usually, i love shopping for food.

today, i went to iceland (the supermarket, not the country) because i just wanted something to shove into the oven, ignore for 20mins, and eat. but whilst walking around the store’s too narrow aisles, its haphazard display shelves, it’s rows upon rows of too-cheap-too-be-possibly-any-good-for-me food, it’s fridges full of ‘re-shaped’ or ‘re-formed’ meat and fish and readymeals, i felt claustrophobic and sick to my stomach.

i put down the tub of yoghurt i’d picked up, and literally fled the scene.

i hate iceland.

it’s really cheap and supposedly good value for money, but the quality of the food is so poor that i’d rather eat plain rice and pork floss than have to buy my groceries from there. and the weird thing is, the fresh vegetables are more expensive than in other places, but the meat products are at rock-bottom prices.

now, either they’re seriously cutting their profits, or the meat isn’t really meat but mechanically retrieved bits of carcass, offal, skin, bone and marrow (or worse).

yuck.

this is why whenever i buy meat products like sausages, i examine the labels and ingredients list as if my life depended on it. my mom warned me against sausages and luncheon meat because of their high salt and sulphite content that supposedly lead to cancer, but i’m not bothered by cancer-causing sausages, really. i’m more concerned with avoiding eating hoof and eyeball.

and this is why i try only to buy meat-meat. and also why i often have to think twice about buying mince-meat, even though i really seriously crave meatballs or wontons or burgers. you never know what goes into the meat-grinder.

*shiver*

anyway, enough of this meat evangelism.

i’m starting to become this crazy food fascist and its scaring me. i need to stop watching television programmes and reading books by hugh fearnley-whittingstall, nigel slater, anthony bourdain et al.

despite the inarguable better-ness of fairly priced and seasonal food, they are making my bank balance look very undernourished.

* the iceland slogan is ‘that’s why mum’s gone to iceland‘. geddit?