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Gellynen Lodge, Cwmbach Llechrhyd, Builth Wells,Powys LD2 3RPTel: 01982 551242
Breed: Welsh Black
Gilchesters Organic Farm, Hawkwell,Northumberland NE18 0QLTel: 01661 886119www.gilchesters.com
Breed: White Galloway (organic)
Hereford Prime Direct, Mains of Airies Farm, Stranraer,Wigtownshire DG9 0RDTel: 01776 853516www.herefordprimedirect.co.uk
Breed: Hereford
Long Ghyll Farms, Brock Close, Bleasdale, Preston,Lancashire PR3 1UZTel: 01995 61799www.farmhousedirect.com
Breed: Highland
Lower Hurst Farm, Hartington, Nr Buxton, Derbyshire SK 17 0HJTel: 01298 84900www.lowerhurstfarms.co.uk
Breed: Hereford (organic)
Pipers Farm, Cullompton, Devon EX15 ISDTel: 01392 881380www.pipersfarm.com
Breed: Devon Ruby
The Somerset Meat Company, Marshalls Elm, Street,Somerset BA16 0TYTel: 01458 448990www.meatontheweb.co.uk
Breed: Red Devon Ruby
The Well Hung Meat Company, Tordean Farm, Dean Prior,Buckfastleigh, Devon TQ11 0LYTel: 0845 230 3131www.wellhungmeat.com
Breed: Aberdeen Angus and South Devon (organic)
West Country Water Buffalo, Lower Oakley Farm,Chilthorne Domer, Yeovil, Somerset BA22 8RQTel: 01935 940567
Breed: Water Buffalo
West Hembury Farm, Askerswell, Dorchester, Dorset DT2 9ENTel: 01308 485289www.westhembury.com
Breed: White Park
Woodlands Farm, Kirton House, Kirton, Boston,Lincolnshire PE20 IJDTel: 01205 722491www.woodlandsfarm.co.uk
Breed: Lincoln Red
Wootton Organic, Ramshorn Farley Oakamoor,Staffordshire ST 10 3BZTel: 0800 652 9469www.woottonorganic.com
Breed: Aberdeen Angus
Welfare-friendly British veal
Veal is a by-product of the dairy industry, because obviously only females are needed for milk production and male calves are therefore unwanted. The cruel practice of confining veal calves to crates and feeding them milk only (calves need straw roughage) that is permitted in EU countries is banned in the UK. In March 2006 the EU voted to lift the 10-year ban on live cattle exports, which means that farmers can now send unwanted calves for veal production to Europe again. The more milk-fed British veal you consume, the less farmers will be encouraged in this inhumane practice. The farms below produce humanely reared veal.
Helen Browning Organics, Eastbrook Farm, The Calf House,Cues Lane, Bishopstone, Swindon, Wiltshire SN6 8PLTel: 01793 790460www.helenbrowningorganics.co.uk
Innovative system in which calves are left a long time with their mothers. The emphasis at this farm is on the humane treatment of livestock. Also produces beef.
Little Warren Farm, Fletching Common, Newick,East Sussex BN8 4JHTel: 01825 722545
Specialist small-scale farm producing organic veal and beef. All calves are reared naturally and humanely and suckled on Jersey cows for six months.
Welfare Friendly Veal, Higher Stavordale Farm,Charlton Musgrove, Wincanton, Somerset BA9 8HJTel: 01963 33177
The veal calves on this farm are reared the kind way, loose in small groups in open barns with deep straw bedding, fed on a mixture of milk, straw and grains. The farm sells several cuts of meat, which is pink with a sweet, buttery flavour.
BISCUITS
Tea and biscuits being a national pastime, it comes as no surprise that the crunchy one of the duo escapes much scrutiny. In any case, the very longevity of some brands suggests that our biscuit habits are hard to break. Who, for example, remembers a time when Bourbon Creams did not exist?
