that in a U.S. supermarket 90 percent of the food is effectively based on corn syrup -- because their agricultural system is geared up to overproduce corn.

Basically companies are constantly looking to repackage cheap carb/corn-based foods to revive or boost sales and achieve higher margins.

And because humans are sort of programmed to like fatty, salty, and sugary food, we buy it.

I ocado/farmers market/Turkish grocers and cook from scratch shines halo reaches for Twizzlers

@ willie

Trouble is, brands have advertising budgets, and farmers don't . . .

Trouble is, brands have advertising budgets, and farmers don't . . .

All the sweets, crisps, biscuits etc.. tend to be in the same place so you could just walk past those aisles...

How can supermarkets be "partly responsible for the obesity epidemic" when they are unable to force anyone to buy anything that they sell?

What happened to personal responsibility?

no, mayonnaise is not a good source of omega 3 and 6.

fish, eggs and seeds are all good sources.

simply because mayonnaise contains eggs, does not make it a good source. by that reasoning, ice cream and biscuits are also good sources (they're not).

its just a packaging issue, like the sugar and salt filled kids cereals that claim to be high in fibre. yes, but what about all the other rubbish in there!

dont try and market something as healthy when its clearly not.