I was in a big supermarket near home yesterday, having a browse, as you do. I needed to get some bits and pieces and found myself up in the meat department.

The whole corn-fed chickens caught my eye. I was contemplating having chicken rice for tea, and I like a nice whole chicken instead of pieces when I can get one. Anyway, these chickens were $3 off so i took a closer look… the  marketers have swung into overdrive with this one -They were defined as having being fed a diet with corn in it and then marinated to make”succulent”. I didn’t have my specs so I couldn’t read the label properly but I wouldn’t be surprised if that yellowy flesh came from turmeric or one of the artificial yellow colourings. Don’t sue me if I’m wrong, I’m just putting it out there…

What a marketing coup! Soaked to increase the weight and increase profit – genius!! Labelled corn fed to get the  discriminating consumer – brilliant!!

 I nabbed on the staff and asked him to confirm that this was not organic or free range, he confirmed factory bred status. He also confirmed that *&%%@ do not stock any organic meat or chicken. A quick check of the fish department revealed 5 frozen fish varieties from Vietnam and 2 fresh from Australia (The Vietnamese fish was on average a third cheaper than the Australian)

 

.Sorry about the ramble, I wasn’t this bad until I started uni and realised what a monopoly the supermarkets have on what we eat – and at what cost it comes, both to producer and consumer.

Anyway, a lady doing her shopping with her not very bright looking but very smiley son asked me if the corn-fed chicken had to be boiled. At first I thought she was a psychic and knew about the chicken rice. It turned out that she thought it was a CORNED chicken, brined like corned beef. I filled her in and told her all about my theories of about multinational foodlords capitalising on emerging markets and trying to trick people who want to care about what they eat  but I am not sure if she understood what I was saying 🙂

I ended up buying Australian snapper (snapper?? why does that look like the wrong spelling??) anyway, meaty Australian fish – to make a fish curry. I’ll post about it later 🙂