Basketcase on trial - what I really feed my family

This piece appeared in The Irish Independent last week. The editor and I felt it was important in the wake of the horsemeat crisis to talk about the ins and outs of buying meat products and a quick guide from the horses mouth so to speak (bahahaha) on what's healthy and risky in terms of processed food is what consumers want right now. 

I feel that telling people only to buy organic or local food is not where its at, or something that most peoples income allows for. My grocery shop for my family of four is a mixture of the two - buying both local and supermarket products, and cooking really simple dishes that don't break the bank. All of us have been rattled by the horsemeat story and are shopping more carefully. A Which? survey in the UK shows substantial loss of confidence in the safety of processed meats. While 9 out of 10 customers felt supermarket food was very safe to eat before the crisis, the number has now dropped to 7 out of 10.Have a look and let me know if your food strategy has changed in the wake of the horsemeat crisis.    

Irish Independent 9th March 2013

Food Writer Suzanne Campbell - "What I really feed my family"

“Are chicken goujons safe to give the kids?” These are the sort of questions mothers ask me, especially since the horsemeat crisis began in January. As a food writer the story didn’t take me by surprise. I live in the countryside and keep horses; one which was destined for a meat plant before I gave it a home.

Over the past weeks I’ve done countless interviews for Irish and European media on the issue and in a bizarre twist, conducted a live radio piece on horse burgers while exercising my own horse. For me, horsemeat was the perfect storm; the under-regulated horse trade exploding into a Pandora’s Box of horrors for consumers. In 2009 I had spelled out these fears in the book “Basketcase: what’s happening to Irish food?” co-authored with my husband – journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes. Then as now, our warnings about the real cost of cheap food fell on deaf ears.

I’m a journalist and the mother of two young children so I also put a family meal on the table every day. Living in the Wicklow hills may be the foodie dream and I go to a lot of swanky food events but our home menu is far from Masterchef. I don’t spend a lot of money on food, I just keep things simple. When people ask me is something safe to eat, I’m honest. There are some foods I just wouldn’t eat and some surprises that I would. 

Spuds, lamb, summer salad, wild garlic pesto. Fairly uncomplicated

You will never see a ready meal in my kitchen. One spaghetti bolognese I examined recently contains just 16% meat. Food “extenders” and “fillers” often make up the rest, adding volume and taste to sausages, burgers, ready meals and any amount of things in our trolleys. The reason? They reduce food manufacturing costs by 10-30%.

I understand why many consumers buy ready meals. As a working mum I often finish my day with cooking the last thing on my mind. I get round this by always having meals in the freezer. When I cook a chilli beef, ratatouille, curry, Irish stew etc I make twice the amount and freeze a complete meal. This is the key to avoiding take-away on the way home from work or dropping into the supermarket in a flap and coming out with a huge bill and still nothing for dinner.

Goujons - do they have a texture like jelly?

The aforementioned chicken goujons I simply don’t buy or eat. I peeled open a chicken goujon last week that looked like MRM (Mechanically Recovered Meat). MRM has a texture like sponge. It is not allowed at present in European food manufacturing but businesses get around the law by using the “Bader process” to make virtually the same thing – meat recovered from sinews and scraps from carcasses.

The safety issue for me is what’s used to congeal these bits of meat back into a palatable foodstuff. I don’t eat anything “re-constituted” that doesn’t have muscle texture, including turkeys or chickens at carvery counters that look like footballs.

After our RTE documentary “What’s Ireland Eating” aired many people approached myself and Philip with fears about ham. We showed a process where ham joints were boosted to a huge size by hundreds of needles pushing water and nitrates into the flesh. Processed meats, including hams and salamis have been linked to colonic cancer. Imported rashers and ham has higher nitrite levels (up to 20%) than are allowed in Ireland so I always buy ham with Bord Bia quality assured label.

Billy Roll - I don't go near it

Look for ham (even packed slices of ham) cut from the bone where you can see muscle grain. Likewise, jelly-textured cubed chicken found in sandwich bars, and deli counters. Even if it’s covered in a heavy “Cajun” or “Tikka” dressing; most of this chicken comes already processed from Thailand or Brazil and rarely made from fresh Irish chicken.