However, the biscuit world may be about to change. In January 2006 new labelling laws came into play in the US that will send shock-waves through Britain’s biscuit makers. The issue is the transfats in hydrogenated fat, a prime ingredient in mass-produced biscuits (and snack food) that is linked to a host of health troubles. From January packs must state the presence of transfats, a move that the American Food and Drug Administration believes will save lives. There are no plans yet for such labelling in the UK, but that may change.
Manufacturers maintain that hydrogenated fat helps biscuits store well, but the low price of the stuff is really the big attraction. However, in a nation where childhood obesity and type-2 diabetes are on the rampage, should we eat more, cheaper biscuits or relish the luxury of the occasional one packed with butter (which has fewer of the negative health implications of hydrogenated fats)? And is fat the tip of the iceberg in the biscuit debate? What else is added to biscuits in the name of innovation?
What ingredients should be in a biscuit?
A plain sweet biscuit, like shortbread, should be just butter, sugar and flour. Varying the ratio of these ingredients affects the texture: a high butter content makes the biscuit crumbly and rich – and more expensive; a greater ratio of starch (from flour) delivers a harder, drier biscuit. But it’s unusual to see butter on a pack’s ingredients list at all. In its place will be the dreaded hydrogenated fat and a wealth of other additives designed to colour, flavour and preserve.
What’s wrong with hydrogenated fat?
Plenty, and the authorities agree, though there are no plans yet in the UK to label the transfat content in foods containing hydrogenated fat. Transfats are created when fat is hydrogenated, which means that the fat is hardened and the melting temperature raised by a chemical process. Transfats raise cholesterol, reduce the nutritional value of breast milk and are linked with low birth weight. They also reduce the immune response, affect fertility, disrupt enzymes that metabolise chemical carcinogens and drugs, and increase the formation of free radicals that cause tissue damage. Transfats also raise blood insulin, a factor in the development of diabetes. In the UK, biscuits containing hydrogenated fat must mention it in the ingredients list. It will usually appear as ‘hydrogenated vegetable oil’. The oil itself is often mixed and can be derived from various plants, including rapeseed, sunflower, soya, maize, coconut and palm kernel oils. Some of these oils are saturated.
Surely butter is no healthier than hydrogenated fat?
On the contrary, evidence is emerging that butter is by far the more nutritious of the two. The fat in butter is saturated, so it is not recommended that we eat large quantities of it, but it does have many benefits. It contains ‘true’ vitamins that are fat soluble, therefore easily absorbed and more potent. The saturated fat in butter is antiviral and antimicrobial and is burned rapidly for energy – faster than unsaturated vegetable oils, which are more readily stored by the body. It aids digestion and the lauric acid in butter helps prevent tooth decay. Butter may even help you lose weight. The calories from butter are more rapidly burned than those found in corn or olive oil. Butter from grass-fed animals contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a potent anti-cancer agent that also aids weight loss and promotes lean muscle tissue. Butter contains only a fraction of the transfat found in hydrogenated fats.
What other fats or oils are used to make biscuits?
As concern about transfats increases, the industry has turned to other technology. Some labels will read ‘vegetable oil and vegetable fat’, which means the manufacturer has combined ordinary vegetable oils (refined palm, rapeseed or oil from another plant) or vegetable oils that have been hardened by another means. Fractionation is popular with bakers; this process separates (using a centrifuge) the saturated fat in vegetable oils from the unsaturated fat. The saturated fat, which has a higher melting point, will have the firmness that is desirable for baking. Remember, however, that you will be consuming a higher proportion of saturated fat. Lower-fat vegetable oils can be hardened using ‘interestification’, a more complex process in which the fatty acid molecules are altered and rearranged using enzymes. All this technology – you ask yourself, on the basis that we are not meant to stuff ourselves with biscuits anyway, why not just eat the odd butter biscuit?
What else is in a biscuit?
