Orbital sander at Aldi

[Andy Hall]

Sigh.

At the end of the warranty?

[dennis]

To what level of accuracy/precision?.. EU? GB? England? Somerset? Post code of farm?

[Frank Erskine]

This is so true, and very sad.

The other day I mentioned Hexham in Northumberland, a lovely market town, with lots of independent local shops. Recently(ish) a 24 hour Tesco store opened there, about the same time as Waitrose took over a supermarket (literally next door) from Safeway. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the independents within ½ mile or so of the two. Market forces will of course prevail, and clearly the 'selective' members of the public will lose out as their local shops die...

Now there's an idea. A 'super'market could introduce a system whereby the customer stashes his items into an RF-transparent trolley, together with his 'nu-lab guvmint' ID card/passport, passes through a scanner at the store exit where all the items and card are scanned, and either the customer's debit card is debited or an invoice is created to email to the customer...

The system could even take into account that the passport has recently been used for trips to, say, Italy, and steer the customer towards Italian-type items in the store...

;-)

What a dreadful thought.

[Owain]

Tag number of animal.

Owain

[:Jerry:]

[ re UK shopping habits ]

I totally agree, Thatcher (and her disciples) educated a whole generation in the value of everything but the worth of nothing...

[Andy Hall]

Depends.

Nutritional content on applicable foods is mandatory, and no, traffic lights are not enough, I need the actual content.

For vegetables and fruits, I want to know the variety and at least the country of origin. For example, I eat strawberries and other "summer fruits" quite a bit because of their low GL. However, most imports from Spain (common for part of the year) are large watery things with no flavour so I skip those. Imported Elsanta variety is especially bad. Occasionally there are organic ones and they are worth having. At this time of year, English strawberries are generally good if one chooses carefully.

For cheeses, it's absolutely down to which farm. I particularly like Spenwood and Barkham Blue, both of which are local to here. More or less everywhere in the UK has local cheese production, so there is no excuse for buying Kraft.

[:Jerry:]

I have already, from reading your clap-trap!

[Andy Hall]

They already have that data if you pay by any form of card or have a loyalty card.

As far as a passport hookup goes, I'd end up with very mixed ethnicity of items on that basis, not all desirable like those dreadful croquettes that the Dutch have for lunch (and breakfast). Shudder.

[Frank Erskine]

But you're still killing animals, wherever they're from, aren't you?

[Andy Hall]

I don't think that that's quite true. Individuals taking responsibility for themselves was the mantra, and indeed should be.

There is a difference between price, value and worth. Of the three, value is the most important because it is the basis by which the customer is or should be making decisions. Price is too limited a concept. "Worth" is a nebulous term.

[Andy Hall]

True. I can live with that, though, especially when they are served warm, gratinated and with a tiny amount of orange. It's a sacrifice that I don't mind them making.

[John Rumm]

and the EDS designed computer system charges it to someone's account at random.

before finally flagging you up to security on exit as a shop lifter!

Indeed.

A chilling example of the possibility:

[Andy Hall]

of them..... :-)

[dennis]

The local council will kill the shops not Tesco.. They will see all these extra people arriving to shop at Tesco and decide to introduce parking charges to make a bit of revenue. Tesco will then put up customer only notices and employ clampers. Shoppers will park on Tesco, go and get some shopping and decide not to bother going to the local shops it now costs then to park outside. Seen it before, local councils are run by morons who do things for political reasons and not for the good of the community.

[Stuart Noble]

Here we go again. You're either posh enough to appreciate some local delicacy no one's ever heard of, or you're a total moron trowelling cheese spread on your sliced bread.

[Stuart Noble]

You truly are a master of the universe

[Andy Hall]

No we don't

You may not have done. All of these are widely available. and are not expensive unless you are eating way more than is sensible anyway. You may not find them in the Tesco, however.

I find it curious that you would apply the term 'posh' to this. It's not something that anybody would say in countries such as France and Italy where good food is part of the culture. Good food is available to everybody - you just have to take a little more trouble to find it.

[Andy Hall]

I like to do my bit.

[dennis]

Strawberries are not really the best thing to eat for controlling diabetes. They have a high GI if ripe.

I can't eat real cheese as it has too much fat in it.

[Andy Hall]

That's why I refered to GL (glycaemic load). The GI value tells you only how rapidly carbohydrate in the particular food is converted into blood glucose. GL is the GI divided by 100 and multiplied by the weight of available carbohydrate in grams (i.e. total carbohydrate less fibre)

Strawberries have a GI of between 35 and 45 on average. However, at a typical portion size of 120g, the GL is only around 1. This means that the impact on blood glucose is minimal unless one stuffs kilos of them.

Water melon is an even more substantial example. GI is in the 60-85 range putting it firmly as high GI. However, GL is around 4.

Moreover, one can modify the behaviour by the addition of fats, so strawberries plus some organic natural yogurt works really well.

I would be the first to point out that the impact varies by the individual and also by the time of day.

I eat very small amounts. Actually I don't deny myself anything. I particularly like roasted parsnips, but of course being a root vegetable, they are very high GI and GL. So I just eat one small piece of one and occasionally.