Ireland imports 2.5 million chicken breasts a week. Many of these have been found by the FSAI to be gas-flushed with CO2 to preserve them, on sale with incorrect use-by dates and could be up to ten days old from as far away as the Ukraine. Butchers are my first choice for buying beef but I don’t buy chicken in some butchers as many imported chicken fillets are sold loose on their counters. At the very least this chicken is stale. I only buy chicken fillets if they are Bord Bia certified (in supermarkets), free-range or if I’m flush, organic. 

This carrot and parsley soup takes about 20 mins to make

In our house meat is not a central part in every meal. I make a soup (curried carrot and parsnip, leek and potato) about twice a week, and yes, I add cream. This could be a dinner in my house. As is also scrambled eggs with tomato and basil, simple spaghetti with Irish mushrooms and pesto, cous cous or quinoa salad with mixed leaves, chopped peppers, cumin, olives and salami.

We’ve one child who is a great eater, the other one is more tricky. I adopt the French approach with children; mealtime choice is - menu A or menu A. Research show some foods like lettuce have to be offered up to 21 times before they are eaten; I put it in lunchtime sandwiches, it gets picked out. Then one day it isn’t picked out and eaten from then on. So don’t give up.

For my food shop I buy meat and vegetables from shops in my local village, spending about thirty euro a week in each. I buy store cupboard foods in one big shop about every three weeks in either Superquinn or Aldi. I know many Irish farmers who produce own brand product for Aldi. I also buy a lot of their imported foods like kidney beans, tinned tomatoes, chick peas, chillies, herbs and spices. Choose what has the least added ingredients and cooks well.

Remember, the more players involved in a single food product, the more likely it is to go wrong. Yearly I buy half a lamb from my neighbour butchered into joints ready to cook or freeze. At the weekend I buy sourdough bread, Kilbeggan porridge oats, Ed Hick’s rashers and eggs from the local farm shop.

My family food spend is under 150 euro a week, not counting wine or craft beer which I splurge on now and again. If I wasn’t partial to French wines and Irish cheese I would probably be the most healthy person on the planet.

So what can we do to eat safely and not pay out a fortune? Keep your food chain short and keep things simple. It takes work but shouldn’t break the bank. I dislike patronising advice to consumers to only buy organic or local. Find a place on the food and cooking scale you are comfortable with. Ditch Masterchef, take the pressure off yourself and cook with freshness to get taste.

Six foods I wouldn’t eat

Chicken goujons

Billy roll or any ham with a clowns face on it

Huge glossy chicken fillets in independent retailers or butchers often sold at discount

Chicken in a restaurant or sandwich bar – unless stated on the menu it is imported

Breaded fish including salmon, I stay away from farmed salmon and buy wild smoked salmon as an occasional treat

Brightly coloured snacks or crisps. McDonnell’s and Keoghs are pretty additive free.

My unexpected favourites –

Aldi’s Duneen natural yoghurt; I use it with everything; blitz with fruit for summer smoothies

Burgers – cook your own from mince or buy Aldi’s Aberdeen Angus 100% Irish beef; red meat is the best way to get iron into your system

Beans (without sugar) – unglamorous but a nutritious two minute meal heated on crusty bread

Smoked mackerel or herring costs about three euro a pack. Smashed up with crème fraiche and rocket makes a gorgeous topping on toast. Goatsbridge trout is so good eat it on its own.

Sodastream – invest in one. I drink two litres of sparkling water a day. Saved me a huge amount of cash and recycling of water bottles.

New Irish whiskeys, cheese and gorgeous sourdough breads: my January food picks from The Gloss magazine

David Tiernans Montbeliarde herd

After a couple of busy months attending and presenting food awards it’s good to be at home and looking at what's new in Irish food and drink for the year ahead. For starters, cold Januarys are the perfect excuse to take Rihanna and Jay Z’s lead and drink Irish whiskey. 

Jack Teeling, who sold Cooley for €73m last year has hit the stills again with a new blend of Scotch and Irish single malt. Teelings Hybrid certainly causes a hurricane in the back of your throat, but it’s also a really  warm and complex whiskey. With a hard cheese like David Tiernan’s Glebe Brehan made from his herd of Montbeliarde cows in County Louth, it's a combination that makes for a grown up, contemporary treat.

Kombucha made in Stoneybatter Dublin

The following day you may need my new find, Dublin Kombucha – a Japanese cleansing tea full of antioxidants and good bacteria brewed by Laura Murphy in Stoneybatter. Suspiciously healthy sounding but gorgeous – a cross between sparkling apple juice and miso soup.  DBKB deliver, with a four-pack costing €10. The Joe Macken empire stock it, and Cake Café just off Camden street.