There’s sugar, often plenty of it, and if it is refined beet sugar (see Sugar, page 388) it consists of so-called empty calories – in other words, it has no nutritional value at all. Buy biscuits made with pure unrefined cane sugar or fruit sugars; there is little nutritional value in either but the process by which they are made is environmentally sounder. Check the salt content; this may be marked as sodium, which is nearly three times the strength of salt. The recommended salt intake for adults is 6g per day – that’s approximately 20 digestives. Beware innovations: wacky-flavoured biscuits will have their fair share of artificial additives and there will be industry trickery, including using plum-based jams and adding raspberry flavouring (Jammie Dodgers, for example, although the manufacturer, Burton’s, has removed the unpleasant red colouring and say that plum jam makes it stretchier).
Should biscuits contain salt?
Not if they contain good-quality ingredients. Almost all manufactured biscuits contain salt, sometimes too much.
Are there genetically modified ingredients in biscuits?
The Food Standards Agency admits that if soya or maize appears on the ingredients list, a non-organic biscuit could contain up to 0.9 per cent genetically modified material – if that material exceeds 0.9 per cent of the biscuit, its presence must be stated on the label.
Which mass-market biscuits should I buy?
Read labels, looking for mention of hydrogenated vegetable oil, and do not be reassured by the words ‘partly hydrogenated’ – it means much the same thing. Do not be taken in by words such as ‘farmhouse’ and ‘made to a traditional recipe’, especially when there are sulphate preservatives and hydrogenated fat in the ingredients list. Refreshingly, McVitie’s uses no hydrogenated fat in popular biscuits such as HobNobs and Chocolate Digestives, nor does it use artificial colour or flavour in either. Scottish shortbread is also a good choice, often being made with just butter, sugar and flour.
Where to buy biscuits
Blue Mango, 7 Lemon Market, Lemon Street, Truro,Cornwall TR21 2PNTel: 01872 277116
Delicious cheese biscuits made with unsalted Cornish butter, Doves Farm flour, Greens of Glastonbury Cheddar and a pinch of cayenne, rolled with sesame and celery seeds. Mail order, or visit the shop in Truro, where sweet biscuits are available.
Doves Farm Foods, Salisbury Road, Hungerford,Berkshire RG17 0RFTel: 01488 684880www.dovesfarm-organic.co.uk
Organic chocolate chip cookies and other biscuits, including raisin and honey, Cheddar cheese, lemon zest, and very good digestives.
Duchy Originals, The Old Ryde House, 393 Richmond Road,East Twickenham TW1 2EFTel: 020 8831 6800www.duchyoriginals.com
Rich butter biscuits, both sweet and savoury, made with traditionally grown oats and grains.
Frank’s Biscuits, Unit 12a, Holmer Trading Estate, Hereford,Herefordshire HRI IJSTel: 01432 376729www.franksluxurybiscuits.co.uk
Frank Cornthwaite bakes shortbread with pure Somerset butter and flour – so good he has succeeded in selling it to Scotland in true coals-to-Newcastle style. Mail order available.
The Gingerbread Shop, Church Cottage, Grasmere, Ambleside,Cumbria LA22 9SWTel: 015394 35428www.grasmeregingerbread.co.uk
Extraordinary chewy gingerbread with no equal. Mail order available.
Honeybuns, Naish Farm, Stony Lane, Holwell, Sherborne,Dorset DT9 5LJTel: 01963 23597www.honeybuns.co.uk
Made on a Dorset farm, these biscuits are highly popular with children. Baked by the appropriately named Goss Custard family, they are made with local eggs, butter and gluten-free grain. Mail order available.
Island Bakery Organics, Tobermory, Isle of Mull PA75 6PYTel: 01688 302223www.islandbakery.co.uk
Prize-winning biscuits hand baked by Joseph Reade on the Isle of Mull, using vegetable oils but never hydrogenated ones. Available online from www.realfooddirect.co.uk.
Konditor and Cook, 22 Cornwall Road, London SEI 8TWTel: 020 7261 0456www.konditorandcook.com
This small chain of four London shops uses superb ingredients (free-range eggs, pure butter) in its beautifully made biscuits. Try the lemon moons, made with ground almonds and topped with a thin layer of meringue.
Lavender Blue, I Sandway Cottage, Bourton, Gillingham,Dorset SP8 5BHTel: 01747 821333
Somerset butter is used in these grown-up biscuits: white chocolate and lavender, cranberry and walnut, orange and cardamom. Mail order available.
