h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I found a new brand of gluten-free pasta made with corn flour. I am going to try it out today. Mom loves beef stroganoff, but she wants it over noodles, not rice. I'm still trying to perk up her appetite. Anyway, I hope it's good because I had to buy a case of 12 bags. I got it from Amazon. I was having a hard time finding a GF pasta locally that is actually shaped like a regular egg noodle. These look like cute little lasagna noodles.

When it got here, I discovered it is made in Romania. It has all the EU labels and permits, etc. So please explain to me how it can be produced in one EU country, be shipped to England for nutritional testing at the University of Surrey and assumed packaging, shipped across the Atlantic, warehoused in Pennsylvania then shipped a 4th time to me for less money than I can go to the corner grocery store for a bag of gluten-free pasta made 50 miles from here?

its amazin init!

globaliation


RJR

Oh, I know this one, Hypatia. I just wrote all the school stuff on it.

It's called the ISO container. Your WTO at work.

It makes shipping so cheap, you can afford to have everything made by near-slave labour...

What Dmitri said. I'm always torn: should I boycott such products because I don't agree with the conditions and salaries the people get who make them, or should I buy them so that those people won't lose their work?

It's a tough one. having watched a lot of programmes on this type of thing, I can't make up my mind which is best either.

It does seem daft though, and nigh on impossible without near slave labour at the beginning of the 'journey' I would think.

Websailor

i'm fuming mad!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/08/genetic-modification-robin-mckie

don't know if this will work


RJR

Good point. About ten years ago, I think it was, an artist used that bioluminescent gene in a bunny rabbit as a statement about all this. It was in France.

I think she got in trouble with the authorities.

This is just Frankensteinitis. Who's got the torches? We peasants need to gather the mob.

Dangerious when bored = lets find some new funding

Poor little thing. That really is a strange use of science, imho.

I fixed the corn flour noodles yesterday. I have to report that they are delicious, whether they are produced by slave labor or not.

I paid $1.10 a pound for them. We have a regional company that makes GF products. They sell their GF pastas in 8 oz boxes for $3.69, so I pay $7.38 a pound for them. And I like the taste of this $1.10 Romanian pasta a lot better.

Bel makes a good point. We think we're making a valid political statement by not purchasing items produced in third world countries without giving much thought to how much worse the workers lives might be with no work at all.

Also, I live in an area with a lot of poverty. Not everyone in my neighborhood can afford to pay $7.38 for a pound of pasta or $150 for a pair of shoes or designer jeans from a department store. All the folks who make political statements by not shopping at places like Wal-Mart don't realize what a struggle it is to families near or below the poverty line to be able to clothe and feed their families. And those jobs at Wal-Mart are a blessing to people who can't find jobs any place else. Every coin has two sides.

Amen. Wal-Mart was a godsend to rural communities. Now that corporate greed is making a mess, the thing to do is to fuss at the greedy corporate people, not give the people who are forced to work at Wal-Mart a hard time. Those people in far-off places need the work, as well. If they had to pay everybody a living wage, and treat them right, the world would be happier and more productive.

From my limited experience, Romanians are the best cooks in the world. Even under a repressive and inefficient system, they could make more delicious meals with less to work with than anybody I've ever met. I'm not surprised if their export stuff is top-notch.

This GF stuff will put you on a diet - no complaints there, but it's hard on the budget to pay so much for ordinary stuff like flour, bread, cake mixes, etc. And it's medically necessary.

The cost of GF products is frustrating. A lot of it can be put down to greed, pure and simple. They have us over a barrel and there isn't much we can do about it. I'm glad to find a brand of GF pasta that is comparably priced to the regular stuff and also tastes good. I won't hesitate to buy it again. If that makes me an evil person, so be it.

I'm really fortunate to only have myself to consider. At least I don't have to buy one list of items for myself and another one for the rest of the family. I do cook for my mother and Syn quite a bit, but I feed them things safe for myself to eat.

I know what you mean. We are heading down the road in about an hour, with a bag of stuff to cook with. My dad's diabetic, so we're taking gf stuff and some sugar.

Let's face it. Those people who aren't gluten intolerant won't have their health impaired in any way by eating GF foods. Or a person who isn't diabetic won't die if they eat lower carb, lower GI foods. I think they should try to accomodate us rather than the other way around.

Heh-heh. True. Although tell that to the 80+ crowd, whose main pleasure in life is eating in cafeterias.

Off to the west - see you guys later!

I don't believe we have a proper cafeteria in the area anymore. Lots of buffets to take their place.

Those things are dangerous to coeliac sufferers. Lots of cross-contamination, accompanied by well-meaning people who will insist there's nothing in that food.

Well, only a little flour for thickener.

We had a delicious home-cooked meal last night, all gluten-free.

But the word is getting out. Now that they have a whole store for GF in the area, my folks are ready to accept that this stuff exists.

See, if their authority figures on tv say so......you have to get Oprah and those people on FoxNews to tell everybody it's true...I try to tell them that I am an authority, too, tens of people listen to me, but no...

And it didn't even pass through my own emporium/warehouse. The nerve!

Hyp, did the noodles taste like corn, or was it indistinguishable from the wheat kind? I've always wanted to make a noodle dish with a Mexican flavor and it tasting like corn would work sooo well!

Dmitri, you're lucky 10s of people listen to you -- I've got one follower, and even then only when the cat dish is empty!

I know about that cat business. At least, my dog follows me.

Ahem. Tonight's food experience: because it was 100F today, elders used this as an excuse to go out. Basically, elderly Americans simply prefer to eat in restaurants whenever possible. We do not understand this, but hey...

At Ruby Tuesday's, I was offered a 'gluten-free menu'. Hypatia, take note: This consisted of a set of photocopied sheets stapled together. The waitress had helpfully turned to the 'wheat' page rather than the 'milk' page.

I asked for a burger and baked potato from this 'gluten-free' menu. (I was glad I read it - most of the salad bar is not gluten-free...)

After everyone else had received his/her crab cakes, I was presented with...

A hamburger. On a roll.

I sent it back. The supervisor showed up with apologies, asking if I needed the burger cooked again from scratch. I said absolutely - if I had merely *disliked* bread, I would have removed the bun myself.

I got my food after everyone else had eaten.

Just so you know.

Sounds like the time my 10 yo niece declared herself a vegetarian, then wanted her mom to take her to McDonald's for chicken nuggets...