Bakes and breads are perfect warming January foods.  New York is having a French baking moment as renouned Frenchman Eric Kayser wows the well heeled with his sour dough breads. Sour doughs require fermentation and you’ll only find them made by craft bakers such as Dublin-based Thibault Peigne www.tartine.ie whose breads (which take 48 hours to make) can be found in Listons, Mortons in Ranelagh. Try his French rustic sour dough grilled with some goats cheese, torn basil and prepare an addiction plan.

Eric Kayser's sourdough aux marrons

French baking is also the name of the game at Armelle’s Kitchen in Kilcullen, Kildare. Armelle turns out the mouthwatering cakes while her partner Kenny makes classic French macarons. Their rum frangipane lasted all of three minutes in our house.

For low key French I love La Cocotte café upstairs in L’academie Francais on Kildare Street. Quiet, with a gorgeous view over Trinity’s cricket grounds, Arnaud Bucher presides over a choice of fabulous pastries, pain garnis (with proper baguette) and plat du jour. I order the charcuteries francaises and pretend to read my battered Proust.

Brown Hound Bakery

For really good baking outside Dublin check out The Gallery Café in Gort where fringed lampshades take you straight back to Abigail's Party, Brown Hound Bakery in Drogheda for the prettiest of treats under delicate glass cloches and Laura Kilkenny’s outstanding The Wooden Spoon in Killaloe which can’t stop collecting awards.

Andrew Rudd

January is also plein with chefs going their own pop-ups. Andrew Rudd tells me he’s busy at his new venture Medley – cookery school and dining in an airy Fade Street loft. Ian Marconi, (ex Moro and St John’s of London) is moonlighting from the moorish meatballs of The Paella Guys to do some cool private dining in the parlour of his Portobello house. www.parlourgames.ie

In my own parlour I’m planning a wintery feast of roast lamb as outside the kitchen window the rams graze in their raddles – a paint pack on their chest which marks the rump of the ewes they get up on. How clever would it be if prolific Irish males wore a similar apparatus – no more awkward moments in Guilbauds.

Feeling unwell? Have some chicken soup - Jewish medicinal cooking at its best

The runny nose, the headaches, the shivers, the huge bill for useless products at the pharmacy... Manflu - we all get it from time to time. Despite not actually being a man I've suffered from three bouts of manflu this year and I've found many people reporting the same. Colds, coughs and flus seem to be increasing in number and severity.

What's the reason? It could be many things - an increase in warm, damp weather or higher levels of virus mutation and activity. What's not helping is the rise in antibiotic resistance of many bacterial infections.

There are moves in the EU to reduce antibiotics fed to animals which can only help the problem of bacterial infections and viruses in public health. What was thought to be good farming practice is increasingly viewed as something that has created giant health problems - generations of factory farmed animals have had antibiotics routinely included in their diets. This promotes organisms in their systems to become resistant to antibiotic treatment. And once those organisms spread from the animal population into the human population they can do real damage, such as the prevalence of MRSA in hospitals.

MRSA has been found on packaged meat in Europe. Other antibiotic resistant organisms that are now present in human health have been found to have originated in poultry populations in Holland and in pig farming in the US.

The FDA in the United States which is one of the world's slowest moving food bodies, is finally also examining antibiotics in the food chain. Farm and food groups are lobbying the FDA for change. It's greatly needed and consumer pressure can have huge influence so don't underestimate the power you hold in helping your own future health.

In terms of the common cold there are over 200 viruses around us that are actively causing colds and flus at the moment. And if you're anywhere near small children, you'll get all 200 of them, in the one year. Or so it seems in our house.

When I examined foods that might help stave away colds, I found good evidence of some that actually do work. Others, like vitamin C, have a reputation for curing or preventing colds that simply doesn't stand up. Particularly if you're spending money on vitamin C supplements, think again - the research sadly proves that it doesn't do much good for colds.

In Shelf Life in today's Irish Times I give a run down of the best food bets for beating colds and give ideas for rustling up some traditional chicken soup. It really does work, the ancient Greeks and Jewish medicinal cooks were on the money! Check it out and take hope - feeding yourself properly will boost your immune system and it's pretty easy to do. Nothing complicated, just simple sense x

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0501/1224315399589.html