That link about the fruit is really good, in an utterly infuriating way…

I tried the radish, bean and cheese salad from the Great Big Recipe challenge earlier in the week and it made a great quick and tasty lunch

I find the rise of packaging fruit and vegetables depressing and the guardian article depressing. It just doesn’t seem helpful to talk about health benefits of fruit alone rather than as part of an overall diet, and the article didn’t seem to address the whole environmental effect of all this unnecessary packaging. Thanks for pointing out an interesting article and for being happy to show off the beetroot soup I made!

Hm, can’t say I was impressed with the article, it had so much breadth in terms of quantity of people cited, but seemed to lack focus. Its message seems to be: “people buying prepackaged fruit are silly – but it’s a good idea – but fruit isn’t really worth anything anyway” …huh?

I did think it was a good point about singles and large fruit such as melons – I’d never buy a whole watermelon for myself because it’d waste before I’d use it, so providing cut quarter watermelons is a good thing for me. However I don’t think that’s the type of “prepared fruit” the article was primarily concerned with.

Some quotes that jumped out at me, all actually attributed to the one person, Tom Sanders:

• “It’s a myth that fruit is packed full of vitamins and minerals,” ** (Again, huh?)

• “If you liquidise [fruit] into goo it’s just like drinking ordinary Coke. Or worse, actually,” ** (How can juiced fruit be worse than Coke?)

• “{Fruit is] better to eat fruit than biscuits, cakes and puddings, because there’s very little energy value in it ** (But most fruits are high in sugar, and some are extremely high in sugar, how could one possibly make the claim of “very little energy value” about fruit??

Confusing article.

You’re right there are so many problems with this article. I find it infuriating. And much of the “expert” comment is strange and unhelpful. Joanne, you’re right, it’s a long and sprawling article and hard to know what the central theme is.

Sophie – I thought the radish on toast looked wonderful too!

Thank you for the ‘link love’, Kathryn! It was a great salmon dish indeed, and we’re happy to have ‘discovered’ it ourselves :)
Oh, and also thanks for the beetroot recipes – I’m a huge fan of beetroot, and am always looking for more beetroot recipes (even if I do have already three beetroot soup recipes on my blog).
I’m off to read that cut-up-fruit article..

Pille, no worries at all, I’m enjoying your blog a lot. Regarding beetroot – I am pretty much beetroot obsessed. My editor at Life etc has just loaned me a copy of Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins – because the beetroot features heavily in the novel.