Macgregors Original Oatcakes, Highland Avenue,Dunoon, Argyll PA23 8PBTel: 01369 704858www.macgregorsoatcakes.co.uk
Very thin, high-baked biscuits – the best biscuits for cheese on the market. Mail order available.
Popina, Unit 3, Sleaford Industrial Estate, Sleaford Street,London SW8 5ABTel: 020 7622 3444www.popina.co.uk
Isadora Popovic’s biscuits are made with entirely natural ingredients, using imaginative recipes from all over Europe.
BREAD
Shop for bread and the choice is clear. There are the unmistakable sliced loaves in their wrappers or the crusty, slowly made ‘craft’ loaves of old. I cannot dwell on the thousand or so different types of bread sold all over Europe but a comparison between sliced and wrapped bread and craft bread is inevitable. Bread became adulterated so that baking could be mechanised. The industry will argue that it has brought cheap bread to millions, and it has, but this has been at the cost of the integrity of traditionally made bread from wholesome flour. Interestingly, over the last 40 years we have almost halved the amount of bread we eat at home, while the sandwich market has grown 50 per cent. So, if we cannot be bothered to make our own sandwiches, will we ever again make our own bread?
Who makes our bread?
In the UK, 81 per cent of bread sold is made by 11 large ‘plant’ bakeries, 17 per cent by supermarket in-store bakeries and the remaining 2 per cent by smaller ‘craft’ bakeries. Over half the bread is produced by two companies, Allied Bakeries and British Bakeries. There are approximately 3,500 craft bakeries in the UK, compared to nearly ten times that in France.
How is most of our bread made?
The majority of bread sold in the UK is ‘sliced and wrapped’, a soft bread that keeps for up to seven days, but there is a trend towards craft breads. Most bread is made using a high-speed process known as the Chorleywood Process, with the usual base of flour, yeast, water and salt but also plenty of additives. The dough is made within three minutes, using intense, high-speed mixing. Yeast levels of up to 1.75 per cent are used in high-speed bread making, compared to 0.5 per cent used in commercial bread before World War II. The wheat gluten network in bread differs when bread has been made at high speed, a factor that many suspect contributes to wheat intolerance.
Is our bread too salty?
Yes, a slice can contain up to 0.5g of salt and, with the average daily salt allowance for adults at 6g and for four to six year olds at 3g, that’s too high. More flavoursome, stoneground flour would negate the need for so much salt.
Which artificial additives are used to make sliced and
wrapped bread?
By law, the flour in sliced and wrapped bread must have minerals and vitamins added to it to replace the nutrients lost in the milling process. One of them, calcium carbonate, is derived from chalk. Ascorbic acid, E300 (vitamin C), is added to ‘improve’ the flour, strengthening it so it rises well. There will be preservatives, either vinegar (acetic acid, E260) or calcium propionate (E282), which it is claimed prevent the absorption of added calcium in the bread. Emulsifiers (E471 and E472) stabilise the dough, improve the crumb structure and keep the bread soft.
Are all the additives listed on labels?
No. Sliced and wrapped bread may have amylase enzymes added, which soften the loaf, but as they are destroyed during baking they do not need to be listed on the label.
Does bread contain fat?
Yes. Bakers have found that fats, too, give bread a long shelf life (as if there were not enough other additives in there to keep the stuff going until next year). The fats are either fractionated (processed using centrifugal force) or hydrogenated (which contain transfats, see page 222).
Are there GM ingredients in bread?
Bakeries, even the big guys, do their best to keep any GM ingredients out of bread because they know shoppers hate the idea of it. Soya, which is widely used in sliced and wrapped bread to whiten it, and soya lethicin, an emulsifier, are also used. Soya lethicin could be GM contaminated but the quantity in the bread will not exceed the set limit for ingredients in food, so you will not see it on the label. By law, labels must indicate if a product contains more than 0.9 per cent GM ingredients. Not reassuring, but the bread companies would be crazy not to track the soya content in their bread for fear of being caught.
