Not so simple, my little lady ...! by Bertrand Guély, Grande Dsitribution expert.

"I am a former buyer, inter-professional representative and vegan. This is to say if in my life I have heard bullshit"

Allow me to adapt a reply from the master to introduce what will be the ambition of this monthly paper for DV8 World News : to speak truth, simple and concrete and to show you that things are not always as simple as they are. You are served pre-chewed, or rather already thought, with the good, the crude and the pollutant, and, of course, the simplistic proposals of the Yakafaukon God that you just have to sign.
I will do it in a field where I have been working for almost 30 years soon, hence my introductory quote.

Even though it might sting a bit, I know what I'm talking about.
Ecology has at least one thing in common with religion. Its variety and its various forms. Some religions are tolerant and open to difference. Others, under the pressure of ultras by diverting the texts, more intransigent. Some are accommodating, others conquering and without accepting the different. Some are founders, others more vengeful. Establishing differences between believers or not, between men and women, between initiates and the uneducated, it can either unite or divide.
I see in the same way the ecology fiber, which should naturally be an integral part of the thought of any man with a brain of sufficient volume and, thus, to unite us in the only common direction not ending in the wall.
Let us take the example of the recent debate proposed for a vegetarian day in the canteens.
I always have trouble with limiting proposals and stigmatizing those who do not subscribe to them: menu without animal protein, Dry January, roads on the banks without a car, ...
However, it starts with an interesting idea and often ends with an approach at best Annhidalgonian, at worst fundamentalist of things.
Not to mention that we will have to deal with the other major trends of the moment: Organic, local and Fair Trade. When we know that one of the management basics for keeping a very tight school canteen budget is reducing the number of choices ... The Chef had better have done HEC.

I also suggest a transitional step so as not to disturb the taste buds of our dear toddlers: cook with vegetable broth respecting everyone's principles: Maggi certified Halal, Mémé Hélène (Tata Rachelle, it was a little too typical) certified Kosher ... If you think I'm adding more, check these marks. They really exist.

I think it is less discriminating and more efficient to work on the offer of fresh fruits and vegetables cooked on a daily basis, by working to make them less boring and sexier (look at the success of the 4th range references at MacDo!) And by monitoring the bins - sorting selective allows that - on a daily basis to know what pleases.
Come on, I'll leave you, my prime rib is going to be overcooked ...

Want a background example to illustrate what I mean? Take the Bio. No need to dwell on the craze for Organic Fruits & Vegetables, I would rather challenge you on, sometimes, our attraction to the splits.
1- the customer chooses in front of the stall and he does not push the door of the store with a list specific to the species. So it's largely an impulse buy, at will, and he buys first ... with his eyes. However, organic F&V are often less pretty, less ´ecosmetic '...
2- the client criticizes F&V for being too expensive or, at least, not within the reach of the most modest stock exchanges (which also have the latest Iphone and Netflix but that is not the subject ..). However, organic products are more expensive. And even more when they are certified Organic AND Fair Trade. I am a responsible consumer: I want to eat healthier AND that the producer who makes the effort to produce well is more fairly remunerated. Well, as long as the distributor maintains his margin, the consumer pays. Not won to democratize more ethical products.
3- the customer redeems with the mouth. Unless he runs into a madman, he wants to eat healthy ... but only if it's that good. However, organic F&V do not give any guarantee of additional taste ...
Do you understand where I am coming from?
I think that we must, above all, fight against amalgamations and unfounded shortcuts.
Other examples?
An apple, even French and local, kept for months in the ULO fridge before being put on sale, does not necessarily have a good carbon footprint compared to an imported apple.
Consuming it locally, thus reducing the range to seasonal products, leads to a dead end by forgetting that choice sells.

Fair trade is often a nebulous concept and when you think you are helping the small, mustached producer to carry his bags of coffee to feed his large family, it is often the Dutch importer who gets sugar.

Too generalist? Do you want to see for yourself?
Come on, some examples that you can check out in front of the stall:
the tomato? Open the ban for the mentions: cultivated without pesticides, 0 pesticides, without pesticide residue, cut without synthetic pesticides, ... without too many pesticides, with just the right amount of pesticides ... many drugs are poisons when in high doses but, honestly, you find yourself there? We want you to believe that this tomato is better for the environment and cheaper than organic when these references to misleading wording do not generally do better than the conventional and just requires the grower to use pesticides that do not leave traces! A bit like the police interrogation with the blows of the phone book (or boots if they are CRS) on the head. And if the grower gets lost and doses a little too much, no big deal, it's going to be conventional!
Here, it is much smarter to eat tropical products, the vast majority grown without pesticides but ... their carbon footprint is not good because it comes from afar, right? Pesticides or carbon, choose your when, comrade! Really, it is not that simple.

Citrus? Well, you have understood that the pressed fruit is the healthiest but ... what does 'No post-harvest treatment' mean? Well, it's still an ambiguous mention because it means that BEFORE the harvest, it can look a bit like the use of a gas in a student demonstration. The same story as for tomatoes without pesticides ... after flowering! And, the icing on the cake, so that the cashier can recognize the post-harvest untreated oranges, sold more expensive than the conventional ones, they are filmed individually - oh heresy - in plastic!
and the cans of 'fruit juices' Sunny Delight, a real poison saturated with sugar and thickener, judiciously positioned in the refrigerated cabinets - cold is safe - in the F&V department on the pretext of preserving the content of added vitamins, and which contains ... 5% fruit from concentrates?

Bouhou the ugly American capitalist who wants to poison us! Well not only, my little lady, because it is hardly better for the local French apple juice from the PPP (Pov 'Petit Producteur) in glass bottles. Do I buy like a donkey or do I understand that, pasteurized and not pascalised, this juice has lost almost all of its virtues? I prefer the glass bottle without deposit or the Pure-Pak carton from responsibly managed and 100% recyclable forests of Tropicana / Pepsico? Again, it's not that simple.

And the references of Fruits & Vegetables 4th range at the Grand Satan Mac Do? Well, like it or not, these references are certainly some of the most intelligently thought-out concepts of recent years. A good conscience alternative to the junk food that mom wants to avoid giving to the son who is already sated with nuggets with reglomerated and fried chicken cutting waste, these are excellent products. Sachets of (seasonal) fruit to chew on or skewer, vegetable sticks (carrots, French and seasonal cucumbers), P'tites tomatoes, without any additives or preservatives, and all this in the Happy Meal to educate children, consumers of tomorrow! Ah yes, but pineapple and kiwi on the skewer, it's not local ... Really, not so simple.

If solutions exist to consume more intelligently, they are however not as trivial as the systematic banishment, all seasons combined, of imported products, the purchase in bulk, which focuses on the last stage of sale. only, the confident subscription to the basket of the local amap, sold at a high price when we look at the proportion of carrot / onion which is the basis of it all year round, or the return of affection for the vegetable garden, that only young retirees from SNCF will have time to work.

Sorry if everyone doesn't like what I'm saying but, and I end with my parallel with religion, consuming better must start with studying, thinking to understand, rather than mechanically applying what the reference book says. or the latest fashionable guru.
More than Reasoned Agriculture, first of all reasoned by and for farmers, I believe in Responsible Purchasing. Rather than following the path signposted by marketers in the food industry or, worse, by the guerrillas of some anti-junk food militia, do your research before you decide. Yes, I know, it's more complicated than mocking a few scapegoats or mowing the goddess of capitalism in public, playing the citizens of the world of the future before going to the barber, but probably more perennial.
Ecology is at this price.