Follow up: Crack an egg

Following on the egg controversy, here are two short notes saying why it is plainly not true [1] and [2]. There is also a great post, very clear and well informed by Nosemonkey here: [3] And finally the text adopted by the Parliament (pdf, 85 pages) [4].

As I was telling previously, the provision to indicate the weight doesn’t ban any sell by number…

Everybody knows that bananas are sold by weight, but you still count the number of bananas your buying – everybody is happy with that… Well, it should be easy to do the same for eggs (though, be careful not to mix up bananas and eggs in the kitchen)

Scramble Scramble Scramble !

Let’s talk about eggs ! Yes, eggs… What the connections with Europe ? Well, as it turns out, the regulation on food labeling is not only a threat to Nutella but also to the eggs by the dozen.

As one can read in these articles : [1], [2], [3] and [4] ; Europe could «ban selling eggs by the dozen».

First, let me precise that a quick research on the Euro Parliament website didn’t lead to any text specific on the topics on eggs by the dozen… If you know of any, please, let me know.

Other than that, what I can see is just that the food labeling regulation specify that number is just not enough to indicate the quantity of a product… Obviously, it’s impossible – well, technically it is, but that would be messy – to sell egg by the kilogram (well, Tomatoes are sold by weight and nobody got a problem with that) . The natural unit to sell eggs is “one egg“, so I don’t think Europe would ever want to change that. Adding a line on the egg package saying “12 eggs, 534 milligrams” would be, I believe completely compliant with the regulation and maintain the tradition of selling eggs in full.

Really, all this story looks like a bit of an over reaction to me.

Not My Mom – Follow up on food labeling

A quick follow up on the Save the Nutella post :

This text by MEP Sommer explains the issues on food labeling and why the traffic light system has been discarded. Read It ! It’s a short and clear explanation.

Not My Mum – Hands off my ‘Tartine’

Remember when I wrote that Europe was not our Mom and therefore is not supposed to tell us what to eat or not ; it just has to make sure we are properly informed…

A plan to improve this information was put before the MEPs this week – and was rejected. The proposed plan would have introduced color coded pies indicating the level of fat, salt, sugar, … and the healthiness of those. Aliments with too much fat or salt would also faced restrictions on advertising.

The problem with that scheme : It’s killing Nutella (among others) ! Nutella, by essence, got more than ten percent of fat – a level high above the healthy limit – and would face restriction and an red filled colored information pie that would stamp it as unhealthy . Of course, eating Nutella by the spoons would not be the healthiest thing (but it is so good), but people don’t always eat bare Nutella, bread or waffles level down the unhealthiness of the chocolate delicacy.

This is a tricky issue ; one would argue that labeling products as healthy or not is a form of telling us what to eat – Although, just giving the amount of fat or sugar is not necessary a clear indication for citizens… The debate will go on.

Read more here, there and there.

Thanks to @zanlaura who brought the Nutella issue to my attention.

Thrombine, seconde tranche

Ne blamez pas l’Union… pour l’instant

For the English Version, see here / Voir ici la version en Anglais

Don’t blame it on the Union… yet

Pour la version Francaise, voir ici / See here the French version

On last week issue of Time Magazine, I read this verbatim:

‘We do not want this at all–it is meat makeup.‘

JAN BERTOFT, of the Swedish Consumer’s Association, on the European Union’s approval of the use of thrombin, a product that can glue pieces of meat together to make a single slab

First, I have to say that as a fine gastronome I totally agree with Mr Bertoft : I do not want this meat in my plate – Or just as a last resort as survival ration in case of a zombie invasion.

Anyway, to get a better idea, I looked precisely at what the EU has to say about thrombin. By smartly combining the words “thrombin” and “EU” in Google, I found this conclusion by the European Food Safety Authority (if you just discovered its existence, raise your hand with me). Basically, a scientific panel concluded that «the use of the enzyme preparation based on thrombin[…] is not of concern from the safety point of view ».

So, Thrombin is safe… You can eat it, this absolutely doesn’t mean that you should. Obviously and fortunately, the EU is not our Mom and it’s not its role to tell us what we have to eat or not. The citizen is still responsible of what he puts at the menu.

I’m ok with that, but I do believe that the European Union also has a role to play in Public Health, and that the day thrombined-meat arrives in our supermarkets it’ll be stamped with a reconstituted-from-meat-pieces-glued-together European sign (yet another European logo competition ?).

I also hope that some bien-mangez EU program will remind the citizen  that if they can’t afford a poule-au-pot every Sunday, they don’t have to eat repacked (litteraly) meat.