Posts Tagged ‘food’

How often do you see people in the street, after a night on the town with a kebab in hand? I’ve seen it lots, and I’ve done it far too often to consider myself healthy anymore, but Britain’s anti-litter campaigners have been getting all hot and bothered about the amount of fast food wrappers found on the country’s streets.

The Keep Britain Tidy (KBT) survey food that 25 percent of streets in England were littered with fast food packaging, up from 16 percent in 2002 – and guess who the blame was aimed at…

McDonalds, the fast food burger chain’s wrappers were found to account for the majority of litter on our streets, with kebab and chip shop wrappers in second place. The KBT wants retailers to make it easier for people to dispose of litter responsibly.

The survey took place in ten locations across England; London, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leicestershire, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, the South West, Leeds and Southampton.

McDonalds packaging was found to make up 29 percent of all litter, the survey pointed out. Unbranded wrappers from chip shops and the like accounted for 21 percent of rubbish with Greggs the baker third with 18 percent and KFC fourth with 8 percent. Coffee shops and sandwich chain Subway accounted for 5 percent of all litter found.

KBT sent the results of the survey to each of the companies chief executives, demanding that they take the responsibility for the packaging.

Phil Barton, Keep Britain Tidy chief executive, said: “We condemn litterers for dropping this fast food litter in the first place but also believe the results have pertinent messages for the fast food industry.

“McDonald’s, the local chip shop, Greggs, KFC and Subway need to do more to discourage littering by their customers.

“We want fast food chains to play a more active role in delivering an anti-litter message at the point of sale.”

He did acknowledge that McDonalds is active in anti-litter campaigns, but says they should be doing even more.

“We want all fast food chains to reduce unnecessary packaging and make it easier for customers to do the right thing,” he said.

A McDonalds spokeswoman said that the company signed up to the governments voluntary code of practice back in 2004, and asks it customers to, “dispose of their litter responsibly and provide plenty of bins both in and around our restaurants.

“Each restaurant is expected to send out a minimum of three litter patrols each day, who clear all litter - not just McDonald’s - up to 100m away from the restaurant and we are currently trialling full time litter pickers in the Birmingham and Manchester areas.”

The problem is not just for the environment. Academic research has found that peoples perception of a company is affected by the amount of litter they see in the streets.

In my opinion the reason for the amount of litter should not be blamed on the companies trying to make a living, but the people who drop it at their feet. These people should be handed an on the spot fine of £500 if seen dropping a wrapper – that’ll teach ‘em.

Have you ever made a sandwich and just thought – hell yeah, my sandwich kicks rump! I know I have. Some people might say my life is empty, or that perhaps I enjoy the bread just a bit too much, but let me tell you, I’m no half-baked loaf, nor am I four buns short of a full (bread) basket.

I’ve thought long and hard about what makes a sandwich spectacular – and believe me it can be done. I went through a phase of being lazy, where I’d not take due time, care and consideration into building my leviathan of a breaded snack, but now i’m on the right path - You need to ensure your ingredients are all ‘just right’.

So my friends (if you’ve made it to this point well done) I thought I’d break down what I feel makes the best sandwich in the world…ever.

Bread
This is pretty much an integral part of the sandwich, otherwise you’d just have a load of ingredients and nothing to hold them in. Bread selection takes time, do you want it to be a little bit crispy on the edges, and massively soft in the middle, or do you hate crusts and want edgeless madness? Seed’s or no seed’s, brown or white bread, cut bread or torn? it may sound inconsequential, but let me tell you…it isn’t.

I always like a hard-ish crusty loaf, mildly warm to the touch, and soft in the middle.

Main fill
This comes down to personal choice, but you could go for loads of types of ham, chicken, or beef, fresh or pre-packaged sliced – its entirely up to you. I like the mail fill to be awesome, it can make or break your creation, and it will effect how your day goes. Good lunchtime sandwich, good afternoon – rubbish sandwich, rubbish afternoon, it’s that simple.

My choice for awesome main fill is the classic roasted chicken. You can’t go wrong with this choice. It’s a beast, but I can be dry – that’s where your choice of sauce/filler comes into play.

Filler
It’s a big thing you know. It can change the whole dynamic of your breaded masterpiece. Choosing the wrong filler at this stage could cause chaos in your lunchbox. Mango chutney may sound nice, but by the time you’re at work it’s going to look like a bag of back-fat. You need something that’s thick enough to hold the sandwich in place, but runny enough to balance out the roast chicken’s dryness.

For me it has to be good old Branston Pickle. It may ok like tar, but it tastes amazing, and will do the job nicely.

The Topping
Now this is where some major decisions must be made. Most people would be happy with the awesome bread, the roast chicken, and the classic Branston, but if you want to go that extra mile, you could add a multitude of different toppings. Maybe salad is your bag, or perhaps some kind of grated cheese, or perhaps just some salt and pepper, but for me it has to be the food that I could eat a ton of – crisps.

I discovered the joys of crisps on your sandwich when I was a boy. I was looking for something to spice up a sub-par pre-sliced ham and cheese number, when I found a bag of salted crisps in the cupboard. I poured the crisps onto the sandwich, and I never looked back.

So for the ultimate sandwich, it should look not too dissimilar to this:

Crusty Bread
Crisps (might I recommend Quavers – any flavour apart from prawn)
Branston Pickle
Roast Chicken
Lil bit more Branston
Butter
Crusty bread

Awesome.

I’ve just had a rubbish sandwich. It was bland as hell and dry, and altogether dull. It’s my own fault really as it was me that made it this morning while in a rush and half asleep. If you want to know, it was a white bread, chicken slice and branston pickle sandwich.

Doesn’t sound to bad right, but let me tell you I’ve eaten the same sandwich at the same time every day for the last week. I know what you’re thinking, why not change your sandwich, and buy some new ingredients, spice things up a bit. Yes, yes that’s fine but I’ll tell you this, on the list of priorities, my choice of sandwich is massively low on my morning agenda.

6.30 am and the alarm goes off. The first thing I do when I wake up is attempt to turn back time with my mind. When that fails, I have to fight with my body and get up. The darker mornings have been making it so difficult recently, and it’s been raining. I generally drag myself through to the living room where I put the TV on and grimace at the awake-ness of the BBC presenting team – who’ve probably been up since 4 am yet look sparkly.

After sitting yawning at the screen for five minutes I have a shower, and then start getting ready for work. Those adverts on the TV selling revitalising shower gels, nonsense, I’m generally feel worse after the shower because its so bl##dy cold in my flat.

Once I’m dressed, I’m ready for the sandwich making. My regional news weather comes on in the background, and after five minutes of slagging off the presenter’s manly voice (she’s a woman) I get stuck into the sleepiest sandwich creation in history. I drag the contents of my fridge out on to the counter, and get busy making my lunch. Now as I said earlier I could use nice ingredients, but at that time in the day, my imagination is deader than the Dodo. I have no idea what I should do with myself, other than shuffle toward the front door, rubbish sandwich in hand, before heading to work.

But fear not, tomorrow is the last day of the week and I’m heading to the shops tonight. I’m going to buy myself a baguette and chuck some ham and salad on it, with it of dressing. God i’m sad…