Sunday, August 14, 2011

No fake fruit here

Real Bananas!
Unreal is an interesting word. In common conversation it means extremely good, as in "wow, that banana and avocado salad was unreal'. I guess this is probably ironic language usage - saying the exact opposite of what one actually means. The word 'unreal' only connotes good because not being real is actually bad. Ordinarily of course, there is far greater value in real things, gucci handbags for instance, than in fakes. In North America and Europe much time and effort has gone into food labeling laws, balancing consumer protection and corporate profit. A quick glance at the ingredients list quickly informs one that cereal that is 'sweetened with a touch of real honey' may in fact be mostly sugar (as long as honey appears somewhere on the ingredients list, perhaps just after emulsifiers). And what exactly is pure Florida orange juice? It clearly sells juice to label it this way, but does it mean the juice is free of additives or is this a guarantee against the possible tainting from oranges that were not grown in Florida? It seems that in Kenya, the 'real' label is very important indeed. I suppose labeling made in Kenya "Manji" brand 'the real digestive biscuits' is to distinguish them from 'the original digestives' imported from the UK in suspiciously similar packaging. But what exactly is the point of labeling an avocado 'real', or every banana in a bunch?

Gordon Brown likes his digestives with chocolate


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