Tag Archives: WEB206

“Tick of Approval” Now More Credible.

Those who are aware of the PAFC’s real, non-superhero identity will know that she is NOT a fan of fast food. She thinks it is a waste of ingredients, not to mention incredibly poor for your health.

So when I stumbled across this article, I simply HAD to share it and my thoughts about it.

So, previously a company could approach the Heart Foundation and pay a sum of money in order to have their “Tick of Approval” placed on their food. This had been going on for five years, the first being a McDonald’s meal that was given approval for the Tick.

The main argument against the scheme is that it shields fast food outlets from actual.y making their food more healthy across the board. I completely agree with this argument, personally. Unfortunately, people are far too easily led into the false thinking that just because it has a picture saying it’s healthy, that must mean it is. Rather than checking the actual content statistics, a picture replaces real thought.

The Heart Foundation comes back at this notion by saying that they do actually check content and then have them independently checked in such fields as “…saturated fat, salt and kilojoules and making sure there is … healthier nutrients like calcium and fibre.” They also claim in the past 5 years, there have been big changes in awareness of healthier ingredients available to the fast food industry.

So what does this all mean to the average person looking for a healthier option?

For starters, it means you’ll have to be more aware of what it is you’re ordering. You will have to actually think about where it is you’re heading for food, their reputation for healthiness (I mean, let’s face it, NO ONE can say that fast food in general has the reputation of being truly healthy), and what your nutrition requirements (PDF)  actually are. In short, you’re going to have to think about your food. What a novel concept!

This means that fast food outlets are going to have to check their menu options and adjust them drastically if they still want the “health conscious” punters out there to buy their food. Mind you, I do think that people who go to fast food outlets looking for a healthy option are just kidding themselves in the first place.

In the end, we are all going to have to stop relying on little pictures to help us make educated food choices and start doing the real thinking for ourselves.

(Image Courtesy of The Heart Foundation : http://www.heartfoundation.org.au)

***UPDATE***

I was looking for further information I could post on here, as per the suggestions of one of my university tutor’s. I came upon the McDonald’s website  where you can plainly see that they are still advertising meals that are STILL marked with the Heart Foundation’s “Tick of Approval”. I have emailed the Foundation, asking how this can be if they have retracted the offer, but have not, as yet, heard anything back. Stay tuned dear reader. I shall find out what is going on with this.

Why You Should Read This Blog!

Do you eat food?

Do you sometimes venture out of your home to eat food?

Do you live in Perth, travel to Perth or want to travel to Perth?

Do you have general distrust for those critics that publish their critiques in newspapers, employing fancy language that doesn’t actually tell you about the food?

Do you want to see what food the most isolated city in the most isolated state of the most isolated country in the world has to offer?

THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

This is the blog for you!

I don’t go out to “fancy restaurants” very often, but I do like to experience the food of Perth. I live here, so I am always on the look out for those hidden gems tucked away somewhere. What’s more, I like to share my findings with other people, in the hopes that I will turn them away from the fast food chains that encourage obesity and heart disease. It seems silly to me that you would choose deep fried, tasteless cardboard over something that actually resembles food sometimes in less time than the supposed “fast food” outlets!

You need to eat and if you live in Perth, it may seem that you are extremely limited for choice. We don’t have the cultural reputation of Sydney or Melbourne. This doesn’t mean we don’t have culinary treasures awaiting us. Even if it is known for one dish, wouldn’t you rather go to an eatery that you knew someone else had been to, you had seen a picture of the food on offer there, and had read that person’s honest critique of it and understood it? I know I would.

Sure there are other bloggers out there who cover the food of Perth. But I am covering solely food you can get to. I don’t talk about my food at home or a friend’s house. I am telling you of all those little places you might not try for yourself, but have always looked at wondering if anyone you knew had eaten there.

Let’s face it. You have to eat. Why not eat with a companion who has already been there and done that, so that you might enjoy it more?

Why?

I love food.

It is really that simple.

I don’t mean that I love it in the sense that I am always eating. If you loved to play a game, would you be playing it 24/7? No, but when you did play it you would enjoy it to the full. That is how I love food.

I enjoy the smells of food cooking and how they change as ingredients heat up or interact with other ingredients. I love the changes in colours that arise from cooking. Watching something as simply as onions change from white and palest green to a dark, caramelised brown. It’s hypnotising.

When you see the ingredients on the plate in front of you, – the raw egg, crisp vegetable, grains of salt, uncooked beef – transformed into something so vastly different… That is the magic of food. That is the wonder of it.

Lifting that first spoonful to your lips, sensing the heat coming off the food, smelling it, you feel the anticipation rise. Your mouth waters. You want it. You stomach gurgles in expectation. As soon as it hits your tongue, you become an active participant in that foods journey. Regardless of if you helped in its creation or not, you are now the vessel for the story of that dish. The textures play on your tongue. Hard and soft, cooked and raw, slimy and brittle.

It’s amazing how five flavours can be so very different when they play on each other. Sweet, bitter, sour, salt and umami. Each mouthful presents itself, awaiting your approval or displeasure. When one flavour is just the smallest bit out of balance with the others it is so very noticeable.

And this is why I have chosen food. The journey from infant to the grave is constantly crossed by amazing, and not so amazing, food. It seems wasteful of me to not share my experiences with others, in the hopes that they might share theirs with me. I want to show people that fast food chains are not the places to get their food, that there is so much more out there that deep fried, flavourless food. Our lives are so full of food, does it not stand to reason to revel in it and enjoy it to the full?