What is sourdough bread?
Any bread that has been made using a slow fermentation process, where slow-acting wild yeasts are used, can claim to be a sourdough. Even baguettes and ciabatta are sourdoughs but it is more pronounced in breads such as Poilâne (see page 79). Beware fakes. Olive oil is sometimes used to darken ciabatta to the greyish colour associated with sourdoughs. You can always tell by the taste, which should be rounded and ripe.
Is yeast a natural product?
Not exactly. Yeast for the commercial bread industry is ‘grown’ on non-organic molasses (a by-product of sugar production). The yeast itself is natural but environmental campaigners say the production process pollutes the environment. The waste products from yeast production include sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, magnesium sulphate, cleaning agents and disinfectants – all pollutants if released into the water supply. Organic bakers are permitted to use this yeast but many craft bakers now use ‘wild’ yeasts, grown on bases of flour and fruit, which do not leave a by-product. Wild yeast gives bread a ripe, nutty flavour – hence sourdough bread.
How can I avoid bread with additives?
That’s easy – choose bread that is made with the original basic ingredients: flour, water, yeast and salt. A little vegetable oil or butter is fine, a little sugar gets the bubbles going. Read labels.
Are there additives in organic bread?
Yes – organic bakers can add vinegar and ascorbic acid flour improvers, but not all do.
Are there pesticide residues on bread?
In surveys in 2002, residues were found on over 50 per cent of loaves tested (although stated to be at safe levels). Residues were found on 26 per cent of speciality breads. No residues were found on organic loaves.
But surely sliced and wrapped bread is a victim of snobbery?
After all it is cheap and long lasting?
It is true that plenty of cheap bread will feed and nourish, even if it is adulterated. But if sociological change is the job of the baking business, why not reopen the thousands of small bakeries that once kept high streets alive? Regional distinctiveness would be revived – which has proved excellent for local economies.
Is the bread business good for the environment?
Not great. It is said that 50 million polythene wrappers are used each week to wrap bread, and that carbon emissions from the bread factories are high. How this compares to the days of the local bakeries is not known.
What is the difference between the bread from
supermarket in-store bakeries and other commercially
made bread?
At least 20 per cent of our bread comes from supermarket in-store bakeries. These bakeries are owned by the supermarkets or franchised out to larger bakeries. Either the loaves are baked from bread mixes that are made into dough on site, or frozen unbaked or semi-baked loaves are delivered to the in-store bakery and finished off in the oven. Many of these bakeries add dough conditioner to the bread mix. This is known as activated dough development and gets the dough rising at a faster rate than normal fermentation. The styles of bread made in the part-cooked culture tend to be Continental in appearance (baguettes etc) but in fact taste nothing like the crisp-crusted sourdough bread made traditionally in France. As to the comparison between this and craft-made bread – there isn’t one. It is a wasted opportunity, though.
Where to buy good Dread
Artisan Bread, Unit 16/17, John Wilson Business Park,Whitstable, Kent CT5 3QJTel: 01227 771881www.artisanbread.ltd.uk
Several varieties of hand-crafted bread made using traditional grains and wild yeast. Products include rye and spelt bread; spelt pizza bases and pumpkin bread. Mail order or contact for stockists.
Baker and Spice, 75 Salisbury Road, London NW6 6NHTel: 020 7604 3636www.bakerandspice.com
Choose from a long list of hand-made breads that includes various naturally leavened ‘levain’-style loaves, pain de mie (a soft white that children love), caramelised garlic and poppy linseed.
The Celtic Bakers, 42b Waterloo Road, London NW2 7UHTel: 020 8452 4390www.thecelticbakers.co.uk
Extra-environmentally friendly bread made with traditional flours.
Ditty’s Home Bakery, 44 Main Street, Castledawson,Northern Ireland BT45 8ABTel: 02879 468243www.dittysbakery.com
Typical Northern Irish griddle-cooked potato farls.
The Flour Station Bakery & Confectionery Supplies,22-34 Gwynne Road, Battersea, London SWII 3UWTel: 020 7223 5656
