“Excuse me, could you help me? I can’t find the kind of chicken breast I am
looking for.”
“Certainly, Sir. Exactly what kind of chicken breast are you
looking for?”
“I’d like a skinless, boneless, low fat,
low salt, ethically farmed, organic fillet of chicken. It should be domestically sourced and should
not have been fed anti-biotics or growth hormones, or washed in chlorine.”
“Uh... Is that all?”
“The best before date should be no earlier
than the day after tomorrow, and the weight should be between 310 and 330 grams,
and the price after tax no higher than 380 yen.”
“Umm... Let me just check. A-ha!
This piece of chicken breast meets all your requirements!”
“I don’t want that one. It has too much plastic packaging.”
*
Does anybody else feel exhausted by the
amount of things they are asked to remember when making even simple choices in
a supermarket? One day the news says
that if you want to save the environment, you should buy product B, not product
A. The next day they say that if you
want to avoid getting fat, you should buy product C, not product B. The next day they say that if you want to
save the farmers, you should buy product A, not product C.
And if you try to pay attention to the
information provided on the product labels, you need a degree in chemistry to
understand what it really contains.
That’s why I have developed a simple system
for choosing between foods in a supermarket.
I avoid the cheapest items. I
avoid imported food from some countries which have a bad reputation for adding
strange hormones and chemicals to their food.
And I almost always cook the same thing, so that I don’t have to make
any new choices at all.
Vocabulary:
ethically – in a morally good or correct
way
domestically sourced – bought (by the
supermarket) from within the same country, not imported from another country
anti-biotics – a medicine such as
penicillin which kills micro-organisms
growth hormones – a kind of chemical
produced by the body to make the cells divide and the body grow more quickly
washed in chlorine – in some countries
chicken and other foods are washed in chlorine after production in order to
kill bacteria
the best before date – on food labels, the
date after which the food cannot be enjoyed at its tastiest
exhausted – very tired
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